The Eastern Cape Department of Education has a constitutional and legislative mandate to provide quality public education in all public schools within the province. The commitment to improve also involves ensuring effective educator personnel provisioning in public secondary xii schools. However, despite various legislative and policy measures relating to educator personnel provisioning, serious concerns have been raised. There have been concerns over the shortage of educators. There are concerns over the lack of suitably qualified educators, especially in Mathematics and Science subjects. Disparities have been noted between legislative and policy directives with regard to educator personnel provisioning and the expectations of educators based on the realities in public secondary schools. The complications and challenges thereof have called upon for the appraisal of educator provisioning. The objective of the study is to describe and explain the nature and place of personnel provisioning in public secondary schools. Thereafter, evaluate its application at selected public secondary schools in the Eastern Cape Province. The basic intention is to prove that the educator personnel provision policy implementation in public schools needs to be examined and possibly changed for effective results. Basically, personnel provisioning is the first step in the personnel process. It is classified into: Human resources determination; and the Filling of posts The process of filling public personnel posts involves recruitment, selection, appointment, placement, transfer and promotion. In evaluating personnel provisioning policy in public secondary schools, a research study has to be conducted. As an integral part of scope of study, the survey area includes public secondary schools, provincial department offices and educator union/association offices. The questionnaire is used as the appropriate data collection instrument for this survey. The total population for the study are provincial department officials, public secondary school principals, school governing body chairpersons and educator unions/associations. xiii When data was analysed and interpreted, there were various significant findings. The respondents’ demographic details provided a significant insight into the study and its findings. They ensured divergence of opinions and understanding of the personnel provisioning. Regarding human resources determination and the filling of posts in public secondary schools, it was found that there are challenges in terms of the employment of suitably qualified educators. These include among other issues educator dissatisfaction and lack of effective procedures in the filling of posts. This also results in educator shortage in public secondary schools.

A qualitative research design that is explorative, descriptive and contextual in nature was employed in order to understand and describe the professional nurses' perception of the implementation of a quality circles programme in a public hospital in the Eastern Cape Province and to develop guidelines for the implementation of a quality circles programme in public hospitals. The data-collection techniques were individual semi-structured interviews and field notes. The sample was drawn from a population of 425 Xhosa-speaking professional nurses employed in this institution. The sample comprised eight (8) professional nurses all of whom volunteered for in-depth individual semi-structured interviews. All the respondents answered one question "How do you perceive the implementation of the quality circles programme in your hospital?" During data collection and analysis only one theme emerged, namely the perception of quality circles as a forum for discussing patient care problems and future plans. There were four broad categories in this theme, namely  Staff empowerment  Teambuilding in the nursing discipline  Maintenance of standards by nurses  Challenges to the momentum of a quality circles programme It is recommended that all three tiers of nursing management be involved in the quality circles programme to improve interpersonal, interdepartmental and intradepartmental communication and concomitantly the nursing care. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)

A qualitative research design that is explorative, descriptive and contextual in nature was employed in order to understand and describe the professional nurses' perception of the implementation of a quality circles programme in a public hospital in the Eastern Cape Province and to develop guidelines for the implementation of a quality circles programme in public hospitals. The data-collection techniques were individual semi-structured interviews and field notes. The sample was drawn from a population of 425 Xhosa-speaking professional nurses employed in this institution. The sample comprised eight (8) professional nurses all of whom volunteered for in-depth individual semi-structured interviews. All the respondents answered one question "How do you perceive the implementation of the quality circles programme in your hospital?" During data collection and analysis only one theme emerged, namely the perception of quality circles as a forum for discussing patient care problems and future plans. There were four broad categories in this theme, namely  Staff empowerment  Teambuilding in the nursing discipline  Maintenance of standards by nurses  Challenges to the momentum of a quality circles programme It is recommended that all three tiers of nursing management be involved in the quality circles programme to improve interpersonal, interdepartmental and intradepartmental communication and concomitantly the nursing care. / Health Studies / M.A. (Health Studies)