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Changes recently introduced in the administration of New Zealand education were intended to ensure that schools would become more responsive to their communities. Many aspects of school governance were devolved from a central government bureaucracy to Boards of Trustees at each school and greater choice of school was given to parents. In this thesis I examine the assumptions underlying these policy changes and propose a model of the processes necessary for the development of school responsiveness. The research progressed over four phases. In the first I survey beliefs and practices in 38 Auckland schools about the new school-community partnership established by the devolution of governance responsibility to the Boards of Trustees. This survey was followed by a second more extensive questionnaire survey on the same topic in ten of these schools. The role educational values might play in parents' choice of school and their perceptions of school responsiveness were addressed in a survey of five secondary schools in the second phase. The third phase comprised case studies of two schools which had contrasting community-school relationships. In one school the principal valued a close partnership with the community, yet the school roll had fallen steadily over a five year period. In the other school, which enjoyed a rapidly increasing roll, the principal believed educational decisions should be left to the professionals. The case studies investigated this apparent contradiction, that the partnership relationship between parents and professionals which was designed to increase school responsiveness appeared to be unrelated to roll trends, a possible indicator of responsiveness. In the fourth phase I describe and evaluate how the school with the declining roll attempted to become more responsive to its community. The research results show that the concept of responsiveness contained in the initial policy documents was simplistic in that neither a community-school partnership nor school choice was sufficient to improve responsiveness to the community. I propose a more focused concept of responsiveness than that contained in the policy documents and identify two critical attributes of this concept; the school's educational values and parents' concerns about school practice. Parents choose schools because they perceive that the professionals share their educational values. I suggest that establishing cohesive values, both between home and school and within the school itself, is educationally desirable and critical to achieving responsiveness. This cohesion, however, should be enacted in a way which respects the diversity within the school population if some students are not to be alienated by the values of the majority. The second attribute of responsiveness, acting on valid concerns of parents, involves parents in decisions about school practice of greatest importance to them. Vague calls for consultation on school policy do not achieve this aim. My proposed concept of responsiveness does not assume that parents dominate areas previously reserved for professional prerogative, but rather that parents and professionals jointly determine policy in those areas critical to achieving responsiveness. School-community partnerships and school choice will not result in responsiveness unless they serve as catalysts for professional learning about the values and concerns of the community. This learning is enhanced if schools encourage parents to exercise influence and engage in joint problem-solving. Achieving school responsiveness depends more on the attitudes and skills of the participants in the partnership than on the structural changes enacted in the recent legislation.

Changes recently introduced in the administration of New Zealand education were intended to ensure that schools would become more responsive to their communities. Many aspects of school governance were devolved from a central government bureaucracy to Boards of Trustees at each school and greater choice of school was given to parents. In this thesis I examine the assumptions underlying these policy changes and propose a model of the processes necessary for the development of school responsiveness. The research progressed over four phases. In the first I survey beliefs and practices in 38 Auckland schools about the new school-community partnership established by the devolution of governance responsibility to the Boards of Trustees. This survey was followed by a second more extensive questionnaire survey on the same topic in ten of these schools. The role educational values might play in parents' choice of school and their perceptions of school responsiveness were addressed in a survey of five secondary schools in the second phase. The third phase comprised case studies of two schools which had contrasting community-school relationships. In one school the principal valued a close partnership with the community, yet the school roll had fallen steadily over a five year period. In the other school, which enjoyed a rapidly increasing roll, the principal believed educational decisions should be left to the professionals. The case studies investigated this apparent contradiction, that the partnership relationship between parents and professionals which was designed to increase school responsiveness appeared to be unrelated to roll trends, a possible indicator of responsiveness. In the fourth phase I describe and evaluate how the school with the declining roll attempted to become more responsive to its community. The research results show that the concept of responsiveness contained in the initial policy documents was simplistic in that neither a community-school partnership nor school choice was sufficient to improve responsiveness to the community. I propose a more focused concept of responsiveness than that contained in the policy documents and identify two critical attributes of this concept; the school's educational values and parents' concerns about school practice. Parents choose schools because they perceive that the professionals share their educational values. I suggest that establishing cohesive values, both between home and school and within the school itself, is educationally desirable and critical to achieving responsiveness. This cohesion, however, should be enacted in a way which respects the diversity within the school population if some students are not to be alienated by the values of the majority. The second attribute of responsiveness, acting on valid concerns of parents, involves parents in decisions about school practice of greatest importance to them. Vague calls for consultation on school policy do not achieve this aim. My proposed concept of responsiveness does not assume that parents dominate areas previously reserved for professional prerogative, but rather that parents and professionals jointly determine policy in those areas critical to achieving responsiveness. School-community partnerships and school choice will not result in responsiveness unless they serve as catalysts for professional learning about the values and concerns of the community. This learning is enhanced if schools encourage parents to exercise influence and engage in joint problem-solving. Achieving school responsiveness depends more on the attitudes and skills of the participants in the partnership than on the structural changes enacted in the recent legislation.

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Inclusive education was introduced into the Malaysian school system as a pilot scheme in 1994, involving a small number of elementary schools throughout the country. This study examines teachers' and principals' conceptions of inclusive education, their understanding of the Inclusive Education Policy and their attitudes towards the pilot implementation of inclusive education. Using individual interviews and surveys, the researcher explored the views of regular and special education teachers from pilot and non-pilot elementary schools. A total of 36 special and regular classroom teachers and six principals from six geographically representative pilot schools and 18 traditional classroom teachers from six matching non-pilot schools participated in this study. Data examination showed that differences existed in the teachers' conceptions of inclusive education. Seven hierarchically ordered conceptions of inclusive education were identified. They ranged from the provision of educational opportunities in the traditional classroom for all students regardless of disability to the provision of enrichment for students with special abilities. Teachers were found to have limited understanding of the educational policies related to inclusive education. Many principals and teachers, nevertheless, favoured inclusive education but the teachers were concerned about an increase in workload as a result of the inclusion of children with special needs in their classes. Class size was also seen as a barrier to implementing inclusive education. It was concluded that principals and teachers were concerned about the inadequate professional preparation of teachers for inclusive education and the difficulties of coping with children with special needs when placed in the traditional classroom settings. These findings have serious educational implications and support the need for comprehensive inservice training programmes that are designed to meet the needs of teachers during pre-service programmes and in in-service training. The researcher also gave some attention to the process of change as it occurred during the pilot implementation of inclusive education while her discussion of theoretical issues, related to the implementation, led to the development of an explanatory model to assist understanding of an approach to the further implementation of inclusive education in Malaysia.

Changes recently introduced in the administration of New Zealand education were intended to ensure that schools would become more responsive to their communities. Many aspects of school governance were devolved from a central government bureaucracy to Boards of Trustees at each school and greater choice of school was given to parents. In this thesis I examine the assumptions underlying these policy changes and propose a model of the processes necessary for the development of school responsiveness. The research progressed over four phases. In the first I survey beliefs and practices in 38 Auckland schools about the new school-community partnership established by the devolution of governance responsibility to the Boards of Trustees. This survey was followed by a second more extensive questionnaire survey on the same topic in ten of these schools. The role educational values might play in parents' choice of school and their perceptions of school responsiveness were addressed in a survey of five secondary schools in the second phase. The third phase comprised case studies of two schools which had contrasting community-school relationships. In one school the principal valued a close partnership with the community, yet the school roll had fallen steadily over a five year period. In the other school, which enjoyed a rapidly increasing roll, the principal believed educational decisions should be left to the professionals. The case studies investigated this apparent contradiction, that the partnership relationship between parents and professionals which was designed to increase school responsiveness appeared to be unrelated to roll trends, a possible indicator of responsiveness. In the fourth phase I describe and evaluate how the school with the declining roll attempted to become more responsive to its community. The research results show that the concept of responsiveness contained in the initial policy documents was simplistic in that neither a community-school partnership nor school choice was sufficient to improve responsiveness to the community. I propose a more focused concept of responsiveness than that contained in the policy documents and identify two critical attributes of this concept; the school's educational values and parents' concerns about school practice. Parents choose schools because they perceive that the professionals share their educational values. I suggest that establishing cohesive values, both between home and school and within the school itself, is educationally desirable and critical to achieving responsiveness. This cohesion, however, should be enacted in a way which respects the diversity within the school population if some students are not to be alienated by the values of the majority. The second attribute of responsiveness, acting on valid concerns of parents, involves parents in decisions about school practice of greatest importance to them. Vague calls for consultation on school policy do not achieve this aim. My proposed concept of responsiveness does not assume that parents dominate areas previously reserved for professional prerogative, but rather that parents and professionals jointly determine policy in those areas critical to achieving responsiveness. School-community partnerships and school choice will not result in responsiveness unless they serve as catalysts for professional learning about the values and concerns of the community. This learning is enhanced if schools encourage parents to exercise influence and engage in joint problem-solving. Achieving school responsiveness depends more on the attitudes and skills of the participants in the partnership than on the structural changes enacted in the recent legislation.

Industry practitioners and educators both agree that tourism and hospitality management curricula need to reflect recent and future industry needs and developments, to ensure graduates are equipped with appropriate and industry-relevant skills. Furthermore, the combination of theory with practice is viewed as an essential component of a student’s tourism and hospitality management education. In the past, limited attempts have been made to provide empirical support to claims that a practical internship experience develops management competence in tourism and hospitality management students. In addition, Australian research into the management competencies employers in tourism and hospitality industries expect of recent graduates is minimal. Given the proliferation of tourism and hospitality-related courses over the past decade and the relative importance attributed to internship in developing students’ management competencies, such evaluations are considered important.Thus, this study focused on three main research objectives which were; to identify the management competencies that managers of organisations within tourism and hospitality industries expect of recent tourism and hospitality graduates; to determine whether students’ management competencies are developed during the internship component of Southern Cross University’s Bachelor of Business in Tourism degree; and to determine whether the management competencies of Southern Cross University’s Bachelor of Business in Tourism students meet the expectations of selected managers of organisations in four tourism and hospitality sectors. The study utilised the 24 management competencies and eight roles of Quinn, Thompson, Faerman and McGrath’s (1990) Competing Values Framework (CVF) to test two research hypotheses. The first hypothesis proposed that students’ pre-internship mean scores will be significantly lower than their post-internship mean scores with respect to the 24 management competencies and eight managerial roles associated with Quinn et al.’s (1990) Competing Values Framework. The second hypothesis proposed that students’ post-internship mean scores will not be significantly lower than the selected managers’ mean scores with respect to the 24 management competencies and eight managerial roles associated with Quinn et al.’s (1990) Competing Values Framework. A specific survey instrument, the Self Assessment of Managerial Skills (DiPadova, 1990), was used to survey managers within four sectors of Australian tourism and hospitality industries and Bachelor of Business in Tourism internship students from Southern Cross University in Lismore, Australia. Students were surveyed before and after internship.The study found that students’ perceptions of their level of managerial competence had significantly increased after the completion of their internship placement in six of the 24 management competencies and three of the eight managerial roles, thus partially supporting the first research hypothesis. Further, it was found that pre-internship, students perceived these six competencies were their weakest competency areas, with one exception - Presenting Information by Writing Effectively. This suggests that internship has complemented competencies developed during their coursework. The study also found that after completing internship, students’ perceptions of their managerial competence were reasonably congruent with the expectations of this sample of managers, thus supporting the second research hypothesis. In this study students’ post-internship competencies were found to be reasonably aligned with Quinn, Faerman and Dixit’s (1987) research which examined the relationship between management competencies and hierarchical levels in an organisation. Empirical data collected from the students and the managers, identified students’ management profiles preand post-internship and the management profile that managers expect of recent graduates. These profiles resembled Quinn’s (1991) description of a Master Manager. These findings suggest that internship has assisted students in moving closer to the competence required of a Master Manager.The study concludes that the internship component of a student’s tourism and hospitality education can hold real educational benefits in preparing them for future management roles. Also, as entry level graduates, this cohort of students has the ability to demonstrate competence over a range of transferable generic management competencies and should be effectively equipped to undertake a range of managerial opportunities that may be presented to them. The study demonstrates the importance of conducting empirically based evaluation to provide support to the debate on the true educational value of internship and highlights the need for further research in this area. It also demonstrates the application of the eight management roles and 24 management competencies of the CVF (Quinn et al., 1990) to tourism and hospitality industries.With the recent proliferation of tourism and hospitality management programs, tertiary education providers are now being held more accountable for the courses they offer. Curricula must reflect the changing needs of industry. Research in collaboration with tourism and hospitality industries must continue to ensure that courses offered are not only relevant but are also producing graduates with skills and knowledge they will need as future managers.