This study explores the challenges perceived by senior officers in Western university branch campuses in a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state and aims to provide insights into how leaders dealt with them. Thus, the study addresses four research questions. First, how campus senior officers perceive the challenges? Second, to what extent are these challenges a result of operating in a different cultural context? Third, how do senior officers deal with these challenges and maintain the quality of their home universities? Finally, how can the study findings be theorised to inform future policy and practice? As a form of transnational higher education, some of the GCC states have established branch campuses of leading Western universities to provide quality higher education to their citizens locally and build knowledge economies. Campus managers, usually from their home Western universities, face challenges related to the local cultural context. These challenges include the GCC state societal views of the campuses, the Western University approach to co-education, the GCC state development efforts to grow a Knowledge Economy through quality Western-style education, and national students’ academic preparation. This research was conducted as an exploratory qualitative multiple case study of five branch campuses. Data were collected through interviews with senior officers from the campuses and the host organization in the GCC state, and the five campuses' annual reports. Data were analysed through open and axial coding. Then thematic analysis was used to identify themes from the data. The study revealed that the major challenges for campus officers are recruiting academically strong students from the pool of citizens, and understanding the local culture and adjusting aspects of the curriculum to fit the local context especially for campuses that offer social sciences and arts programmes. Campus officers engaged in efforts to make school students more qualified for admission by the campuses, and some leaders made adjustments to the curriculum to better suit their students’ abilities.

The Covid-19 pandemic affected educational organizations, as new educational delivery models introduced with the use of electronic tools for learning purposes. The use of digital tools has been common in universities and in adult education. However, the adoption of e-learning for providing education to minors has been a new phenomenon. There are many research findings regarding e-learning in higher education and in educational programs concerning adults. Less is known about the challenges of e-learning in secondary education. Therefore, this thesis intends to elicit information about the challenges that students, teachers and organizations faced during the pandemic, when e-learning was introduced as the only means to teaching minors. The challenges were investigated by performing an exploratory case study based on “Orosimo 2001”, a tutoring school in northeast Greece. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews with 9 teachers of the educational organization and thereafter was analyzed through thematic analysis. The findings were classified into three categories: students’ challenges, teachers’ challenges and organizational challenges. Furthermore, the positive and the negative effects of the introduction of e-learning were investigated. Finally, the organizational learning theory was used in order to examine whether the introduction of e-learning was the occasion for the teachers of “Orosimo 2001” to transform their educational practices. This research contributes to the existing literature by describing the challenges and the impact of e-learning in secondary education, providing insights that can be used in order to mitigate the negative effects of e-learning. The findings can be used to build e-learning procedures based on the needs of students, teachers and organizations. Furthermore, the research can be a tool in the training of teachers and members of educational organizations in e-learning environments. In addition, this study proposes an adaptation of organizational learning theory in order to examine the adoption of e-learning tools by secondary school teachers.

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Orientador: Clara Germana de Sa Gonçalves Nascimento / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-11T06:46:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ledesma_MariaRitaKaminski_D.pdf: 1112521 bytes, checksum: aa9eed2a674272eaa006efd33c008846 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Resumo: A gestão democrática da educação brasileira ainda se manifesta como um projeto inconcluso, especialmente no que se refere à organização do trabalho pedagógico, que é o próprio eixo da escola. É com esse entendimento que a presente pesquisa aborda os desafios que a gestão escolar necessita enfrentar e superar para que efetivamente possa consolidar uma educação democrática e uma prática transformadora, cujo centro é a pessoa. Iniciando nosso estudo faz-se uma inserção pelo processo da gestão escolar entendendo-a como parte essencial para viabilizar um projeto emancipador à escola, aos educadores e ao educandos. Para tanto, investigamos a gênese da escola na modernidade e as implicações de sua organização no exercício cotidiano da elaboração do processo de produção do conhecimento escolar e das resistências que permeiam a escola, bem como, analisamos os paradoxos e conseqüências da modernidade que se estendem para a educação. Decorrente dessas análises é que vamos defender a construção de um projeto democrático e emancipador para a escola brasileira, tomando como referência a Escola da Ponte em Portugal. Esta, na construção de um projeto educativo consciente, coletivo e centrado conseguiu modificar os padrões vigentes na escola pública reconhecido por todos os atores sociais nela envolvidos e legalmente, pelos órgãos superiores de educação em Portugal / Abstract: The democratic management of the Brazilian education still shows itself as an inconclusive project, especially when it refers to the pedagogic work organization, which is the proper axis of the school. And using this understanding, the present research broaches the challenges that the school management needs to face and get it over so it can effectively strengthen a democratic education and a transforming practice, whose center is the person. Starting our study, an insertion through the school management process understanding it as an essential part to supply na emancipating project to the school, the educators and students is done. Then the origin of the school in the modernity and the implications of its organization in the daily exercise of the elaboration of the school knowledge production process and the difficulties that involve the school, also analyzing the paradoxes and the consequences of the modernity that extend to the education were investigated. From these analysis, a construction of a democratic and emancipating project to the Brazilian school takings reference the School of the Bridge in Portugal that in the construction of a conscious, collective, focused on the human being educational project, modified the current public school standards and those recognized by the involved people and the Superior Department of Education of Portugal is defended. / Doutorado / Politicas de Educação e Sistemas Educativos / Mestre em Educação

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The entire context of South African education is undergoing a slow, yet definite metamorphosis, and inclusion is now nationally both a constitutional imperative and an unequivocal reality. Teachers are the key role-players in determining the quality of implementation of this new policy. They are expected to embrace the new philosophy, to think and to work in a new frame of reference. Unfortunately, too often change in education has failed because insufficient attention has been paid to the challenges posed to those who are expected to put the change into effect. Against this background the aim of this study is to determine the challenges posed to the teacher of the child with a hearing loss in inclusive education. In order to attain this aim, the study was divided into two sections: a literature study and an empirical study. The literature study offers a review of the development of the inclusive philosophy, with specific reference to the educational inclusion of the child with a hearing loss. The knowledge and attitude of teachers towards inclusive education as well the responsibilities of the teachers of a child with a hearing loss within the South African education system are critically discussed. During the empirical research a descriptive design was followed comprising of questionnaire surveys followed by focus group discussions. The questionnaire surveys explored the knowledge, attitudes and training needs of 220 teachers and 81 student teachers. Focus group discussions were conducted with four parents, five speech therapist/audiologist and four teachers (all actively involved in inclusion programmes) and these results were used to substantiate findings from the questionnaire survey. The results of this study indicate that the teachers in regular education as well as the student teachers had sufficient knowledge about the theoretical aspects of inclusion but they lack knowledge regarding the child with a hearing loss. Aspects that were significantly related to the teachers’ lack of knowledge were their unwillingness to include a child with hearing loss and to a lesser extent their years of teaching experience. It was clear that both the teachers and student teachers appear to have negative attitudes towards the inclusion of children with hearing loss. The negative attitudes of the teachers were, as in the case of knowledge, significantly related to their unwillingness to include a child with a hearing loss and their years of teaching experience, but also to their personal experience with hearing loss. The teachers and student teachers indicated specific needs in terms of further training and the content of training. A wide variety of demands that are posed to teachers with regard to the unique South African context were identified, for example lack of support, lack of training, high teacher/child ratios etc. The implications of this study, which amongst other factors include the motivation for the promotion of educational audiology in order to support and train the teachers of children with a hearing loss in inclusive education, are discussed. The education system is challenged to address the needs of teachers in order to ensure the successful implementation of inclusive education for children with hearing loss. / Thesis (DPhil (Communication Pathology))--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / unrestricted

The objectives, curriculum, pedagogy, teachers, and students are components of entrepreneurship education, perceived as challenges for its implementation and growth. Consequently, most research and discussions have focused on measures to improve them even though little is known about how they constrain entrepreneurship education. Not much is also known about any positive attributes they might have. This study sought to address this gap in literature by exploring the attributes of these educational components, and how they impacted on teaching and learning in a higher education institution in Ghana. Adopting the qualitative case study research approach, data was collected from two classroom sessions, 20 students, four teachers and a programme coordinator, using observation, focus groups and face to face interviews respectively. The study found the educational components had positive and negative attributes that impacted favourably and adversely on teacher decisions and behaviour, and on teaching and learning. The findings points to the need for a more holistic examination of the educational components by researchers and practitioners, to also focus on their merits, to help fashion out more effective and sustainable policies and strategies for entrepreneurship education. The study contribute to literature by shedding light on some merits of the educational components and how they enhance teaching and learning and support the aims of entrepreneurship education. Further research to replicate this study or aspects of it in other contexts and populations is recommended. / Educational Management and Leadership / Ph. D. (Education Management)