The purpose of this study is to investigate teaching and learning practices in Grade nine Technology Education classrooms. However, this is to ensure the relationship between the existing Technology Education teaching and learning practices and the Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) requirements. The study was conducted in three King William’s Town Senior Secondary schools. The research took the form of a qualitative interpretive case study focusing on a study sample of three Technology Education teacher participants. The qualitative methods used allowed the researcher to gather the data in order to describe and interpret teachers’ Technology Education instructional practices in Grade nine classrooms. The data was gathered by the observation of Technology Education lessons in the classrooms, through the interviews, as well as the examination of the learning area policy documents (mainly the lesson plans and the activities in the classrooms). In contrast to the past traditional curriculum, the outcomes-based RNCS proposes that teachers teach for understanding and concept development with emphasis on active learning, problem solving, reasoning and communicating technologically. To achieve the outcomes of the RNCS, teachers who are regarded as the “key contributors to the transformation of education in South Africa” need to be “qualified, competent, dedicated, caring and be able to fulfill the various roles outlined in the Norms and Standards for educators” (Department of Education, 2002a, p.9). vi It has been evident by the researcher that instructional practices are not aligned with curriculum expectations. The findings revealed two fundamental reasons for this, namely the teachers’ understanding of the RNCS is limited and teachers’ lack of confidence with regard to content knowledge for Technology Education teaching. Teacher competence relates to teachers having the content knowledge and the ability to use this knowledge pedagogically to ensure that the curriculum is thoroughly covered at all levels. It has been recommended in this study that teacher development needs to become a priority. It is vital, that programmes are developed to retrain Grade nine Technology Education teachers in-service.

D.Ed. (Psychology of Education) / A democratic and prosperous society necessitates responsible behaviour from its members. The observation is often made that responsible behaviour is often absent or underdeveloped in society, especially amongst the schoolleaving youth. The development of responsible, well-trained schoolleavers is universally seen as the task of the school. This is because the development of responsibility is usually associated with the aims of the education process and the attainment of adulthood. It is at school that the opportunities may arise to teach, take and experience responsibility. Any of the activities at school may present opportunities which either contribute to the development of responsibility or inhibit it. Great emphasis is placed on the rights of children, yet too little is made of the opportunities which may assist in creating the perception amongst children that they are able to accept and act responsibly. The aspect of creating positive perception about a pupil's own ability is a very important aspect of education as a whole and should be developed to the fullest extent, in order teach and develop responsibility. Schools should take cognizance of this and endeavour to create a climate for pupils in which to accept responsibility. The invitational approach in education is based on the assumption of the perceptual tradition that all people have unrealized potential that may be developed within a climate of trust, intentionality, respect and optimism. In this approach all the participants in the educational process are regarded as responsible, capable and valuable. What teachers believe the pupils to be, they convey to them through their actions, words and the opportunities they present to them. These perceptions influence behaviour. It is therefore imperative that positive perceptions about pupils' ability to accept responsibility and to act independently are created and enhanced. The role of the school in the development of responsibility, the opportunities present for the development of pupils' acceptance of responsibility and the lack of responsible behaviour amongst school leavers, as indicated by employers, prompted the following questions: • does the school present pupils with opportunities to accept responsibility? • to what extent do pupils experience the opportunities to accept responsibility as such?

M.Ed. (Educational Guidance) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Ed. (Media Science) / The position of Afrikaans as a national language In South Africa has been a contested one since the 17th century settlement and occupation of the Cape by the Dutch and British settlers, and it Is not surprising that today, when the country faces critical questions relating to nationhood, cultural identity and language use In a profound way, its position again emerges as a crucial point of debate (Alexander, 1989:15). The Afrikaner group and the majority of their white South African adherents place great value on the historicity of the language. This is testified through the 'taalstryd" waged dUring an after the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) and the present-day status of the Afrikaans language as a major item on the negotiations agenda. This historicity and centrality of Afrikaans is contested by other language and cultural groups, who claim that Afrikaans is loaded with exclusivity and racism and that it therefore does not qualify in its claim for national status. The events of 1976 in Black schools and the subsequent years of considerable debate in public and academic forums, quite clearly Illustrates the Intensity of the contest surrounding the position of Afrikaans (Alexander, 1989:26). The Indian population group has always stressed its cultural heritage and at times this has occurred at the expense of Afrikaans as a language. Priority Is assigned to vernacular languages and Afrikaans is neglected in the process. The result is that the language is hardly spoken except in the Afrikaans classroom. It is against this background that this research project will examine the use of pictures In the teaching of Afrikaans at Indian secondary schools.

Please read the abstract in the section, 00front, of this document / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Thesis (Ph. D. (Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / The purpose of this research was to investigate teachers’ professional proficiency in terms of geography as a subject and English as the language of learning and teaching, the level of difficulty of the textbooks in terms of their difficulty of terminologies and structure, and the impact of code-switching from LoLT into local African languages on learners’ growth in geographical terminologies and communicativeness in English thinking in geography. These issues were considered by the researcher as barriers to learning and teaching of geography in grade 12 in the Limpopo Province. For the investigation of the barriers, the researcher chose research design comprising qualitative, quantitative, explorative and descriptive approaches pertinent to the study. The central figure in the investigation was the learner; the study was underpinned by the constructivist approach. The researcher considered triangulation of methods when gathering data due to the comprehensiveness of the sought data. The method employed was to gather literature on similar studies conducted by scholars elsewhere to shed light to the researcher of the problem under investigation. Structured questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, participant observations were used to collect data on focal learning and teaching activities. The researcher was keen in determining how teachers employed their preferred methods of teaching geography and the attitudes and perceptions of the learners to the activities that were part of the lessons. The researcher involved (n=16) subject teachers, and administered a 20-item questionnaire to learners. (n=407) responded to a 15-item questionnaire. Curriculum teachers (n=10) were interviewed separately from the pool of the said (n=16), subject advisers (n=2) were interviewed to provide first-hand experience. The findings affirmed that there was poor professional proficiency; textbooks were a recognized learning barrier to second language English learners in terms of the difficulty of the language which was linked to geographical concepts coined in English, teachers’ lack of linguistic competence in LoLT to supplement the difficult textbooks. The result was that this led to resorting to code-switching that deprived learners of practice in the language to attain effective learning and good performance in examinations.

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies / See the attached abstract below

Bibliography: p. 155-160. / The Emil Weder High School is in the small rural town of Genadendal, which is situated about 150 kilometres south-east of Cape Town, near Caledon. While doing field work for the Education Foundation early in 1994, one of the schools I Weder High School. It was the last of visited was Emil six House of Representatives schools that I visited, and I immediately noticed a difference at Emil Weder, compared to the other schools. The school buildings and surrounding fields and gardens were very neat and well maintained, the students were neatly dressed and very polite· and the staff were far friendlier than we had previously encountered. My initial impressions of a well-run school were confirmed, when I found out that the school is achieving outstanding academic and extra-mural results. I naturally assumed that this was the norm at the school and was very surprised to find out that it was, in fact, a fairly new phenomenon and that as recently as 1990 the school had experienced student unrest, boycotts, vandalism, gang activities and very poor academic results (in 1990 only 48% of their matriculants passed). Yet, in 1991 the pass rate was 88%, in 1992 it was 100% and last year they had a 98,8% pass rate (one failure). The topic to be researched Based on the above information I developed the hypothesis that certain school-level policy changes had occurred at Emil Weder from 1990 onwards which had led to the establishment of a culture of learning at Emil Weder High School. The purpose of my study was to find out whether policies had in fact changed at the school, and to what extent these new policies could explain the dramatic improvement in Matriculation results at the school. The study was conducted in two distinct phases, one in March 1994 and the other in September 1994. The initial study formed part of the Education Foundation and served to give an overview of how the school operated at the time. The follow-up study took much longer as it involved conducting in-depth interviews with teachers, ex-students and parents. The study revealed that by adopting a multi-level approach to improving the school, with the achievement of better Matriculation results being the major area of focus, the school not only improved these results, but that the school also started achieving better outputs in other areas as well.

Libode district is a rural district within the Eastern Cape Province. It has forty-two senior secondary schools. All schools in Libode district offer the English subject as the first additional language (second language). Schools in Libode district use English as the medium of instruction. English as the medium of instruction was seen by the National Department of Education as an important aspect of teaching and learning and as an effective tool through which teachers and learners can express their knowledge. The pass rate of grade twelve learners had declined from 2004 showing very low success rates. The quality of grade twelve results in English had deprived learners of their future career prospects. This treatise investigated the factors that might have affected the pass rate of grade twelve learners with specific reference to the English subject: a case study of selected schools in Libode district. A sample of 165 grade 12 learners and six English teachers from randomly selected senior secondary schools participated in the study. The study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Some factors affecting the pass rate of grade twelve learners with specific reference to the English subject were identified which included the non-implementation of English as medium of instruction, the non-availability of teaching facilities, and the influence of the mother tongue on the English subject. The treatise offers some recommendations such as improved in-service training on language teaching, assessment techniques and learner-centredness, involvement of all education stakeholders in the implementation of English as a language of teaching and learning, and the provision of teaching facilities in schools.

Thesis (M. Tech.) -- Central University of Technology, Free State, 2010 / The aim of the study was to determine the problems encountered by educators who teach Computer Applications Technology (CAT) and Information Technology (IT) in the FET band in the Bloemfontein area, Free State. The main contribution of the study lies in the identification of those problems. By knowing and understanding the problems, the Department of Education and the stakeholders will seek solutions to rectify the problems which will lead to the successful implementation of IT and CAT. The assumptions of the study were that many educators lacked basic ICT skills and pedagogical training, and there were not enough computer stations for learners. Both the qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in the study. The researcher used the survey research method and data was collected through the use of questionnaires and interviews. Simple random sampling was used to ensure that each member of the population in the study had an equal chance of being selected. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used in analyzing the data from the questionnaires. In order to analyze the qualitative data from the interviews, the researcher described the sample populations, ordered and coded the data (data processing), and displayed summaries of data in such a way that interpretation became easy. This was done by preparing tables, diagrams and pie charts. According to the results of the study, the problems that the educators encountered include a lack of sufficient didactical training for educators, learners don’t have computers at home to practice on, a lack of financial support to provide relevant facilities for schools, such as computer laboratories and learning materials in IT/CAT, educators spend too much time on paper work and do not have enough time for teaching, and IT/CAT teachers become ‘do-it-all’ teachers with regard to any work on the computer, such as fixing the computer, designing the school website. Regarding the identified problems, recommendations were made, such as the Department of Education must review the curriculum of IT and CAT, sufficient subject related training and didactical training for IT and CAT educators should be provided by the Department of Education on a regular basis.