Text in English / The study analysed the effects of conservation farming in Zimbabwe using a mixed methodology approach. This analysis comes against the background of the recognition that climate change, as characterized by severe droughts, has played a significant role in reducing agricultural productivity, in the process leaving smallholder farmers and the nation of Zimbabwe exposed to recurrent food insecurity. Conservation farming was introduced as a climate adaptation strategy that was aimed at improving crop yields. The study focused on assessing the association between the adoption of conservation farming and a concomitant increase in agricultural productivity. This was key in understanding if there are benefits of using conservation farming as opposed to making use of the conventional method of farming. The study also investigated the nature of conservation farming being practiced in Umguza District; this was done in order to understand whether smallholder farmers are implementing all the key principles underpinning the use of conservation farming. The study further assessed the challenges and opportunities that exist through the use of conservation farming with the aim of coming up with sustainable solutions to the challenges affecting smallholder farmers. The study went on to assess the factors that determine the adoption and maximum utilization of conservation farming. Identification of these key variables was instrumental in the design of a localized conservation farming model. Study results revealed that conservation farming is an effective method of increasing agricultural productivity. The study also established that smallholder farmers are not implementing all the key principles of conservation farming and this was attributed to the failure to include the smallholder farmers in the design of conservation farming models. It was further revealed that smallholder farmers face various challenges that include access to inputs and limited support from the government. Implications of the study highlight the need for the community to be actively involved in the design of a conservation farming model localized to the unique context of smallholder farmers. A prototype for implementing a sustainable conservation farming model was developed in collaboration with the smallholder farmers as part of a solution based approach to dealing with the challenges affecting smallholder farmers. / School of Agriculture and Life Sciences / Ph. D.

My mini-dissertation gives the autobiography of Talent Nyathi, who was born in rural Zimbabwe in 1961. Talent was unwillingly conscripted into the Zimbabwean Liberation Struggle. On her return to Zimbabwe, she has worked tirelessly for the education of her compatriots. Talent's story casts light on subject-formation in conditions of difficulty, suffering and victimization. Doubly oppressed by her race and gender, Talent has nevertheless shown a remarkable capacity for self-empowerment and the empowerment of others. Her story needs to be heard because it will inspire other women and other S/subjects and because it is a corrective to both the notions of a heroic Struggle and the `victim' stereotype of Africa. Together with Talent's autobiography, my mini-dissertation offers extensive notes that situate her life story in the context of contemporary postcolonial, literary and gender theory and further draws out the significance of her individual `history-from-below'. / English Studies / M.A.

My mini-dissertation gives the autobiography of Talent Nyathi, who was born in rural Zimbabwe in 1961. Talent was unwillingly conscripted into the Zimbabwean Liberation Struggle. On her return to Zimbabwe, she has worked tirelessly for the education of her compatriots. Talent's story casts light on subject-formation in conditions of difficulty, suffering and victimization. Doubly oppressed by her race and gender, Talent has nevertheless shown a remarkable capacity for self-empowerment and the empowerment of others. Her story needs to be heard because it will inspire other women and other S/subjects and because it is a corrective to both the notions of a heroic Struggle and the `victim' stereotype of Africa. Together with Talent's autobiography, my mini-dissertation offers extensive notes that situate her life story in the context of contemporary postcolonial, literary and gender theory and further draws out the significance of her individual `history-from-below'. / English Studies / M.A.

The study sought to explore and describe the risk behaviour regarding HIV transmission among youth in Bulawayo, their knowledge of HIV transmission and the sources of information on HIV transmission accessible to them. A quantitative, descriptive exploratory design was used and 238 youth from three secondary schools in Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe were the respondents. The Health Belief Model (HBM) was used to facilitate and acquire insight into the risk behaviour among the youth. The inferences drawn from the study were that youth have inadequate knowledge about HIV transmission and therefore do not fully understand their risk of infection. Youth also find shyness and fear of rejection serious barriers to communicating openly about sexuality, sexual and HIV/AIDS issues. The findings of the study have implications for programmes to limit HIV transmission among youth and should assist policymakers and educators in developing and implementing such programmes in order to improve the health of youth in Zimbabwe. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

The study sought to explore and describe the risk behaviour regarding HIV transmission among youth in Bulawayo, their knowledge of HIV transmission and the sources of information on HIV transmission accessible to them. A quantitative, descriptive exploratory design was used and 238 youth from three secondary schools in Bulawayo, the second largest city in Zimbabwe were the respondents. The Health Belief Model (HBM) was used to facilitate and acquire insight into the risk behaviour among the youth. The inferences drawn from the study were that youth have inadequate knowledge about HIV transmission and therefore do not fully understand their risk of infection. Youth also find shyness and fear of rejection serious barriers to communicating openly about sexuality, sexual and HIV/AIDS issues. The findings of the study have implications for programmes to limit HIV transmission among youth and should assist policymakers and educators in developing and implementing such programmes in order to improve the health of youth in Zimbabwe. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

This study was an attempt to investigate the influence of socio-cultural factors on HIV prevention strategies among HIV discordant couples in Harare, Zimbabwe. HIV sero-discordance is a scenario whereby one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative. HIV sero-discordant couples are a unique and vulnerable population that encounters many peculiar challenges. When dealing with this population, researchers have to deal with contradictory ideas and perceptions presented by each partner making up the couples and also understand the relationship in the context of cultural values, norms and the dynamic of power and oppression. In addition to this, the concept of HIV sero-discordance and the frequency of its occurrence are poorly understood in most African communities. Despite the growing evidence of HIV discordance, HIV prevention strategies have largely focused on clinical aspects at the expense of socio-cultural issues that impact on HIV prevention strategies targeted at HIV sero- discordant couples. The study seeks to contribute to the conceptualization and design of intervention programs dealing with sero-discordance. The study is underpinned by the symbolic interactionism theory and was qualitative in design involving 13 HIV discordant couples in heterosexual relationships enrolled in the HIV Preventions Trials Network 052 Study (HPTN 052 Study) being undertaken by the University of Zimbabwe’s department of medicine. The study utilized 2 Focus Group Discussions (FGD) and 10 in-depth interviews (IDI) to collect data. The study’s findings indicate that discordant couples are in fact critical stakeholders in the uptake of all the available HIV prevention strategies. Failure to acknowledge this tenet is self-defeating as evidenced by the perception of viewing condom use within a marriage as humiliating for a woman. The study further noted that practitioners in the HIV prevention domain must guard against over-relying on the scientifically demonstrated efficacy of the strategies. The study recommends that HIV prevention strategies must be socially and culturally acceptable and embedded for them to be more efficacious. / Sociology / M.A. (Social Behaviour Studies in HIV and AIDS)

Lecturers’ research output in higher education in Zimbabwe is low in general and at Mentors University (pseudonym) in particular. Although lecturers at Mentors University are expected to publish to avoid career stagnation, most lecturers are not tenured due to lack of publications in peer refereed journals with an aggregate impact factor of 0.5. The study aimed at formulating a model for developing lecturers’ research skills and its empirical testing to address the problem. A literature review examined theories of competency development and mentoring models. The informal group mentoring strategy was structured for application in a qualitative participatory action research design. A questionnaire captured factors influencing lecturer research output from a purposive sample of 260 lecturers at Mentors University. Another purposive sample of five lecturers participated in implementing the informal group mentoring intervention for model empirical testing. All participants had failed to publish, were available volunteers and committed to the intervention. The intervention comprised determining qualities of publishable papers through desk research; an evaluative reading of published and rejected papers; peer discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of papers; practice of research; the oral reporting of findings; peer evaluation of papers and the incorporation of peer critique into papers to improve quality prior to paper submission to journals. Survey findings indicated that research output was affected by a lack of both research and publishing skills and mentoring by research supervisors. Participants in the intervention entertained misconceptions of problem formulation, research design and application of probability sampling concepts. Computer skills for data analysis and oral presentation were poor. Further, the university had no policy for lecturer research skills development. As a result of the intervention, all five participants published a paper. The study concluded that lecturers can develop research skills for publication by forming informal mentoring groups; obtaining the services of a mentor; and applying the informal group mentoring model. It was recommended that the universities include development of research skills in their policies and train mentors for the application of the informal group mentoring research skill development model in new universities in Zimbabwe. / Educational Management and Leadership / D. Ed. (Education Management)

This study analyses the different social variables that conditioned the naming of schools during the colonial period in Zimbabwe (1890-1979). The study collects and analyses the names given to schools in Salisbury (including Chitungwiza), Umtali and Fort Victoria the colonial period in Zimbabwe. The study adopts Geosemiotics, a theory propounded by Scollon and Scollon (2003), together with insights from Semantics, Semiotics and Pragmatics in the analysis of school names. Critical Discourse Analysis is used a method of data analysis. One of the main findings of the study is that place names are discourses of power which are used to express and legitimise power because they are part of the symbolic emblems of power. It was possible to ‘read’ the politics during the colonial period in Zimbabwe through the place names used in the colonial society. Both Europeans and Africans made conscious efforts to imbue public places with meanings. Overally, people who have access to power have ultimate control over place naming in any society. In this case, they manipulate place naming system in order to inscribe their own meanings and versions of history in the toponomastic landscape. The second finding is that place names are critical place-making devices that can be used to create imagined boundaries between people living in the same environment. Place names are useful discourses that index sameness and differences of people in a nation-state. Place names exist in interaction and kinship with other discourses in making places and imposing an identity on the landscape. Semiotics, Semantics and Pragmatics are instrumental in the appreciation of the meaning conveyed by school names. This study makes an important contribution to onomastic research in the sense that its findings can be generalised to other place naming categories during the colonial period in Zimbabwe. This study provides background information on how place naming was done during thecolonial period in Zimbabwe. This makes it significant because it provides insights on place naming in other states that went through the colonial experience, in Africa or elsewhere in the world. / African Languages

Only part of the abstract could be included due to the rest having renderable text / The abiotic environment plays an important role in cattle production. Key abiotic elements evaluated in this study are rainfall and temperature. This study was carried out to assess the effect and contribution of rainfall and temperature, amid other factors, on pre- and post-weaning growth traits of Afrikaner cattle at Matopos Research Institute from 1958 to 1997. Historical data generated from a genotype x environment interaction study at Matopos Research Institute was used to identify factors associated with the average daily weight gain of calves of Afrikaner cattle breed. A total of 10 700 records were retrieved comprising of birth weight (BW), 90 day weight, 205 day weight and early post-weaning weight as well as additional corresponding rainfall and temperature data from 1958 to 1997. The rainfall and temperature data was computed asrainfall and temperature variability. The data was corrected for heteroscedasticity using the generalized least squares approach (GLS) before running an ordinary least square regression (OLS) analysis to determine the association between growth rate and potential explanatory factors for average daily weight gain, pre-weaning weight gain and early post-weaning weight gain. / Agriculture and  Animal Health / M. Sc. (Agriculture)

The thesis has investigated the place of Zimbabwean indigenous intangible heritage in a globalising environment. It used the Shona language and intangible heritage situation as a case study. It argued that Zimbabwean intangible heritage is continually being eroded by the agents of globalisation and that the only way of safeguarding it from extinction is through the preservation of Zimbabwean indigenous languages. The thesis has come to this conclusion after having established that there is an intimate and inseparable bond between language and its intangible values so much that it is not possible to talk of one devoid of the other. The relationship has been seen to be symbiotic. The Shona language has been established to embody, express and to be a carrier of all the intangible heritage of its speakers into the future by re-living them in the people’s daily life while these intangible values have been seen to conserve the language through their continued practice by the people. The research has also established that Zimbabwean intangible heritage marginalisation has roots in colonialism, dating as far back as the early Christian missionary days. The Shona intangible heritage has also been seen to be still of value despite the global threats as evidenced by the people’s continued re-living of it through language. The thesis has also noted that the Zimbabwean Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture is still using out-dated colonial language policies that still further the ascendancy of English and the intangible values it stands for while indigenous languages and values are marginalised in the education system, in government and in industry thereby worsening their predicament in the global environment. The current socio-economic and political developments in the country and some Shona novelists in Shona and in English are also culprits in this whole process as they continue to demonise and infantilise Zimbabwean intangible heritage. The thesis has therefore asserted that Zimbabwean intangible heritage is most likely to be eroded from the face of the earth if no measures are taken to safeguard it from extinction. It has therefore wound up by arguing that the survival of Zimbabwean intangible heritage lies in the survival of Zimbabwean indigenous languages through which it continues to be practised and felt by its people. The thesis has therefore recommended that the Zimbabwean government adopt sound language policies that safeguard the survival of Zimbabwean indigenous languages to enable the indigenous intangible heritage of the people to survive as well as the two are intricately related. / African Languages / (D.Litt.et.Phil.(African Languages))