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The chapter portrays the impact of COVID-19 and tropical cyclones on scrambled teaching practice supervision in the Southern African Development Community countries. Focus group discussions with student-teachers and field supervisors revealed that the pandemic and the natural disasters highly hampered teaching practice supervision quality. Delayed commissioning of the exercise due to damaged infrastructure and minimal physical mobility between the college and the practice schools impacted the frequency and spacing of field visits. Neither of the players preferred the scrambled supervision model. The chapter emphasizes that face-to-face traditional teacher education methods cannot absolutely stand the taste of pandemics and tropical cyclones. Resilient higher education institutions and requisite structures are key to sustainable quality teacher education amidst cyclones and pandemics.

Background: Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) have been used as a tool for poverty alleviation in many developing economies globally, including Malawi. However, their sustainability in many countries has been dependent solely on loan repayment, donor aid, and subsidies. Aim: This study aimed at investigating the factors that influence the sustainability of MFIs in Malawi. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted from November to December 2020 among the MFIs employees in the central region of Malawi. Convenience and purposive sampling techniques were used to collect data online using a google form sent via social media platforms. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS software with Statistical significance placed at .05. Results: 120 respondents completed the survey representing a 79.3% response rate, of which 63% were male. The majority of the respondents fell within the age group of 31-40 years, representing 58%, having attained universities and vocational colleges' education level, representing 32.8%. With an experience of above 16 years, representing 41.2% of which were branch managers, representing 49.6%. The results of the ordinary least square regression indicated that reporting and loan management system (RLMS) (β=0.200, P=0.021), corporate-governance (β=0.257, P=0.004), and commercialization (β=0.161, P=0.047) were positively significantly influencing the sustainability of MFI. On the other hand, loan design/type (β =-0.211, P=0.006), loan portfolio management (β =-0.179, P=0.050) were found to be negatively impacting the MFI. Lastly, variables of over-indebtedness (B= 0.077, P=0.426), loan disbursement (β =0.121, P=0.104) were found statistically insignificant. Conclusion: Our study argues that commercialization, standardized reporting, and effective loan portfolio management systems, stakeholder-based approach to corporate governance, and favored board independence through scale and cost management is critical to improving MFIs' financial sustainability.

Background: China is one of the developing countries that have witnessed tremendous growth in all sectors of development. One of the strategies that China is using is the reintroduction of the 21st Century Silk Road Economic Belt Development Initiative which moves across the world creating trade partners all around the world. Some of the African countries are among the beneficiaries in this initiative especially in terms of infrastructure development which is ranked behind as compared to other developments. Aim of the Study: This review was aimed at funding out the impacts of OBRI on infrastructure development in African countries. Methods: The data were retrieved from the databases of Scopus, Google Scholars, Web of science with papers that were written in English in the month of September to November 2020. Results: The results of the study indicated that OBRI has positively impacted many participating countries in Africa. However, it is also argued that many African countries over depend on the loans provided through this strategy which acts as a burden. Conclusion: This study recommends that African countries should be underrating clearly the terms of the agreements during the time of signing of the loan agreements by even assessing their capacity to pay back. Besides, African countries should civically educate people on the ownership of these projects for sustainability.

Background: Food security, malnutrition and poverty are some of the challenges that most of the sub-Saharan African countries face, with the coming of Covid-19 the sustainability of Village Savings and Loans Association which are formed to counter fight these challenges is questioned. Aim: The aim of this study was to assess factors associated with the Sustainability of VSLAs amidst of Covid-19 and its impacts on households' income levels. Methods: An online cross-sectional design was conducted from November to January 2021, targeting VSLAs members in Mzuzu. A snowball and respondent-driven sampling technique was used to recruit the needful participants using a referral approach. IBM SPSS version 23 was used to perform descriptive statistics, Chi-Square, and binary logistic regression with unstandardized Beta (β), Odds Ratios (OR), and 95% Confidence Interval (CI) being taken into account with P-value set at P-value at 0.1, 0.05 and 0.01 significance levels. Results: Our study finds that household income declined by 54% for those earnings belonged to ˂ MK5,000, as compared to 38% and 15% for medium (MK5,000 ≥ MK10,000) and higher (>MK10,000) income bands respectively. Our study shows that gender (β=0.437, p=0.094), age-group (β=1.317, p=0.000), education (β=2.181, p=0.047), share contributions (β=1.035, p=0.008), and meetings (β=0.572, p=0.021), and occupation (β=-0.453, p=0.106), frequency of meeting (β=-0.507, p=0.049) were positively and negatively statistically significant predictors. Conclusion: Findings of this study shows that households with lower income earnings as one of the indicators of poverty are more affected by the pandemic than their counterparts. We recommend that the policymakers should continue and adopt, if they have not yet, programs that would help to assist low-income households, such as transfer of payments, which have proved to boost the income of the poor in many developing countries.

Teaching practice is a precious period for final learner support. In Malawi, any faculty member could supervise teaching practice regardless of their subject specialty (scrambled model). This qualitative study assessed the impacts of this scrambled model of supervision on the quality of learner support when non-specialist faculty supervised student-teachers. Through 2 different focus group discussions, data were collected from 10 conveniently sampled practicum students, 6 practicum supervisors, and 6 coordinators from 6 purposefully selected higher teacher-education institutions. and data were analyzed qualitatively. The study revealed that student-teachers and faculty were uncomfortable with the scrambled supervision model because it led to (1) inconsistencies in pedagogical and content knowledge, (2) unfriendly environment, and (3) inadequate feedback due to varying needs in varying subject areas demands. However, they justified this model for convenience at the mercy of other constraints. Apart from contributing to the existing body of knowledge, this study suggests best practices to guide institutional policy regarding practicum to facilitate quality learner support.

Aim: This study investigated the intentions, opportunities, and barriers to engaging in a meaningful internationalization of higher education in Malawi.Methods: This was cross-sectional research that was done between June and October 2021. Using a purposive (judgmental) sampling, we recruited 212 respondents from various institutions of higher education in Malawi. Multilinear regression analysis was used to analyze the factors with the P-value set at 0.05 level of statistical significance. Results: The results indicated that the majority of the respondents were males (63.7%) who fell into 30 years age bracket. Further, the results from the multilinear regression analysis indicate that Institutional collaboration (ß=0.326, p=0.000, CI=0.27—0.383), clear Policy on Mobility (ß=0.146, p=0.0.004, CI=0.047-0.246), experience (ß=0.083, p=0.117, CI=-0.021-0.186), academic rank (ß=0.114, p=0.000, CI=0.069-0.159) were positively statistically significant variables, whereas on the other hand, Occupation (ß=-0.131, p=0.002, CI=-0.213-0.49), academic qualification (ß=-0.106, p=0.013, CI=-0.19-0.023 and mobilityImportance (ß=-0.116, p=0.022, CI=-0.215-0.017) were negatively significant variables respectively.Conclusion and Recommendations: institutions need to invest in international and inter-institutional collaboration, clarify policy direction regarding academic mobility, keep track and linkages with mobile faculty, create a conducive social and formal institutional culture that attracts back mobile faculty, and reduce staff turnover.

Aim: This study investigated the intentions, opportunities, and barriers to engaging in a meaningful internationalization of higher education in Malawi. Methods: This was cross-sectional research that was done between June and October 2021. Using a purposive (judgmental) sampling, we recruited 212 respondents from various institutions of higher education in Malawi. Multilinear regression analysis was used to analyze the factors with the P-value set at 0.05 level of statistical significance. Results: The results indicated that the majority of the respondents were males (63.7%) who fell into 30 years age bracket. Further, the results from the multilinear regression analysis indicate that Institutional collaboration (ß=0.326, p=0.000, CI=0.27—0.383), clear Policy on Mobility (ß=0.146, p=0.0.004, CI=0.047-0.246), experience (ß=0.083, p=0.117, CI=-0.021-0.186), academic rank (ß=0.114, p=0.000, CI=0.069-0.159) were positively statistically significant variables, whereas on the other hand, Occupation (ß=-0.131, p=0.002, CI=-0.213-0.49), academic qualification (ß=-0.106, p=0.013, CI=-0.19-0.023 and mobilityImportance (ß=-0.116, p=0.022, CI=-0.215-0.017) were negatively significant variables respectively. Conclusion and Recommendations: institutions need to invest in international and inter-institutional collaboration, clarify policy direction regarding academic mobility, keep track and linkages with mobile faculty, create a conducive social and formal institutional culture that attracts back mobile faculty, and reduce staff turnover.

Workflow activities may have due-dates to facilitate timely services and maximum use of resources like time. Due-dates (which are very critical in business) may pass before the intended participants can view their respective tasks because some environments lack necessary bandwidth and the administrator may not be aware of it. This paper presents a solution to this problem by designing and developing an agent-based plug-in that informs workflow administrators about connectivity status to a workflow server. The plug-in comprises three agents which will interface with system through Common Object Request Broker. Agents are employed in the design and implementation of the plug-in to capitalize on the current design in that Shark Enhydra is employing the same agent-based technology. The three collaborating agents (together forming a sub-system) shall persistently be communicating with each other through remote procedure calls (RPC) only if there is network connection and communicate with the workflow system through CORBA architecture.