According to a popular adage, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. With unemployment on the constant increase in South Africa, people are becoming more relentless in seeking means to earn a living. Waste picking has become, for example, an option for individuals in responding to the economic challenge in order to provide for themselves and families. By odd, the researchers refer to foraging in bins for items that have been discarded by others, which may be sold for cash. Although this practice offers an opportunity for self-employment, there is also a concern that those who deal in waste may be exposing themselves and perhaps their families to social stigma and health problems. This article looks at both the challenges of waste picking (more specifically health) and the desperate state of unemployment in South Africa. In doing that, we aim to address three central questions: (1) why are people waste picking? (2) Is waste picking a sustainable venture? and (3) what are the challenges in waste picking? To obtain deeper insights into the themes captured in the aforementioned research questions; face to face interviews were conducted with participants. Empirically, four central factors push participants into waste picking ventures: unemployment, retrenchment, unemployability, and the need for augmented income. Also, we found that although waste pickers continue the practice to sustain themselves and their families, waste picking does not sufficiently offer sustainable income, improved livelihoods nor reduced dependency on public social and health systems. There is a need to enhance the capacity of the South African public health system to adequately cater for those who regularly need its services and as this study has shown, the continuous practice of waste picking is synonymous with ill health and pressure on public health systems. We flag directions for future research.

This paper aims to evaluate students’ feedback on the impediments to developing critical thinking in the classroom. Interpretative phenomenological analysis techniques were used to obtain data from postgraduate and undergraduate students of an Internal Auditing department in a South African university. The students identified several barriers to developing critical thinking in the classroom some of which are (1) the lecturers who are most times not knowledgeable in the field of critical thinking, (2) the students themselves who are simply not interested, (3) finally the educational system, according to the students who all argued that critical thinking is not ingrained in the country's educational institutions. According to the students, their lack of knowledge of critical thinking including the lecturers’ seeming insufficient knowledge of critical thinking calls for urgent intervention in the form of re-curriculation and training of lecturers. The findings of this research could have important implications for the auditing profession, as lecturers are often challenged to identify innovative ways to assist students in improving their critical thinking skills.

Finding out whether university students will take up entrepreneurship on graduation bodes well for any economy especially the developing ones. This is because it will help governments, and other stakeholders to plan better. Importantly, if university students embrace an entrepreneurial career, it will reduce unemployment and subsequently mitigate the scourge of poverty and inequality. This study was quantitative targeting university students to understand how they perceive entrepreneurship, what they think entrepreneurship is, what they consider as the factors that may discourage them from considering an entrepreneurial career, and also whether they think of themselves as capable of venturing into entrepreneurship. Using SPSS, we analyzed the data which affirmed the three hypotheses that student’s entrepreneurship intention can be positively and significantly motivated and persuaded. Also, the result confirmed that student’s entrepreneurship intention could be positively influenced by their perception of what entrepreneurship is and the perceived characteristics of an entrepreneur. Some further research directions as well as implications are flagged.

The need to train learners to think critically has been stressed and it has become a key concern among scholars in recent years. Although there is strong evidence demonstrating the benefits of critical thinking as well as proposals for its integration in schools, scholars are still looking for evidence demonstrating how teachers instill critical thinking in the classroom and the obstacles they face. Furthering this argument necessitated lecturers’ feedback on the obstacles to teaching critical thinking in the classroom. Data was collected from academics at a South African university of technology using interpretative phenomenological analysis approaches. The lecturers identified several obstacles that inhibited them from inculcating critical thinking in the classroom. The first one is time, according to the lecturers there is not enough time to inculcate critical thinking since the average lesson last for fifty minutes. The second is the large population of students. The third is the learners themselves who according to the lecturers are indifferent, unwilling to engage. Finally, the educational system according to the lecturers is based on rote learning and memorisation at all levels, which hinders creative, unique, and logical thinking. The findings of this study could have significant consequences for the auditing profession, as teachers are frequently pushed to come up with new approaches to help students improve their critical thinking abilities.

Small businesses are drivers of any economy because of their capacity to, among others, provide employment to the people and the owners. Their extinction will greatly affect a nation. This study focused on small enterprises in Lagos, Nigeria and how social media is deployed in them. The study is necessary because most small enterprises in Nigeria do not make it past the first few years of operation. Perhaps the adoption of social media by small businesses in Lagos may create extra opportunities for their growth. A questionnaire was employed to collect data from participants since it was less expensive and allowed for huge amounts of data to be gathered in a short amount of time. This study shows that the majority of small enterprises in Nigeria employ social media to promote their goods and services. Most business owners confirmed that the platform is efficient when applied in business. The findings also reveal that some enterprise owners are still yet to implement social media marketing into their advertising plans. Some implications and recommendations are flagged.