Background The University of Cape Town Faculty of Health Sciences (UCT FHS) adopted the Primary Health Care (PHC) approach as its lead theme for teaching, research, and clinical service in1994 Aim To develop indicators to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the PHC approach in Health Sciences Education . Method A Delphi study, conducted over two rounds, presented indicators of Social Accountability from the Training for Health Equity Network (THEnet), as well as indicators derived from the principles of the PHC approach in the UCT FHS, to a national multidisciplinary panel. An electronic questionnaire was used to score each indicator according to relevance, feasibility/measurability, and its application to undergraduate and postgraduate curricula. Qualitative feedback on the proposed indicators was also elicited. Results Round 1: Of the 59 Social Accountability indicators presented to the panel, the 20 highest ranked indicators were selected for Round 2. Qualitative feedback challenged the link between social accountability and PHC, resulting in an additional 19 PHC-specific indicators being presented in Round 2. Round 2: The indicators which scored >85% and made the final list were: PHC: Continuity of care (94%); Holistic understanding of health care (88%); Respecting human rights (88%); Providing accessible care to all (88%); and Promoting health through health education (88%). THEnet: Safety of learners (88%); Education reflects communities' needs (86%); Teaching embodies social accountability (86%); Teaching is appropriate to learners' needs (86%) Conclusion These PHC and THEnet indicators can be used to assess the implementation of PHC in Health Sciences Education. The specific indicators identified reflect priorities relevant to the local context. One limitation is that some key priority indicators did not make the final list.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The thesis is about an action research project which had an emancipatory educational intent. The social situation in which this research took place involved people in a specific workplace. Because education is historically constructed, the process of education in the research was considered in relation to the historical background and prevailing socio-political, educational and business situation. The research efforts in this context were directed towards seeking "truth; not as an absolute category, but as a structural and relational one" (Giroux, 1988b:xx). Ostensibly this research was about my own practice. On the one hand, I wanted to examine traditional views of workplace operation in an educational context, and on the other hand, reveal new possibilities which would change my practice and the traditional approach to education that I was part of. In the process a practical learning experience for employers and employees, in a particular workplace, was set in motion. The need for this learning experience was identified by the people in the specific workplace and the attempts at change-action were developed based on the democratic values of equality; justice; empowerment; participation; responsibility and accountability. The primary focus of the employers (and hopefully the employees) in the workplace, was to produce profitable productive work, but one cannot work in a social and political vacuum. Ignoring the reality that a workplace was an area of accommodation and contestation among differentially empowered people was problematic. Issues such as culture, race, gender, economic access and educational opportunity were (are) highlighted in the South African situation and needed to be confronted Workplaces retreat into discourses of management and administration with a focus on issues of efficiency, control and results. It is a myth to believe a workplace can do without these. However, through this research I intended to alert people in workplaces that they need to develop a discourse which reveals the understanding of experiences by questioning, inquiring and reflecting on these experiences. As experiences become meaningful, alternatives and possibilities for change, could emerge. It was essential that the existing discourse was approached critically, analyzed and negotiated in a process of learning that formed an integral part of all aspects of the company culture. All employers and employees would have the opportunity to make learning meaningful to them and in the process understand the purpose of training and development within a structured education programme. The people involved would have the opportunity to experience and to understand where they are, where they were and where they are going to. Workplaces are not neutral sites and education and politics cannot be separated. The political nature of this process, however, was to be essentially democratic. This led to the challenging of power relations (between managemennt workers and management/unions) and an attempt to re-distribute power. A situation developed whereby barriers to taking the authority to be responsible had to be removed if the disempowered hoped to experience a self empowering process. Conclusions that I arrived at in the process of this research informed me (and others) that empowerment did not provide an easy option in which managers would lose control. Empowerment increased the responsibility of managers and workers alike to act responsibly and be accountable. Empowerment increased the responsibility of managers to be inclusive, participatory and to lead change action by challenging the situation on an ongoing basis. There needed to be agreed expectations and understanding between employers and employees. Both employers and employees were learners in the situation as was the facilitator-educator acting as a change-agent. The change agent kept the process in motion by posing critical questions and encouraging reflection to enable the development of alternative possibilities and the development of a philosophical framework. All people in the workplace need to interact in order to unveil challenges and understand the realities of the situation they are in. In this way a relationship between theory and practice can be developed, with its origin in the experience of practice. Theory emerged within this experience and interventions were introduced on this basis of informed praxis. The differences, ambiguities and contradictions that were revealed in this research provided the basis of critique and enriched the learning process in this thesis. As an education process was developed in the research project the workplace was problematized and alternatives that emerged were seen as fundamental to the dynamics of change.

Although endowed with rich oversight bodies, policies and Acts, the state of financial management in South African government departments is illustrated in a number of clean qualified audits. The media and the Auditor-General’s report are continuously reporting on arbitrary financial practices, corruption, fruitless expenditure, tender rigging and inability to spend allocated funds to mention a few of the problems government experiences in its financial management. Financial management in the public service, if not addressed holistically, may hamper, rather than assist, government departments with the speedy delivery of services. The research study questioned the extent to which the legislative oversight bodies successfully ensure public financial accountability and responsibility. The objective of this study was not to evaluate the performance of institutions or any public financial management offices, but rather to assess the capacity of the public financial management systems themselves to support sound fiscal policy and financial management. The Constitution requires members of the Cabinet to provide Parliament with full and regular reports concerning matters under their control. The Constitution further requires the legislature to provide for effective mechanisms of oversight and to ensure that executive organs of state in government are accountable to the legislatures. There are instances where parliamentary committees’ reports and recommendations were ignored by government departments. Such actions can be a threat to democracy and good governance. Therefore Parliament and the legislature have a critical role to play in overseeing effective performance by all organs of state. Results of the study indicated that the turnover rate of members of parliamentary committees such as Standing Committee on Public Accounts remains a challenge and this impact the effectiveness of these committees. The results also revealed that it is a challenge to retain the directors-general in most government department. High turnover rate of directors general is a challenge as directors-general are accounting officers of Government departments. High turnover rate of directors-general could bring a perception that there is a lack of accountability and could be seen as threat to the democracy. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / gm2014 / School of Public Management and Administration (SPMA) / unrestricted

Financial management is a very complex issue; at the dawn of democracy the full responsibility for the financial management in public schools was given to school governing bodies. The governing body usually asks the school principal to act as finance manager who executes the financial responsibilities on a daily basis. This puts the principal in a precarious position. The research investigates the role players' understanding of the public school principals' legal responsibilities regarding financial management in Limpopo province. It looks at how the school principals, finance officers and the departmental officials perceive the public school principals' understanding, interpretation and application pertaining to his or her legal responsibilities. It further looks at the knowledge of legislation, reporting of financial expenditure at school level, reporting of financial irregularity cases found in schools, as well as the legal responsibility of financial accountability. A predominantly qualitative research approach with nominal application of the quantitative approach, an interpretive paradigm and multiple case studies allowed the researcher to gain an in-depth understanding of how various role players view or perceive the public school principals' legal responsibilities regarding financial management. I interviewed six principals, six finance officers and six departmental officials about their understanding of the public school principals' legal responsibilities regarding financial management in Limpopo Province. A total of 53 principals, 22 finance officers and four departmental officials successfully completed a questionnaire about their understanding, perceptions and experiences of the public school principals' stipulated legal responsibilities regarding financial management. All these people were involved in the day-to-day management and administration of funds in public schools. Documents such as finance policies, finance files, minute books, school budgets and audited financial statements were analysed to build a clear picture of the state of financial management in the selected public schools. Findings from this study are that there are vast differences in how various role players understand and interpret the public school principals' legal responsibilities regarding financial management in Limpopo. The rationale for having the legislation is to make things uniform and give guidelines. There is a lack of implementation of legal responsibilities by principals who sometimes experience fear of intimidation and victimisation and threat from teacher unions defending their members, SGB and the community. There is lack of knowledge of legislation and sheer ignorance of the law. There are misconceptions that principals in South Africa are accounting officers for everything happening in their respective schools. I found misconceptions of the principals' responsibilities of reporting the financial expenditure and financial mismanagement cases which are not reported, but resolved in schools. There is a culture of non-accountability, non-adherence to prescripts as a result of limited knowledge of legislation, expertise and experience of the principal in financial management. The study has unearthed a number of challenges that are serious concerns for the role players such as the principals, finance officers and the departmental officials regarding financial management. These include issues such as limited understanding, interpretation and application of the law, inadequate knowledge of legislation and financial skills, ignorance of policy and legislation, lack of transparency and openness when dealing with public finances, signing of blank cheques, intimidation, threats and victimisation from victims, teacher unions' interference in the appointment of principals, a lack of proper monitoring and control of expenditure at school level by the principal as well as by departmental officials from circuit level up to provincial level characterise school financial management. Much work remains to be done to close the gaps identified and to make financial management in South African public schools even better. The findings of the study have led to recommendations to assist public school principals, finance officers, school governing body members and departmental officials to understand the legal responsibilities of the principal in this regard better. The recommendations include models for the understanding principals' legal responsibilities in financial management, internal financial control and monitoring in public schools by holding principals accountable for the use of every cent in the schools. Other recommendations include intensive training and capacitating, compliance with legislation and the centralisation of auditing of public school financial books. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Education Management and Policy Studies / PhD / Unrestricted

Self-evaluations are typically performed in the workplace in order to apportion rewards, judge suitability for promotions and to assign people to appropriate roles. However, people adapt their representations of the self to their circumstances so much so that self-evaluations, as a true reflection of a person’s performance or character, are often of little worth. Assuming honest and sincere rather than manipulated feedback in the workplace is better for achieving business objectives, this research describes hypothesised key drivers of self-presentation behaviour and contributes towards improving the design of self-evaluation instruments. A theoretical model of self-presentation behaviour was constructed, drawing on theory of social desirability bias, impression management and accountability, that proposes anticipation of two distinct characteristics of an audience, power to reward and knowledge of the dimensions being assessed, cause the self-presenting individual to adapt their representations of themselves in specific and predictable ways. A quasi-experiment was performed, using a sample of 278 MBA students allocated to four groups, on the effects of audience anticipation on self-reporting on the dimensions of performance and personality. Statistical pair-wise comparisons of means in experimental groups and principal components analysis verified the theoretical model. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2018. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

This thesis study political participation in Sweden. More specifically political participationthrough three indicators on political participation. These three indicators are “voter turnout”,“accountability” and “community engagement”. This studies purpose is to analyze if Swedenhas high or low political participation. The inspiration to make this study comes from a desireto validate or question the assumptions made by The Economist Intelligence Unit in theirdemocracy index from 2020 about Swedens political participation. In their democracy indexthey ranked Sweden low in the democracy category “Political participation” compared toother high ranked democracies. Results from this study shows that Sweden doesn’t have lowpolitical participation, at least according to the indicators that’s been used in this study. Thisalso indicates that the assumptions made by the EIU about Sweden’s low politicalparticipation can be highly questioned. To come to these results this study uses Dahls fivecriteria’s for evaluating a democratic process, and then operationalizing the theory to threedifferent indicators on political participation. The method is then by a case study aboutSweden’s political participation. The material used is from different government fundedorganizations that conducts statistical surveys on voter turnout, accountability, andcommunity engagement.

No abstract / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Public Law / LLM / Unrestricted

Includes bibliographical references / The development of subjecting government procurement awards to judicial review is a relatively recent development in South African law. It accords with a similar development in the United States, as well as South Africa's own constitutional requirements of transparency and public accountability. Given the often lucrative nature of public contracts, challenges to the lawfulness of government procurement awards have become a regular occurrence in South Africa. However, the setting aside of such an award does not automatically follow upon a finding of unlawfulness. For a number of reasons, a court may decline to set aside an unlawful government procurement award. This raises a number of interesting questions, particularly with regard to how such a decision may be reconciled with, and the implications this may have for, the principle of legality and the Rule of Law. This dissertation will address these issues, arguing that, ultimately, the concerns are resolved by appreciating the nature of the principle of legality, and the Rule of Law's place as a value in society.

As required by the Government Performance Results Act of 1993, the use of performance measurements in social service organizations to measure outcome data has increased expectations of efficient outcomes in service delivery. This study addressed the problem of inefficient service delivery in nonprofit human service organizations from the perspective of direct service staff responsible for service provision. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore how direct service staff in nonprofit organizations perceive their individual contributions to the overall goal of providing efficient quality service. Principal agent theory framed the inquiry regarding how direct service staff working in nonprofit human service organizations perceive the nature and value of using performance measurements as required by law. Data were collected from 5 direct service workers through semi-structured interviews and analyzed for content themes using Ethnograph software. The results of this study indicated direct service workers perceive organizational efficiency related to how well they do their jobs and not overall at the organizational level. In addition, participants identified job training and more open communication with management to understand how organizational level goals would be valued to do their jobs effectively. This study contributes to social change by informing those who develop nonprofit human services policy and practice of the potential for further staff training curriculum and improvements to the organizational accountability culture.

Abstract Print media reports on the SABC suggest that the public service broadcaster (PSB) is undergoing a crisis in terms of fulfilling its PSB responsibilities. Hence, this study examines whether the SABC is a genuine PSB. In examining the SABC as a PSB, theories of media and democracy and critical political economy of the media are used. However, this study also engages with the corollary theories of the public sphere, the public interest, PSB, and development journalism. The study uses the PSB characteristics of independence, accountability, distinctiveness and finance as themes to ascertain whether the SABC is a genuine PSB. The methodology of this study consists of institutional analysis, document analysis (which is split into a policy analysis and an examination of print media reports on the SABC) and semi-structured interviews. The study finds that firstly, the SABC’s independence, both politically and economically, is eroded. Secondly, although the SABC is accountable to the state and ICASA, the institution is not adequately accountable to the public it claims to serve. Thirdly, due to the SABC’s reliance on commercial sources of funding, the institution is increasingly shifting towards commercialisation. Fourthly, due to the SABC’s increasing shift towards commercialisation, the institution’s high-quality content provision is being compromised. Hence, the SABC’s distinctiveness in comparison to other broadcasters is eroding. The SABC’s violation of the central tenets of PSB is indicative of a governance crisis within the institution, but most importantly, it indicates that the SABC is not a genuine PSB. A core reason for the SABC’s inability to fulfil the central tenets of PSB and the governance crisis that has befell the institution, are flaws in legislation. The legislation that governs the SABC does not adequately ensure the institution’s independence from the government or its accountability to the public. Consequently, legislation governing the SABC inhibits the institution from fulfilling its PSB responsibilities.