The drip footwear brand: managing a successful start-up launch and rapid expansion during Covid-19 pandemic

Learning outcomes Students will be able to: describe the entrepreneurial traits required for successful business venturing; evaluate the entrepreneurial risks associated with a rapid business expansion in the early start-up phase of an entrepreneurial venture, especially in crisis; select and defend appropriate management systems that will contribute to the sustainability of a business post the crisis and rapid expansion; and evaluate the online social media optimisation strategies. Case overview/synopsis In July 2019, Lekau Sehoana launched branded sneakers called Drip. It took Lekau six weeks to sell the first 600 pairs of shoes from his car boot, not having applied any robust marketing strategies. During the interactions with customers, it became clear that there was a demand for a new South African sneakers brand. In December of the same year, he manufactured and within a few days, sold 1,200 sneakers. This rapid achievement was enough confirmation for Lekau that there was a need for locally manufactured and branded shoes. Based on this success, Lekau started to consider the launch of his own business. However, during the process of the formal launch, the world was suddenly experiencing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. During the planning stage regarding the mode of operation and the full business launch, in March 2020, South Africa was placed into the Covid-19 Alert Level 5 lockdown, complicating the decision-making process even further. Despite the extremely severe lockdown regulations that lasted more than a year, in May 2021, Lekau had already managed to open 11 stores in reputable malls and sold hundred thousands of his sneakers. This instant success, putting pressure on the manufacturing ability, distribution and costing structure, led to Lekau becoming concerned about having grown and still growing too fast too soon during a pandemic. His concern was what would happen when the country would move back to normal, without the constraints caused by the lockdown, would he be able to sustain the growth and how would he achieve this, and how would he be able to manage the fast-growing venture? Complexity academic level Entrepreneurship, Innovation, General Management and Marketing courses at the Postgraduate Diploma and Masters level. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CCS 3: Entrepreneurship.

Using Instructional Screencast to Teach Digital Immigrants: A Paradigm Shift in the 21st Century Learning Process

This paper intended to study the attitudes of postgraduate diploma in education (PGDE) students towards the use of instructional screencast for learning. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. Population of the study include the 13 postgraduate diploma in education students admitted as at 2018/2019 academic session, and all were selected as sample for the study. Objectives of the study were to: categorize the postgraduate diploma in education students offering CSI 702 in the 2019/2020 academic session into digital native and digital immigrants based on their dates of birth; and determine the attitudes of the postgraduate diploma in education students offering CSI 702 in the 2019/2020 academic session towards the use of screencast for instructional process. The instrument pegged “students’ attitudes to using screencast for learning” (SAUSL) was used to obtain necessary information from the respondents. It was validated, pilot study conducted, and reliability index of 0.98 was obtained using Cronbatch Alpha. Results from the study revealed that 92% of the respondents were digital immigrants, and they had positive attitudes towards the use of screencast for learning. The study concluded that even though the digital immigrants (respondents) had shown a positive attitude towards the use of the screencast, the paradigm shift in the education sector “new normal” necessitated the use of technology to facilitate the instructional processes. Therefore, digital immigrants are left with no option than to embrace the use of technology for learning. It was recommended by the study that lecturers, especially in the higher institutions of learning, should adopt the use of screencast in their instructional process. This would help flip the classroom, and economically manage lecture time.

Curriculum Innovation in Language Teacher Education: Reflections on the PGDELT Program’s Contributions to EFL Teachers’ Continuing Professional Development

Initial teacher preparation and teachers’ continuing professional development are two significant pillars of the teacher education enterprise. The former encompasses a wide range of teacher-education initiatives at the levels of diploma, bachelor’s degree, postgraduate diploma, and even master’s degree for teacher licensure purposes. These are widely documented in the literature. What is important is how teacher professional development contributes to bolstering the teacher-educator force, which is relatively insufficiently documented due to the very fact that different educational systems have somewhat different expectations of such programs in relation to the ideologies and theories underpinning the teacher professional development program design and curriculum offering. Taking stock of a postgraduate diploma program in English language teaching (PGDELT) for teachers’ continuing professional development with a 31-year history housed at a premier teacher education institution in Singapore, which has successfully graduated over 1, 000 English language teachers for colleges and universities in China, I intend to highlight some of its key features, as a former student and then a lecturer on the program, in order to draw implications for sustainable growth of language teacher education programs, especially those whose main purposes are to prepare teachers of English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) and provide continuing professional development opportunities for such inservice teachers.

Reorganisation of primary care services during COVID-19 in the Western Cape, South Africa: Perspectives of primary care nurses

Background: Primary care nurses play a pivotal role in the response to disasters and pandemics. The coronavirus diseases 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic required preventative, diagnostic, and curative measures for persons presenting with symptoms of COVID-19 by healthcare providers, whilst continuing other essential services. We aimed to investigate the reorganisation of primary care services during COVID-19 from the perspectives of primary care nurses in the Western Cape province of South Africa.Methods: We administered an online survey with closed and open-ended questions to professional nurses enrolled for a Postgraduate Diploma in Primary Care Nursing at Stellenbosch University (2020) and alumni (2017–2019) working in the Western Cape. Eighty-three participants completed the questionnaire.Results: The majority of the participants (74.4%) reported that they were reorganising services using a multitude of initiatives in response to the diverse infrastructure, logistics and services of the various healthcare facilities. Despite this, 48.2% of the participants expressed concerns, which mainly related to possible non-adherence of patients with chronic conditions, the lack of promotive and preventative services, challenges with facility infrastructure, and staff time devoted to triage and screening. More than half of the participants (57.8%) indicated that other services were affected by COVID-19, whilst 44.6% indicated that these services were worse than before.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the very necessary reorganisation of services that took place at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa enabled effective management of patients infected with COVID-19. However, the reorganisation of services may have longer-term consequences for primary care services in terms of lack of care for patients with other conditions, as well as preventive and promotive care.

Keeping perspective as a nurse amid a pandemic

A registered nurse on the coronary care unit, and now completing her Postgraduate Diploma in Specialist Practice Nursing Cardiology at Queen's University Belfast, Charlotte Quinn reflects on the importance of nursing care, particularly amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A taxonomy of Australian and New Zealand paramedic clinical roles

IntroductionThis article aims to summarise and categorise the current types of frontline paramedics in Australia and New Zealand, their relative scopes of practice, their qualifications and training, and the titles used in each jurisdictional ambulance service. Methods Each of the 10 jurisdictional ambulance services were contacted and their current clinical roles discussed with a manager or senior paramedic between June and October 2020. Information was summarised in tables and text. ResultsMinimum qualifications for paramedics range from a diploma to an undergraduate degree, with graduate programs ranging from six to 18 months’ duration. Additional minimum qualifications for Extended Care Paramedics range from no minimum qualifications to a nursing degree. Additional minimum qualifications for Intensive Care Paramedics range from no minimum qualifications to a postgraduate diploma. Additional minimum qualifications for Retrievalists range from no minimum qualifications to a master degree. Helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) teams range from primarily physician-led in four services to autonomous paramedics in five services. Armed offender paramedics exist in four services; urban search and rescue paramedics exist in five services; wilderness paramedics exist in five services; CBRNE paramedics exist in three services; mental health paramedics exist in three services. Special Operations variously refers to HEMS, USAR, CBRNE or armed offender. Critical Care variously refers to Intensive Care, HEMS in a physician-led team and autonomous HEMS. Advanced life support refers to paramedics and intensive care. Rescue Paramedic refers to road crash extrication or wilderness paramedics. Flight Paramedic refers to Paramedics or Intensive Care Paramedics, either HEMS or fixed wing. ConclusionThe jurisdictional ambulance services are heterogenous in the structure, qualifications, training and terminology for their frontline paramedic roles. Due to this lack of consistency, roles for paramedics in Australasia are currently largely incomparable between services, rendering shared titles inoperable from intranational and international perspectives.

Investigating competencies needed by European-trained doctors in rural South African hospitals

Background: Many European-trained doctors (ETDs) recruited to work in rural district hospitals in South Africa have insufficient generalist competencies for the range of practice required. Africa Health Placements recruits ETDs to work in rural hospitals in Africa. Many of these doctors feel inadequately prepared. The Stellenbosch University Ukwanda Centre for Rural Health is launching a Postgraduate Diploma in Rural Medicine to help prepare doctors for such work.Aim: To determine the competencies gap for ETDs working in rural district hospitals in South Africa to inform the curriculum of the PG Dip (Rural Medicine).Setting: Rural district hospitals in South Africa.Methods: Nine hospitals in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga were purposefully selected by Africa Health Placements as receiving ETDs. An online survey was developed asking about the most important competencies and weaknesses for ETDs when working rurally. The clinical manager and any ETDs currently working in each hospital were invited to complete the survey.Results: Surveys were completed by 19 ETDs and five clinical managers. The top clinical competencies in relation to 10 specific domains were identified. The results also indicate broader competencies required, specific skills gaps, the strengths that ETDs bring to South Africa and how ETDs prepare themselves for working in this context.Conclusion: This study identifies the important competency gaps among ETDs and provides useful direction for the diploma and other future training initiatives. The diploma faculty must reflect on these findings and ensure the curriculum is aligned with these gaps.