|
|
of women with disabilities, specifically those linked to biological conditions, HIV/AIDS, and sexual abuse, are presented to demonstrate the double disability that many women encounter. The chapter also deals with cultural biases that are embedded in African societies to the disadvantage of female students who have disabilities, and that thus prevent them from attaining advanced education.
Chapter 10 examines some of the challenges facing science in higher education and research institutions in Africa. By using examples from Uganda, Zambia, and Namibia, the authors illustrate the unique challenges posed by unsupportive government policy and the institutional malaise hampering Africa's Science and Technology (S + T) agenda. According to the authors, in Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni has singled out his government's lopsided salary structure favoring the political echelons as the main problem impeding his country's scientists from developing products based on human intellect. In Zambia, a lack of political will to address the plight of the academic staff at the University of Zambia (UNZA) has resulted in a massive brain drain of its highly skilled and competent scientists. The authors observe that UNZA scientists have resorted to raising poultry and driving minibuses to cope with poor salaries. The lack of basic laboratory equipment, chemicals, and materials for teaching and research contributes to the brain drain to other countries, where relatively more conducive environments exist to carry out their research activities. For many courses such as immunology, genetics, cell biology, chemistry, and molecular biology at the University of Zambia, lecturers fail to conduct experiments during practical classes due to lack of appropriate facilities. Instead, they resort to “dry labs,” wherein they ask students questions related to the experimental techniques that should have been carried out by the students themselves. Poor salaries and pathetic working conditions at UNZA, according to the authors, have conspired to induce a debilitating form of institutional malaise that has killed off the culture of scientific inquiry, curiosity, and innovation. At the national level, Zambia has also failed to coordinate the work of its scientific research institutions, which remain scattered in different government ministries. At a continental level, Africa