This study aims to explore the experiences of teaching foundation phase multi-grade classes in rural settings. I am interested in understanding how teachers teach multi-grade classes so that I am able to make sense of the challenges and opportunities that they encounter. This is a qualitative case study and is guided by the interpretive paradigm. Purposeful sampling was used to select participants. I collected data by using qualitative research methods including interviews and observations. Interviews were audio-taped, transcribed and interpreted through an open coding process. Data was synthesised and resulted in the formulation of five themes. The findings show that teachers were faced with challenges which include lack of proper training, insufficient support from stakeholders, no workshops organised for multi-grade teachers, lack of resources at school which makes teaching and learning difficult, conditions of the school and the community that are not conducive to effective teaching and learning. Recommendations include that multi-grade teachers need to receive ongoing support from stakeholders. They also need to be given pre- and in-service training so that they are aware of strategies they can use to overcome challenges that they encounter when teaching. The Department of Education needs to provide relevant support for the benefit of the learners and the community. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2011.

This study was concerned with developing an innovative program for the Thomas Butcher Children's School of Kansas State Teachers College, Emporia, Kansas.A survey was made of the known innovative programs, with an in-depth comparison of similarities and dissimilarities of the three most notorious programs: The Industrial Arts Curriculum Project, The American Industries Project, and The Maryland Plan, and of the three most recent books directed toward elementary industrial arts: Teaching Elementary Industrial Art, Teaching Children About Technology, and Elementary School Industrial Arts, relative to rationale, objectives, and structure.The suggested program began with a definition of Industrial Arts for elementary education, followed by the rationale, objectives and structure. Communications was to receive the major emphasis at the Kindergarten level; transportation at the first grade level; shelter at the second grade level; clothing at the third and fourth grade level; and foods at the fifth and sixth grade level, although each could not be limited to any one grade level. Units under each category were followed by room preparation, minimal tool list, and material media suggestions.

The purpose of this study was to determine the challenges faced by adult learners in relation to the school curriculum in the Mafikeng District. This research was conducted on how adult learners are experiencing financial problems, accommodation, long distance, family concerns and the irrelevance of curriculum. A questionnaires and interviews found out that there are many learners who drop out due to the challenges that they face. Most adult learners are unemployed and as a result they are unable to pay for their fees. They have numerous problems at home that include pregnancy and looking after children. / M.Ed. (Adult Education) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2006

As spirituality first appeared in Australian curriculum documents in 1994, it was important to establish how educators thought it related to student well- being. In this research a description and four accounts of spirituality - spiritual rationalism, monism, dualism, and multidimensional unity - were developed from available literature. The literature also revealed four sets of relationships important to spiritual well-being. These were the relationships of a person with themself, others, environment, and Transcendent Other. / The model of spiritual health proposed here claims that these four sets of relationships can be developed in corresponding Personal, Communal, Environmental and Global domains of human existence, each of which has two aspects - knowledge and inspiration. Progressive synergism describes the inter-relationship between the four domains. / The quality of relationships in the four domains constitutes , spiritual well-being in each domain. Spiritual health is indicated by the combined effect of spiritual well-being in each of the domains embraced by a person. / The principles of grounded theory qualitative research methodology were used to investigate the views of 98 teachers from a variety of schools near Melbourne. Feedback from 23 Australian experts, on the researcher’s definitions, is discussed. / To encompass all the teachers’ views of spiritual health, to the initial categories of Personalist, Communalist, Environmentalist and Globalist, a fifth category was added for the small group Rationalists, who embraced the knowledge, but not the inspiration/transcendent aspects, of the first three domains of spiritual well-being. / All the teachers believed spiritual health should be included in the school curriculum, most rating it of high importance, two-thirds believing it should be integral to the curriculum. The teachers’ major curriculum concerns focussed on Self, Others, the Transcendent, or Wholeness. / Investigation of those teacher characteristics seen as important for promoting spiritual health, with associated hindrances and ideals, showed variation by gender, personal view of spiritual health, major curriculum concern, teacher and school type. Greatest variation was noticed when comparing school type. State school teachers emphasised care for the individual student from a humanistic perspective. Catholic school teachers were concerned for the individual, with religious activities being implemented by dedicated teachers. Other Christian school teachers focussed on corporate, not individualistic, activities, and emphasised relationship with God. Other non-government school teachers emphasised tradition, with attendant moral values. Implications of these variations on school choice are discussed. / Principals’ behaviour, speech and attitude were considered by the teachers to be vital in providing opportunities for spiritual development in schools. / A 30-item Spiritual Health Measure (of Humanistic and Religious Aspects of Spiritual Health) was developed using the researcher’s model of spiritual health and data from 300 UK teachers. / The SHM should be useful as a diagnostic for individuals or groups to provide base data from which to plan enhancement of their spiritual health. / This thesis contains an analysis of how well the Victorian Curriculum & Standards Framework provides guidelines for promoting spiritual health. / A position of responsibility, called Spiritual Facilitator, is proposed to help ensure that the rhetoric about spiritual well-being is put into practice in schools.

With an intention of opening a vantage point on the story of how curriculum is actually created, this study follows the recontextualising of the environmental discourse of the National Curriculum Statement (R-9) in three case sites. These are: Grade seven Department of Education training material developed to introduce educators to the NCS (R-9), Delta Environmental Centre an environmental education non-governmental organisation, a rural primary school situated south of Durban. Using elements of the Bernstein’s (1990) framework of pedagogic discourse, the study traces how the environmental discourse was de-located from the field of production and relocated into the pedagogic practice of each case. In trying to follow the continuity, changes and discontinuities in the official [environmental] discourse as it is recontextualised, the study utilises Bernstein’s conceptual constructs of selective appropriation and ideological transformation. These constructs of selective appropriation and ideological transformation enabled me to ‘look into’ each case and get a perspective of how to explain the recontextualising processes. The study acknowledged that discourses are shaped and steered by historical, political and economic realities and begins by tracing the genesis of the environmental discourse within formal curriculum policy in South Africa. This socio-historical review highlights the main factors and happenings that shaped the present curriculum discourse and its production as official policy discourse. The study highlighted that within each case the recontextualising story is unique but some clear patterns emerged as factors that impacted on recontextualising processes. These were the role of history and context, knowledge and experience of the discourse, ideology and emphasis, and the depth with which the discourse was engaged. The discussion of these factors gave valuable insights into the recontextualising of curriculum discourses. The study comments on the need to clarify the environmental focus in the Learning Areas and to actualise this into practice so that the discourse becomes an integral part of teaching, learning and assessment. The study also highlights the need for professional development opportunities that will enable educators to clarify the nature and focus of the environmental discourse in the NCS (R-9), and its articulation in Learning Area in context. In particular, the environment and social justice relationships appear to require greater clarity of focus and interpretation in recontextualising processes. There also appears to be a need to develop educators’ foundational knowledge of environmental issues to strengthen the recontextualising of this discourse.

D.Technologiae / Higher education, as both a “place” and a “paradigm”, has throughout its history confronted challenges in the internal and external environments of its functioning (Brennan et al., 1999; Hirsch & Weber, 1999). In the twenty-first century, the nature of these challenges has necessitated that both the organizational character and curriculum offerings of higher education institutions be adaptive and responsive to changes occurring in the external environment. How institutions of higher learning react to these changes, is an issue of divergent viewpoints. “Reform” and “transformation” – in the same mould as “adaptation” and “responsiveness” – are viewed in this study as the fundamental points of departure in articulating a trajectory along which change in the curriculum perspectives has to occur. As a ‘product’ offered to its ‘consumers’ – the paying students – the higher education curriculum has been a fiercely contested epistemological terrain. On the one hand is the concern that it services the interests of industry and commerce, to the detriment of society; while on the other, the curriculum has been viewed as reproducing elitist values. The problem then, is located in the realm of the curriculum’s capacity to respond to the contradictory nature of the multiple stakeholder interests. The South African higher education system is faced with the problem of firstly, de-contextualizing and disengaging the curriculum from its erstwhile political ramifications (CHE, 2000b). Secondly, affordable and quality higher education is expected to be assimilated into the broader national socioeconomic imperatives. From this study’s perspective, the problem statement is situated in the context of the curriculum’s capacity to meet the local reconstruction and developmental needs; while also adhering to international imperatives ushered in mainly by globalisation and the concomitant proliferation of alternative providers who have challenged the claim to epistemological hegemony by traditional universities. In other words, are current curriculum trends in higher education directed at meeting society’s needs; or is the entrepreneurial imperative more sacrosanct? One of the main challenges for South African higher education curriculum reform/transformation policy concerns then, should be to define and determine how the local and global curriculum polemics are to be reined-in in the broader ‘public good’ and social contract in improving the lives of all citizens. Through its empirical phase, the study has attempted to investigate the extent to which higher education curriculum trends ‘conform’ or ‘deviate’ from worldwide curriculum practices. In that regard, policy rhetoric was able to be differentiated from actual policy implementation. In order that problems of critical generalisability be obviated, data and method triangulation were utilised; also taking into account the institutional reconfiguration that had major consequences for the curriculum, especially at institutions undergoing “comprehensive” organizational and curriculum restructuring. The extent of institutional curriculum ‘deviation’ or ‘conformity’ was therefore determined on the basis of the collective integration of literature-based and empirical data and information/knowledge. The case study research conducted through questionnaires and interviews at the designated research sites (two higher education institutions with disparate academic cultures) therefore serves as the basis upon which larger investigations and broader perspectives could be incorporated, particularly from the extensive literature review. While the two case studies could have limitations of generalisability, some practices and trends lend themselves to a greater degree of the transferability of the findings. For instance, the knowledge stratification inherent in the Western university model (Makgoba, 1998; Scott, 1997) has perpetrated an environment of epistemological ‘supremacy’ within local higher education curriculum policy formulation frameworks. In that regard, it has emerged from the case study that Africanisation (in its epistemological, rather than ‘anthropological/cultural’ sense) is not part of a critical and mainstream curriculum organization tenet. While this observation could be argued to be institution-specific, it certainly also reflects a systemic trend. In the light of the epistemological context cited above, is it to be assumed then that the ‘politics of knowledge’ (Apple, 1990; Lyotard, 1994; Muller, 2000) is an extant curriculum/epistemological nuance even in the twenty-first century? The realizable outcomes of the study materialized in the conceptualisation and development of a trilogy of models on Africanisation; in which the input, mediating/modulating, and output triad factor characterises an environment of possibilities for its integration into the mainstream higher education curriculum.

M.Ed. (Tertiary and Adult Education) / The research under discussion follows from and should be seen against the background of the request to the Subdirectorate: Subject Curriculum Matters of the Department of Education and Training (DET) to develop a curriculum (syllabus) for an orientation course to the NI-course. The aim of this course is to fill existing gaps so that progress in the NI-course and the results of the course could be improved. The gap between general formative education and the expected teaching and training knowledge for entry into the NI-course was identified as a problem area.- Launched under the direction and initiative of the DET the NTC (OR) Course is a co-ordinated attempt to ensure a uniform standard in that this program was developed nationally. The curriculation action is unique because the curriculum for the introductory course wasn't developed in isolation but with the co-operation of all the education departments and interest groups. The NTC(OR) Course was developed and tested according to the curriculum development model of Jansen (1984:210). In this study use was mainly made of quasi-experimental research. In the first place it was necessary to define clearly what is meant by scientifically justified curriculum development. A literature study was undertaken to identify criteria to determine which requirements are necessary for curriculum development. To identify said criteria, use was mainly made of Jansen's model of curriculum development. This model was made applicable to curriculum evaluation by elevating the phases in the curriculum development process to criteria for the evaluation of a subject curriculum. The evaluation of the curriculum developmental actions of the DET was undertaken solely to express an opinion as to the scientificalness of the curriculum development. Use was made of evaluation tables to compare the curriculum developmental requirements, as set by practice, and the curriculum developmental action of the DET. The conclusion derived from the evaluation tables is that curriculum development of the DET compares favourably with the requirements set by practice. With only a few exceptions the curriculation action of the DET complies to a large extent with the criteria set in practice.

M.Ed. / The major problem in this research is that middle managers at the Foundation Phase seem not to be satisfying their roles of managing other educators, and learners’ activities and implementing curricula in class. The main aim of the research is to probe how the management roles impact on the Foundation Phase middle managers’ performance and to suggest ways and means to assist in the running of their daily activities as both managers and educators. The other aim is to suggest how the middle managers could synchronise the two roles maximally and to make recommendations regarding the way the two roles could be executed with ease. This is a qualitative research. The techniques and tools to be used are a phenomenological approach, in depth interviews, questionnaires and observations for data collection, while a descriptive analytical approach is used for data analysis. The findings are that middle managers at the Foundation Phase have a responsibility far above their capabilities. They are overloaded, overburdened and over- worked. The recommendations are that the middle managers should be supported by all stakeholders in education particularly the department of education which should reduce the educator-learners ratio and also provide them with assistants in classes. It is further recommended that future research should focus attention on establishing benchmarks for workloads in schools and colleges.

M.Ed. / This study is designed around the hypothesis that a modular approach in teacher education, within an educationally sound curriculum framework, could indicate an appropriate route towards the possible implementation of several training models. Teacher education for the pre-primary school phase, as well as other differientiated training programmes, may be accommodated within this flexible approach. Viewed together with the implementation of a modular system is the implicit need for centralised administrative machinery. Associated fieldwork included the following: * Three focused study visits abroad (1982 - 1989) * A . literature search and survey of research projects followed by a systematic s tudy of relevant publications, documents relating to education policy issues and selected legislation * Close involvement with a local pre-primary teacher training project * Consultation along structured lines with academics, educational experts and individuals engaged at policy level. The most significant findings were: a) Both in the RSA and overseas teacher education programmes are currently under review. b) Teacher education models incorporating flexibility are being developed. This element of flexibility introduces, in addition to 'traditional admission requirements attached to a specific course, exit points with a carry-forward of credits already acquired. c) A modular approach to teacher education programmes is gaining favour rapidly within educational circles, and also in the sphere of manpower planning. Based on the findings,. several recommendations were made with regard to a modular curriculum for teacher education and more specifically with reference to the pre-primary school phase in the RSA.

M.Ed. (Curriculum Studies) / Teachers with expert knowledge or skills can exercise a leadership function as they use their knowledge or skills to help colleagues and to further the progress of the innovation knowledge and expertise. Although innovation could be well structured, teachers still need support in one or other form in order for effective implementation to take place. Barriers to the satisfactory implementation of innovation includes: the teachers' lack of curriculum-related knowledge, ineffective flow of communication between innovator and teacher and the state of facilities and equipment available to implement change. The way in which the innovation is to be introduced to the teachers who are to be involved with it are likely to have profound effects on the extent to which the innovation is successfully implemented. A number of ways have been suggested.