Health, Economic and Legal Burdens of Road Traffic Injury (Rti) in Selected Hospitals in Southern Region, Ethiopia
PIs: Gemechu Kediro et al., 2019
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Executive Summary
Road traffic injuries (RTIs) were responsible for millions of deaths and disabilities, various psychosocial and economic crises globally, with the highest incidence in developing countries. However, the magnitude of RTIs, their risk factors, and outcomes impact on physical, social, mental, and economic aspects of the individual is not well addressed in the study area. In this context, the main objectives of this project are to determine the magnitude and characteristics, treatment outcomes, incidence and predictors of psychiatric morbidities, socioeconomic costs; gaps, and challenges in the legal framework for redressing economic and moral losses of victims of road traffic injury (RTI) in selected public hospitals in Southern Ethiopia.
In this research, an institution-based mixed study design (both quantitative and qualitative methods) was employed according to the specific objectives of the study from April 1st 2017, to March 30th, 2019. All injured victims presented to selected public hospitals in Southern Ethiopia were the study population. A random sampling technique using the entry point to the triage seat was used as a sampling frame to assess the incidence of RTIs, then victims with RTIs were taken for the rest of the studies. The total sample size was 423, using single population proportion formula with p=50%. Doctrinal and non-doctrinal legal research methods were also employed to examine the policy and legal frameworks governing RTIs. Victims were selected for in-depth-interview purposefully until the data was saturated. Death on arrival, victims of injury with repeated attendance, injured cases that need immediate transfers to other hospitals during the day of the data collection, and injury involving a stationary vehicle (e.g., persons getting injured while washing or loading a vehicle) were excluded from the study.
Hence, almost half (50.4%) of the injuries were induced by motorcycles, followed by Minibus (21.3%) and Bajaj (15.3%). The findings of multivariate analysis showed that the type of road and weather conditions were significantly associated with motorcycle accident injuries. More than half (54.7%) of the victims received first pre-hospital care, whereas the vast majority (82.7%) was provided by other road users and pedestrians, where the quality of care can be questionable. Among victims, 17.7% have developed complications following injury. A quarter (23.9%) of the respondents were dissatisfied with the care received at hospitals. About 12% had depression, and 27.6% had a common mental disorder. Above quarter (26.9%) of participants use substances in the past 3 months. The magnitude of post-traumatic stress disorder was 15.4%. Factors associated with PTSD for RTA survivors are duration since accident (<30 days), history of previous road traffic accident, depression and common mental disorder (CMDs).
Quality of Education at Primary and Secondary Level: Assessment, Interventions, and Improvement
PIs: Dr Abraham Tulu et al. 2020
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Executive Summary
This is a mega thematic research project which aimed to investigate the trends, practices and challenges in ensuring the quality of education in the primary and secondary levels of Sidama Zone and Hawassa City Administration. It was conducted from September 2016 to December 30, 219 G.C. The project had four interconnected sub-projects whose investigations were carried out independently. These were practices of educational leadership, teachers’ Pedagogical Competencies in lesson delivery (Especially on Natural Science, Mathematics and English Language), practices and problems of educational supervision and learners’ assessment.
The study was employed a descriptive survey design to collect, process, analyzes and presents the data. The design was preferred for its strength in giving detailed explanations of the existing phenomenon in educational settings. The study was conducted in selected schools from all Sidama zone Woredas/ districts and Hawassa city administration. In the study area, there were 19 rural Woreds and 4 city administrations. The schools in the setting were clustered into five: Bensa cluster, Aletawondo cluster, Dale cluster Hawassa Zuria and Hawassa city administration cluster of which two preparatory, secondary and three primary schools, which were involved in the study.
The subjects of the study were primary and secondary school students, teachers, department heads, school principals, vice-principals, school supervisors, Woreda Education Office, Zone and City Administration Education Department quality assurance experts and heads currently working in study areas. A total of 388 (179 primary & 131 secondary) teachers were selected by simple random sampling technique to fill the questionnaire. Similarly, using the same sampling technique, 600 primary, 350 secondary and preparatory school students were selected and involved in the research. Likewise, 156 school principals, 54 supervisors and 24 experts participated in the study.
The data-gathering instruments were questionnaires and classroom observation. A pilot study was conducted to ensure the validity and reliability of the instruments before the actual data collection. Regarding the data analysis, both quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques were employed. To analyze the quantitative data, both descriptive and inferential statistics were used, depending on the nature of the basic questions. The descriptive analysis such as mean score, frequency, standard deviation, and percentage were used to guide the analysis of the data. In addition, the quantitative data was analyzed through inferential statistics like ANOVA and regression analysis. Unlike the quantitative data, to the qualitative data, the researchers used qualitative narrative written techniques and gave attention to quotations from the respondents.
The findings are categorized in sub-projects. Accordingly, regarding the practice of educational leadership, school leaders fail to properly discharge their leadership practices/roles for improving the quality of education as revealed by most of the respondents that their performance in all the four dimensions i.e., “setting direction”, “developing people”, “redesigning the organization”, and “managing the instructional programs” was minimal or low. In addition, it was confirmed that school leaders’ practice in applying leadership skills such as understanding needs and characteristics of the staff, knowing and using resources, communication, planning, controlling group performance, and evaluation was poor or below average.
The findings of teachers’ Pedagogical Competencies in lesson delivery (Especially in Natural Science, Mathematics, and English Language) revealed that teachers’ competence in planning status, which helps learners to achieve better in the academic subjects mentioned, is in good. The other basic component of the pedagogical practice is the teachers’ competence on lesson delivery. Here, although teachers claim that they are good in lesson delivery, the learners disclosed that teachers have critical problems in lesson delivery. As the results from classroom observation are in line with the learners’ views, lesson delivery is one of the critical areas which require intervention so as to improve the learner's performance in the school subjects indicated above. Both the teachers and the learners in the case of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, and only students in general pedagogy and English language, indicated that the practice of supporting students is poor. Since the data from observation backed the students' view, it can be concluded that the teachers are not supporting students learning.
The findings related to educational supervision disclosed that the school supervisors were not competent enough in fulfilling their roles and responsibilities. This implies that quality education in primary and secondary schools of Sidama Zone is deteriorated and needs improvement in enabling supervisors to fulfill their supervisory roles. Concerning the Support provided by the supervisors, the finding of the study revealed that the supervisors of primary and secondary schools of the Sidama Zone were unable to support teachers’ professional development and students’ academic achievement. Moreover, regarding supervisors’ behavior, skills, and experience, this study revealed that the supervisors’ behavior, skills, and experience were at the lowest level, and they were ineffective. And, with regard to perceived problems affecting supervision services, the findings of the study disclosed that the problems related to teachers were relatively found high compared to others.
The component of the fourth sub-project is related to learners’ assessment. Thus, the findings indicated that due to attitude-related challenges, it is not practical to implement continuous assessment in large classes and students become nervous and uncomfortable while teachers assess their performance frequently. What is more, of the four challenges for continuous assessment (CA) implementation, factors only attitude and school factors were the significant predictors of the effective implementation of CA procedures.
Generally, the findings revealed that education at primary and secondary levels in the study area was experiencing various challenges which were contributing to the deterioration of the quality of education. This can be expressed in terms of the competence of key professionals in the schools' system, the ground practice, and the trends in assessing learners. The key professionals such as principals, supervisors, and teachers perceived themselves as competent ones, whereas the existing practice and their immediate beneficiaries' responses indicated that their professional competence is very much low/ below the expected standard. The study also disclosed that most of professionals are not interested in discharging their responsibilities. Moreover, apart from competence-related limitations, attitude-related challenges are significantly affecting the implementation of continuous assessment in the schools' context.