COVID-19 has caused severe disruptions in global economic activities, and its impacts on stock markets cannot be overemphasized. The study employs market model and event study approach with four events (WHO announcement of COVID-19 as a global health emergency, confirmed infections, confirmed deaths, and vaccination) to examine the reactions of four African regional blocs’ markets to the pandemic from September 1, 2019, to August 31, 2021, to estimate the average abnormal returns of each regional bloc. On the day of the WHO announcement, we document insignificant negative average abnormal returns in the Northern bloc. We also document significant negative average abnormal returns for infections in all but the Northern bloc on the event day. The Western bloc generated the highest significant negative average abnormal return (-43 per cent) on the day COVID-19 death was confirmed on the continent. We finally document insignificant average abnormal returns from weeks 1 to 20 after the first vaccination in the Northern and Eastern blocs. The study recommends that investors, portfolio managers, and speculators not panic during similar pandemics since they can generate significant abnormal returns and diversify their investment holdings across the four regional blocs in Africa, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The secret to providing high-quality education in schools is the professionalism and diligence of teachers. Hence, teaching and learning can be improved through teacher appraisal. In light of Ghana’s Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project’s (GALOP) five-year plan that seeks to boost learning outcomes in underperforming basic education schools and increase transparency and accountability in the country’s education system, this empirical study sought to investigate the impact of the performance appraisal system on teacher effectiveness in public basic schools in Kwahu East district, in the Eastern Region of Ghana. This study used a quantitative, cross-sectional, descriptive, and correlational survey. Convenience sampling was used to sample 500 teachers and headteachers from the Basic school to participate in the study. SPSS version 26.0 and AMOS 23.0 were used for the statistical analyses. The findings of the study revealed that strengthening performance appraisal is a key element to improving teachers’ effectiveness which consequently improves students and school success, however, implementing performance management is the sure way to increase productivity and accountability in schools as it allows for a more all-encompassing assessment of an employee’s performance by incorporating coaching, goal planning, looking ahead to future growth, and 360-degree feedback. Keywords: Ghana Education Service, Performance, Self-evaluation, Teacher Effectiveness Appraisal System, Performance Review.

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In this period where performance management has gotten to an abolishing degree of teacher quality and school viability; educational institutes, students and teachers are presently under pressure to compete for acknowledgment on the premise of evaluations, yearly audits, and ranking of tables: where teachers are now positioned as self-governing professionals with their work progressively measured against students’ performance on national and international tests. And teachers who are’ ethical subjects’ find their values have been tested by what Stephen Ball called ‘the terrors of performativity’. Further, the value placed on measuring, politicizing, and labeling teachers has caused emotional stress in transforming what it’s meant to be a teacher. The literature review results were based on one research question: Why do teachers still comply with neoliberal performative techniques? The literature search was based on the following primary keywords such as “teacher performativity,” “teacher + neoliberalism”, and “teacher + performance management”. The paper unravels that teachers are still complying with neoliberal performative techniques because it provides a stage to gain joy and social acknowledgment, which worked as a psychical motivating force persuading them to utilize them for their academic advantages.