ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Improving fertility status of mine tailings for lettuce production using organic and inorganic amendments

Restoration of decommissioned Gold Mine Tailings (GMT) is an environmental challenge. In this study, an attempt was made to evaluate the combined application of organic and inorganic amendments' effects on the growth and yield of lettuce in GMT. A Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications was used. For this, a greenhouse pot experiment with eight (8) treatments mixed with tailings collected from Obuasi decommissioned mine site was set up at the CSIR Soil Research Institute. Treatments used were; control, 5 t ha-1 Rice Husk Biochar (RHB), 60 kg N-80 kg P2O5-80 kg K2O (100% NPK), 2.5 t ha-1 RHB + 30 kg N-40 kg P2O5-40 kg K2O (50% NPK), 5 t ha-1 Poultry Litter Compost (PLC), 2.5 t ha-1 PLC + 30 kg N-40 kg P2O5-40 kg K2O (50% NPK), 2.5 t ha-1 RHB + 2.5 t ha-1 PLC and 2.5 t ha-1 RHB + 2.5 t ha-1 PLC + 30 kg N-40 kg P2O5-40 kg K2O (50% NPK). At the end of the study, the highest lettuce yield (433.9 kg ha-1) was found in 2.5 t ha−1 RHB + 50% NPK followed by the 2.5 t ha−1 PLC+ 50% NPK (405.4 kg ha-1). There was no significant difference between them. The lowest yield (144.9 kg ha-1) was recorded in the Control. Again, application of amendments to the GMT showed a significant difference (P<0.05) in pH, organic carbon, total nitrogen content, phosphorus, cation exchange capacity (Ca, Mg, Na and K) of the tailings. The study revealed that the addition of amendments could improve lettuce growth and yield parameters of lettuce and also improve physical and chemical properties of GMT in the semi-deciduous forest zone of Ghana.

Source: UCC
Improving information management in the Health Service: The role of information systems development

The lack of adoption of health information management systems (IS) in the health services, as part of the drive to attain greater efficiency and productivity is the subject of many debates. Recent research suggests that, this lack of adoption is partly due the widely reported failures of costly health information systems projects, fragmented and complexity of systems and the lack of focus during the development stages. The resulting consequences are resistance to change, scepticism of new technology and hence lack of innovation in IS adoption within the health service. This paper examines ways in which these issues can be overcome, the role that information systems development can play in the health service to accelerate change. This will enable the health service and users deliver appropriate and responsive services that will improve better information management.

Source: UCC
Improving instructional supervision of basic schools through monitoring: A case study of Agona Ashanti Schools

In recent times, teaching and learning at the basic schools leaves much to be desired. Lateness, absenteeism and misuse of instructional time by teachers have been the order of the day. The fundamental purpose of the study therefore was to find out whether an effective monitoring system will improve supervision of basic schools at AgonaAshanti. Some of the research questions used include the following: which people are responsible for supervision and how do they understand supervision? To what extent will headteachers keep up-to-date and accurate records in the schools after the intervention? Will management activities be properly supervised in the schools by officers and headteachers after an intervention? and will an effective monitoring system achieve regularity and punctuality on the part of teachers and pupils? Eight he ad teachers and twenty-eight teachers from the basic schools at AgonaAshanti constituted the sample. Four pupils were specially selected from the basic schools taking into consideration gender. Also included were three members of the District Oversight Committee and 17 officers from the District Education Office. Few pupils were selected because it was the intention of the researcher to concentrate on those in authority since they have to deal with the day-to-day supervision of the schools. A questionnaire was prepared and distributed to the various categories of respondents, which was later retrieved through personal contact. In addition to the questionnaire data was also collected from documents and other secondary sources The results were analyzed by computing percentages and mean scores of responses. The major results were that respondents generally agreed on the concept of supervision, which showed an improvement after intervention. In the area of actual teaching and learning activities considerable improvement was recorded. Punctuality, attendance and evaluation of learners improved to a moderate level within the short period of monitoring. Record keeping has also improved, the improvement ranges between 10.0% and 17.0%.

Source: UCC
Improving instructional supervision through critical friendship in Cape Coast metropolis basic schools

Effective supervision has been identified by many as one of the most vital ingredients for promoting teaching and learning. ‘Relationship’ plays a critical role in the supervision process. Although the circuit supervisor’s handbook stressed collegiality between the circuit supervisor and the teacher, this is practically none existing. This obviously creates tension, conflicts and breeds supervision phobia teachers. The main challenge facing supervision in the schools therefore relates to strategies for enhancing supervisor supervisee relationship towards enhancing teaching and learning. This study is an action research conducted at the Aboom circuit of the Cape Coast Metropolis. It was aimed at exploring the idea of critical friendship between supervisor and supervisee to find out whether it can be useful in the Ghanaian context. One out of the six circuits in the Cape Coast Metropolis was selected and four schools from the circuit were randomly sampled for the study. The circuit supervisor and headteachers were interviewed while questionnaires were administered to the teachers. I also observed relationships and instructional practices in the school. The data were analysed using the SPSS to find percentages. The main findings of the study were that critical friendship in instructional supervision increased the trust between the circuit supervisor and teachers, increased supervisor’s support for teachers and teachers’ commitment to their work. It was recommended that the Metropolitan Education Office educate circuit supervisors on the idea of critical friendship in supervision.

Source: UCC
Improving maternal health in Ghana: resource availability for safe delivery in Akatsi and Keta Districts of Volta Region

The thrust of the present study was to examine resources available for safe delivery in Akatsi and Keta Districts of Volta Region of Ghana with a view to highlighting the importance of improving maternal health in these districts in particular, and by extension in Ghana as a whole. Interviews were conducted from a sample size of 6,250 respondents within the reproductive age group of 15-49 years drawn from both districts in 2007. The results show that most of the women had only basic education and were generally petty traders, farmers and fishmongers. Only 39.2% of the women from Akatsi and 53.9% of their counterparts from Keta delivered in a hospital within 8 km from their places of residence, implying that a substantial proportion of the women from both districts traveled long distances to deliver their babies. Furthermore, delivery by traditional birth attendants (TBAs) and assisted delivery at home by relatives and friends were still common, while the road network in both districts was poor. About 25% of the women from both districts spent more than 1 hr to walk to a health facility, while those who patronized vehicular means of transport had to pass through rough roads (61.2% in Akatsi and 52.2% in Keta). The findings also suggest that 36.4% and 29.1% from Akatsi and Keta districts respectively needed extra care from their attendants or experienced some degree of delay at the health facility level. The Government of Ghana should therefore aim at increasing girls’ participation at all levels of the education system in the country, and rehabilitate roads or construct new ones to help the people transport emergency complications to the health facility on time to prevent deaths. Every pregnant woman should be assisted by a skilled birth attendant because maternal deaths from pregnancies and birth complications are avoidable if the women are attended to by skilled professionals in well-equipped health facilities.

Source: UCC
Improving performance of students of St. John's Grammer school through teacher appraisal

This research work set out to answer the question of what could be done to help students of St. John's Grammar School to improve on their performance in both internal and external examinations. Certain problems facing teachers which might have had negative effects on student performance were identified. In all, fifty-four members of staff were requested to answer questions on whether their work had been appraised before and on their perception of performance appraisal. They were also made to identify problems facing them as teachers some of which were lack of adequate supervision by GES officials, and ineffective conduct of internal performance appraisal. Other deficiencies included inadequate preparation of teachers before lessons, ineffective use of instructional time, inability to regularly assign and mark exercises of students, large class sizes and insufficient motivation. The inability ofteachers to fully participate in co-curricular activities and to carry out delegated assignments was apparent. As a result of these findings, samples of respondents were taken through a performance appraisal exercise. After this intervention, there was a positive change in the attitude of teachers towards their professional duties. In order to sustain this change, it is recommended that performance appraisal should be carried out more often to ginger up teachers. Then if teachers are expected to do their work properly, management must ensure they are well motivated.

Source: UCC
Improving PFM Governance in Ghana: Lessons from the Petroleum Revenue Management Framework

It is expected that an effective PFM system should ensure efficient allocation of scarce resources, ensuring that scarce resources are deployed to their optimal use; leading to effective delivery of public goods and services to the citizenry at optimal prices; and consequently contribute towards the achievement of a sustainable fiscal position. This shouldbring about economic development and poverty reduction. The evidence suggest that Ghana’s PFM system has so far not delivered good economic governance. The reports of the Auditor General of the Republic of Ghana repeatedly highlight: noncompliance with the PFM legal framework, and findings of corrupt practices against a number of public officers and institutions. Lessons can be drawn from the petroleum revenue management framework to improve the PFM governance framework.Such lessons include: having extensive and meaningful consultations with relevant stakeholders in developing the PFM legal framework to ensure that it captures the key features of a functional PFM system, having clear fiscal responsibility rules that guide spending, savings and investment decisions, administering a strong and robust accountability framework that holds spending officers to account in a fair and just manner, and having a mechanism to compel mandatory reporting in accordance with established reporting standards.

Source: UCC
Improving pre-service teachers' pedagogical strategies for integrating ICT in teaching accounting in senior high schools in Ghana

The study focused on improving the teaching and learning of accounting with ICT (audio-visual materials) to promote interactivity in Senior High School (SHS) classrooms in Ghana. The research approach for the study was designbased research, using qualitative and quantitative methods. The design-based research approach consisted offour phases as conceive, build, test and reflection and documentation phases. Questionnaires, observations, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, student tests and designed lesson artefacts were the data sources employed in this study to track how the pre-service accounting teachers (PSATs) developed their pedagogical strategies to teach with ICT in an interactive manner. The study revealed the incorporation of audio-visual materials, the use of collaborative learning approach, activityoriented and knowledge of technology as the features of ICT intervention to promote interactivity in SHS accounting classroom. The intervention proved to be effective in the development of the PSATs pedagogical strategies because it reflected all the four constructs (Active, Collaborative, Authentic and Intentional) for measuring the effectiveness of the ICT intervention as conceptualised in the study. The study concluded that the use of audio-visuals in senior high school accounting lessons will have implications on the availability of ICT resources and infrastructure such as availability of computers, projectors, internet connectivity and access to electricity, among others, in the school. This obviously will have financial implications on schools and stakeholders ofeducation in the country. Lack oftechnology-based skills is one of the main reasons why teachers shy away from using technology as most of them seem to have gaps in their knowledge where ICT is concerned.

Source: UCC
Improving production efficiencies, food security, and livelihood nexus: Study of smallholder arable crop producers in Botswana

Low agricultural productivity aggravates the food insecurity situation in Botswana, resulting in the government rolling out subsidy programs to increase food production efficiency. How efficient a farmer is, determines his/her level of productivity and income and, subsequently, how food secure the family becomes. Thus, improvement in the production efficiency of arable crops is crucial for smallholder farmers‟ livelihood and food security. This study examines the effects of the timeliness of farmers receiving production inputs subsidy on the Botswana smallholder arable crop farmers‟ production efficiencies and, subsequently, evaluates how efficiencies impact farm households‟ livelihood and food security. A structured interview schedule was used to collect data from four hundred and seventy arable crop farmers who were selected using a multi-stage random sampling technique. For analysis, the study used the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA), a Livelihood Assessment Index (LAI) and the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). Furthermore, Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) models were estimated to establish the empirical relationships between the farmers‟ livelihood on the one hand and production efficiencies and food security status on the other hand. The results revealed very low production efficiencies, high food security and livelihood status. The timeliness of receiving input subsidies by farmers negatively affected their efficiency highly. Therefore, policy should focus on improving the subsidy timeliness to increase farmers‟ efficiency, livelihoods and food security.

Source: UCC
Improving refuse collection in district assemblies through private contracts: a case of Ahafo Ano South District Assembly

The study seeks to find out how refuse management in the AASDA can improve through outsourcing to private companies. The researcher will reveal the current solid waste management practices of households in the study area so that the inappropriate practices adopted by the households could be corrected and mitigation measures would be undertaken in order to avoid a possible outbreak of disease and other related health concerns. This study, by its nature was a descriptive research technique. Both quantitative and qualitative data were used to find out how waste management in the AASDA can improve through outsourcing to private companies using both structured and semi-structured interviews, questionnaires as well as informal discussions. The study concludes that, the district is already involved in the outsourcing of waste management to a private company. It went on to reveal that refuse collection and waste management is well handled when outsourced to a private agency than being run by the district assembly or the government. Outsourcing of waste management could be sustained when the district Assembly perform their financial obligations and when the private agents do an efficient and effective work in waste management. Although other options as alternatives to outsourcing could be considered in the long run, outsourcing is the best option for the time being. From the study it is recommended that the district assembly in charge of waste management should continually have an educating system for people in the districts about the importance and necessity of effective waste management.

Source: UCC
Improving sanitation in poor urban areas: the role of non-state actors in the sanitation service delivery in Ashaiman Municipality, Ghana

This paper presents a study on sanitation service delivery in an urban poor locality in Ghana, Ashaiman. Ashaiman is a sprawling urban settlement in Ghana and suffers from poor sanitary conditions. Close to 80 per cent of households in the Tulaku area, a suburb of Ashaiman, do not have toilet facilities in their homes because landlords did not deem it necessary to construct toilet facilities (Ashaiman Medium Term Development Plan, 2008-2011). Most public toilet facilities are also in a deplorable state. As a result of these inadequacies, there is over dependence on the few public toilet facilities and this has further led to indiscriminate defecation in open spaces and bushes. Compounding the problems discussed above, is the poor attitude of residents who indiscriminately dispose of refuse, and again, most residents refuse to pay refuse fees. The poor attitudinal problem has made it increasingly difficult for city authorities to maintain good sanitation in the communities despite several interventions adopted by the government, as well as, civil society organizations to improve the appalling sanitation situation. The study sought to discuss the role played by non-state actors’ sanitation service delivery. The study identified some challenges confronting the sanitation delivery in Ashaiman as; Inadequate budgetary and financial allocation for implementing sanitation action plans, lack of sanitation byelaws at the municipal level, thus, weak or no enforcement of laws, Deficient capacity of civil society to mobilize the community to engage in sanitation exercises, the Lack of coordination between local authority and other stakeholders, and the lack of community engagement in the sanitation service delivery. A major finding that emerged from the study was that there were a range of community actors in sanitation delivery, not withstanding, they were not recognized as important stakeholders and local authorities hardly partner with them in the process of change. The study has discussed measures of improving sanitation in the poor urban localities of Ghana and recommends that if local authorities collaborate with non-state actors, especially informal service providers and community based groups, it would enhance improvement in the sanitation situation in poor urban localities

Source: UCC
Improving soil physico-chemical properties and maize (Zea mays) performance under coastal savanna condition with different organic mulches

Application of organic mulching is a current management practice that seeks to improve soil moisture conservation, increase soil fertility and crop production. The study was carried out to quantify the effect of different organic mulches on some soil properties at three crop stages and maize production under coastal savanna condition. Four treatments of mulch; maize stover (MS), dry grass straw (GS), palm frond (PF) mulches at 3 Mg ha-1 each and no-mulch (NM) (control) with three replications were laid out in a complete randomized block design. After two consecutive cropping seasons, different organic mulches had no significant effect on the examined soil properties at the seed emergence stage. However, at both tasseling and harvest stages, the differences of bulk density, total porosity, organic carbon content and macronutrients (NPK) among the treatments were significant and were in the order of GS.>MS > PF > NM. The germination rate was in the order of NM (91.0%) > MS (89.9%) > GS (86.8%) > PF (87.9%). The effect of mulches on both the plant height and the LAI was in the order of GS > MS > PF > NM. The increase in grain yield over the control were GS 18 %, MS 19 % and PF 14 % while that of the WUE relative to the control were 155 %, 122 % and 57 % for GS, MS and PF respectively. Dry grass mulch could be used to improve soil properties and achieve higher maize production in the study area

Source: UCC
Improving soil quality and upland rice yield in northern Benin with no-tillage, rice straw mulch and nitrogen fertilization

Management practices that simultaneously improve soil properties and yield are crucial to sustain high crop production and minimize detrimental impact on the environment. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of tillage, rice straw mulch and nitrogen fertilization on soil quality and upland rice yield in northern Benin, West Africa. The 2-year (2014-2015) field experiment was conducted with two tillage systems (no-tillage, and manual tillage), two rice straw managements (no rice straw, and rice straw mulch at 3 Mg ha-1) and three nitrogen fertilizer levels (no nitrogen, moderate level of nitrogen: 60 kg ha-1, and high level of nitrogen: 120 kg ha-1). Rice yield was not significantly different as a function of tillage systems. On the contrary, rice yield significantly increased with application of rice straw mulch and nitrogen fertilizer. The highest response of rice yield to nitrogen fertilizer addition was obtained for 60 kg N ha-1 in combination with 3 Mg ha-1 of rice straw for the two tillage systems. Soil moisture and soil microbial carbon were higher under no-tillage, rice straw mulch and nitrogen fertilizer. No-tillage combined with rice straw mulch and 60 kg N ha-1 could be used by smallholder farmers to improve soil quality and achieve higher grain yield in upland rice fields in northern Benin

Source: UCC
Improving staff performance through training and development: a case study of ridge hospital, Accra

The study examined the improvement of staff performance through training and development at the Ridge Hospital. The problem was negative attitude observed toward patients by some of the nursing staff. The data were obtained from semi-structured interview and questionnaire (5 – point likert scaled questionnaire). The study design was a case study. The sample for the study involved fifty nurses and ten management staff. The data were analyzed using frequency tables and percentages The study found that training and development needs of nursing staff were to improve upon staff interpersonal skills, skills and knowledge at work, acquire more skills and new knowledge to improve output of work and gaining more skills and knowledge in patients and diseases management, prevention and control, also to enhance quality staff patient relationship and knowing new trends in the management of HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, cholera, infection prevention among others and emergency and anesthesia training. Also, the study found that training and development programmes of nursing staff were seminar, understudy training, job rotation, mentorship, workshops, refresher courses, job orientation, conferences and special meetings. Furthermore, the study found that training and development motivate nursing staff to work harder, to adjust to new situations, to assist student nurses and boost their morale to asses and plan with students for a better care for the patients. Workshops on positive attitudes toward work were considered relevant since training and development was not panacea for improving staff performance.

Source: UCC