Artha Journal of Social Sciences

Linguistic barriers encountered by deaf women in accessing antenatal and postnatal care in Zimbabwe’s public hospitals

2025-06-30T06:22:46+00:00

This article examines the marginalisation of Sign language in Zimbabwe's healthcare sector, particularly in the context of antenatal and postnatal care. It reveals the linguistic challenges faced by Deaf women, who often use spoken language for communication. The study also explores the attitudes of nurses and doctors towards Sign language in the health sector. Data were collected through questionnaires, focus group discussions, and interviews with members of the Deaf community. The research found that communication difficulties were significant barriers for Deaf women seeking care. The lack of sign language interpreters and negative attitudes towards the Deaf by some health professionals further exacerbated these barriers. The absence of a policy framework directing the use and awareness of Sign Language in hospitals further exacerbated these issues. The study recommends prioritising Sign Language in public institutions to ensure Health Rights and a health language policy that guarantees the use of local languages in all public life, including health.

Teacher Education-Community Involvement Curriculum: Analysis of Practices and Perspectives Towards Enhancing Graduates’ Employability

2025-10-27T04:35:06+00:00

Higher education-community involvement research agendas explore educational alignment with the labour market needs to address the graduates’ employability crisis. This mixed-methods study, underpinned by the triple helix model, explored teacher education and community involvement through the integration of local community content and students’ experiential learning of the world of work. The study selected 821 students, 104 academic staff from six higher learning institutions, and 314 community participants from two regions in Tanzania. Survey questionnaires and key informant interviews were used. The results showed a poor integration of key self-employability skills, particularly in financial management, the informal market economy, and project-based business startup. There is also a poor teacher education-community involvement, such that the selected programmes, the pure science (7.4%), and arts (9.5%) had lower ratings compared to the education and community development (26.7%), and business studies with schooling (36.2%) on enhancing students’ interaction with the labour industries through course activities. Additionally, the use of labour market interactive methods, such as inviting guest speakers (4.8%) and sharing self-employment experiences (7.7%), received the lowest ratings among the academic staff. Furthermore, only 62 (19.7%) of the community respondents participated in the teacher education curriculum development and review process, while the majority, 252 (80.3%), did not. The study concluded that a weak interrelationship among teacher education institutions, government systems of labour market administration, and public communities is a cause of the prevailing graduates' employability crisis. Transforming the teacher education community requires linkage policies, institutional strategies, and further research on graduates’ self-employment data.

Hindrances to sustainable collaborative governance in delivering low-income housing

2025-09-19T14:10:16+00:00

The purpose of this paper is to examine the hindrances to sustainable collaborative governance (SCG) in the delivery of low-income housing (LIH) in the city of Windhoek (CoW), Namibia. Using thematic analysis, nine themes about the hindrances to SCG in the provisioning of LIH in Cow were identified. Data were collected from 150 purposively sampled participants from the CoW, entailing local community leaders, CoW representatives, trade union representatives, National Housing Enterprise (NHE) representatives, private sector representatives, and civil society representatives. The primary qualitative data were analysed using NVivo to gain insights into the challenges faced by residents of low-income districts of CoW. The research findings confirmed that the efficient and effective delivery of decent LIH in the CoW is hampered by limited resources, lack of political will, red tape, rent-seeking behaviour and nepotism, discrimination, COVID-19, the cost of land, high input costs, and poor urban planning. Based on the findings, the study contributed to the existing body of knowledge about housing delivery challenges. Furthermore, the study findings assist policymakers, local authorities, and the national government in promulgating and implementing policies to mitigate the hindrances to the delivery of LIH in CoW.

India-Russia Dynamic Relations in the Context of Indian Foreign Policy

2025-11-07T11:12:05+00:00

History has witnessed a time-tested relationship between India and Russia that has evolved into a legacy. However, the current ongoing systemic geopolitical changes in the world are creating such uncertainty that both nations are facing some difficulties in maintaining their relations. Hence, despite Western efforts to isolate Russia at the global level, both India and Russia have maintained cordial relations with each other, prioritising defence and economic cooperation amid a complex geopolitical landscape, which highlights their autonomous strategy. In this context, this research paper presents India’s foreign policy from the perspective of how conscious both India and Russia are about their relations and what both countries are taking essential steps to fulfil their national interests. Under the realist framework, the research paper emphasises the national interests, power balance, and security of both countries, especially in the aftermath of the Russia-Ukraine war. This research analyses the relationship from a state-centric perspective, where both countries are motivated to protect their existential interests, whether through balancing efforts or strategic autonomy. Pointing to India’s neutrality and autonomous policy, the paper also evaluates and outlines the prospects of relations between the two countries, highlighting major obstacles. It examines the key factors strengthening the privileged India-Russia relationship. Lastly, an effort has been made to find a smooth path to enhance their trusting and cordial relations by removing obstacles.