Schools and districts are implementing more change initiatives because of an increase in accountability through national, state, and city requirements. Teachers and administrators are responsible for adhering to change initiatives and producing the results to bring the reform initiative to a successful fruition. This study explores the attitudes that are prevalent in the schools regarding reform initiatives and the change process. A qualitative research method was used to explore the prevailing attitudes about change among teachers and administrators. Teachers were not opposed to changing if their students would benefit from the change; however, changing just for change sake was not acceptable. Themes of teacher empowerment and voice were prevalent. Teachers wanted to be heard because they had the expertise within the classroom with their students and they wanted the autonomy to shape reform initiatives to fit the needs of their classrooms. School support, district support, and community support were important systems to ensure success of reform initiatives. Within each support system were important roles and responsibilities teachers depended upon for resources as a reform initiative progressed. In addition, teachers spoke candidly about essential professional development opportunities and collaboration within their schools. Teachers addressed the 4 reform initiatives pertinent to this study and discussed the impact of the initiatives on the classrooms. Reform initiatives are not cure-alls for what is ailing the public schools; however, there is a place for reform within each school and district. Teachers want to have valid data and clear cut goals and objectives to support the reform. Principals and superintendents have roles and responsibilities before, during, and after a reform initiative because teachers look to them for cues regarding reform. The 4 reform initiatives studied are still having an impact on classes today, some more than others. This study adds to the development of knowledge about the change process and change initiatives. It provides a framework for administrators involved with change to understand the preconceived notions and explore ways to reshape those notions. It may also aid future developers of reform initiatives as they develop programs for schools to adopt.

To offer support before problems develop into greater difficulties is an important quality in the social services' work with children and families. An increased focus on early support is addressed in the political debate as a way to hinder children from being recruited into criminal gangs. The essay aims to investigate how parents with children under six in the outskirts of Stockholm experience and use parental counselling. A thematic analyse of nine semi-structured interviews with parents that have received parental counselling, shows that the parents describe counselling as an open talk with a professional friend, a safe space to explore their own parenting, their relationship with the child and the partner as well as coparenting and to explore how received advices works out in their own parenting. The results are analysed from a psychopathological developmental perspective as well as from the concept of governmentality. Risk- and protective factors regarding parent, child and family seem to have been addressed in the counselling but not factors in the demographic environment. The parents’ motivation to seek support can be understood as an internalized eager to be led. This raises questions whether such an internalized motivation is needed to be attracted by the counselling.

Thesis (M. A. (Sociology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / In most developing countries including South Africa, the anti-poverty programmes aim to enhance and improve the living condition of the helpless people in the society (DSD, SASSA and UNICEF,2012). In addressing children poverty after the apartheid era, the Child Support Grant (CSG) was implemented in 1998 subsequently the State Maintenance Grant (SMG) was abolished after the review in 1997 by the Lund Committee (Grinspun, 2016 and Xaba, 2016). After twenty-two years of CSG existence, this study aimed to examine the successes of CSG in addressing child poverty and vulnerable households at Ha-Mulima. The study was guided by Structural functional theory as a theoretical framework and a qualitative research methodology was applied to examine the ways or mechanisms through which the Child Support Grant has been successful in attending to the problem of child and household poverty. An exploratory case study approach was used as a research design and the participants were selected through a purposive sampling procedure. In addition, data was collected from participants through semi-structured interviews and focus groups, while thematic content analysis was employed to analyse the findings. The findings of the study show that there are positive outcomes of CSG in relation to the utilisation of grant to eradicate child poverty and household poverty. The study found that the CSG has a positive impact in reducing child poverty since it reduces hunger, children access education and caregivers utilize the money to buy clothes for them. Regardless of caregiver’s dietary diversity in the households, the CSG has positive impacts on food insecurity and improved food consumption since families can use the money to buy food. The findings indicated that the CSG promotes self-reliance in communities whereby the caregivers create their own jobs and affiliate to various stokvels with the aim to empower themselves financially to avoid the dependability on the grant. The significance of the study lies in the way it has the potential of unravelling the dynamics of the Child Support Grant in rural communities. / HW SETA PHARMACY PRO

Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

Published Article / The former Technikon Free State, now the CUT, was concerned about the academic achievements of students and decided to introduce a programme to enhance the outcomes of student learning. The then Technikon initially identified weak performers and advised / compelled them to attend special classes. This programme proved to be unsuccessful due to the potential stigma associated with attending special classes. The Technikon commenced with its first research initiatives to implement supplemental instruction (SI) in 1993. The founders of SI, Profs Diana Martin and Robert Blanc of the University of Kansas City in Missouri, USA, presented demonstrations at joint workshops and also invited attendees to attend SI workshops in the USA. Soon permission was granted to implement SI at this institution in 1993. A new dimension to the concept of SI, namely to record SI lectures for discussion afterwards was added.

Published Article / Psychosocial support has been defined as an ongoing process of meeting emotional, social, mental and spiritual needs, all of which are considered essential elements of meaningful and positive human development. It goes beyond simply meeting the learners' physical needs, placing greater emphasis on learners' psychological and emotional development and their need for social interaction. The Free State Department of Basic Education defines vulnerable learners as orphans, heads of child-headed households, neglected learners and all learners who do not have access to a basic set of school uniforms. The department states that there are currently 70 000 of these learners in the province. This article presents a theoretical critique, within a social justice paradigm, of efforts aimed at supporting vulnerable learners psychosocially in the rural areas of South Africa. It describes attempts to afford vulnerable learners education and addresses their marginalisation and inherent powerlessness (social justice). It argues that psychosocial support (meeting their needs) for vulnerable learners will improve their access to education.

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Hyper-wideband communications represent the next frontier in spread spectrum RF systems with an excess of 10 GHz instantaneous bandwidth. In this thesis, an end-to-end physical layer link is implemented featuring 16k-OFDM with a 4 GHz-wide channel centered at 9 GHz. No a priori channel state information is assumed; channel information is derived from the preamble and comb pilot structure. Due to the unique expansive spectral properties, the channel estimator is primarily composed of least squares channel estimates combined with a robust support vector statistical learning approach using autonomously selected parameters. The system’s performance is demonstrated through indoor wireless experiments, including line-of-sight and near-line-of-sight links. Moreover, it is shown that the support vector approach performs superior to linear and cubic spline inter/extrapolation of the least squares channel estimates.

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