Enrolments in agriculture programmes at universities in South Africa are low when compared to the other programmes. The purpose of this study was therefore to identify factors influencing the choice of agriculture as a study discipline by undergraduates in agriculture, in an open distance education university in South Africa. The study also investigated the impact of the three agriculture curricula taught at school level, as well as how well it prepares students for tertiary education. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. Open distance-learning agriculture students and agriculture educators participated in the survey. A structured online questionnaire and an open-ended questionnaire were employed. The study revealed that two major composite variables, namely family and friends, as well as job considerations, were highly significant in the students’ choice of agriculture at tertiary level. The impact of the agriculture curricula taught in the schools in preparation for tertiary education gave learners basic terminology and concepts involved in agriculture. The study also revealed challenges faced by agricultural science educators amongst which were the revealed challenges faced by agricultural science educators amongst which were the learners’ negative attitude towards the subject, inadequate or lack of infrastructure, and lack of proper guidance and counselling regarding choosing of subjects as factors that could hinder effective teaching and learning of agriculture in South Africa schools. Students studying through open distance learning indicated convenience, flexibility of studying at own pace, and ample time to spend with family and work, as factors that influenced their choice of studying through open distance learning. Recommendations on how to improve the agriculture curriculum in South African schools and attract more students’ enrolment in agriculture as a field of study at tertiary level upon completion of grade 12 are discussed in detail in the study / Agriculture, Animal Health and Human Ecology / M. Sc. (Agriculture)

The aim of this study was to investigate how the National Certificate Vocational (NCV) curriculum is being managed at Majuba TVET College in ensuring that it impacts positively in addressing skills shortage in the Newcastle area. The following was the main question for the study: How is Majuba TVET College managing the National Certificate Vocational (NCV) curriculum in addressing skills shortage in the Newcastle area? A comprehensive literature review was conducted to provide strong arguments as presented by different authors who wrote on the topic after conducting research about Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges A qualitative method was chosen by the researcher to gather data on the management of the NCV curriculum in addressing skills shortage. The main aim was to discuss the methods the researcher used in the study to collect data meant to acquire the impact of the NCV curriculum management in addressing skills shortage. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews, non-participant observation and literature review. It was then put together and analysed according to themes aligned to the main study problem and the sub problems in order to realise the main aim of the study and the sub-aims. On the basis of the findings and the recommendations, the researcher proposed the importance of the college to review the NCV curriculum so that it is aligned with practical exposure enhanced by NCV students from the industry. In conclusion, the findings pointed out that NCV students’ practical exposure may have a big impact in addressing skills shortage and combating the high unemployment rate in the Newcastle area. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

The relationship between religion (Church) and education (State) through religious education (RE) in Zambia has passed through different stages of development. During the missionary period (1883/1890- 1924), RE was, naturally, offered in the form of Religious Instruction (RI) and was thus fully denominational and confessional. Despite some general improvements in the provision of education, the subject remained largely confessional at the end of the colonial period (1925 - 1964). After Independence, the confessional model of the subject was inherited and continued throughout the First Republic (1964 - 72) and part of the Second Republic (1973 - 90). However, as a result of educational reforms started in the mid 1970s, RE became more educational by adopting an approach that was partly confessional and partly phenomenological from the mid 1980s. Despite new educational reforms in 1991/92 and after 1996, progressive development of RE as a curriculum subject seems to have been negatively affected by the state's self-contradictory declaration of Zambia as a Christian Nation in 1991. Thus the subject continued to be partly confessional and partly phenomenological during the Third Republic (1991 to date). While the state or Ministry of Education sees RE as a curriculum subject with educational aims like any other, research results show that many Zambians, especially members of different religious traditions, still see the subject as having confessional aims as well. However, since the country is pluralistic and democratic, RE in Zambia should continue developing in line with the constitutional values of religious and cultural freedom and the liberal national education policy provisions for spiritual and moral education. Thus the subject should go beyond its current unclear state of being largely confessional and partially phenomenological and become more educational; it should take the religious literacy and critical understanding model which takes both religious truth-claims and educational skills and understanding of religion seriously. To ensure this, a specific national policy which broadly outlines the nature and form of RE in schools needs to be put in place as a guide to all interest groups. / Religious Studies and Arabic / (D. Litt. et Phil. Religious Studies))

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the application of OBE principles such as the learner-centred approach, teacher facilitation and integration of knowledge in the teaching of African languages in the senior phase. The study was conducted in Vhembe and Mopani District in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. Data were collected through observation, an interview schedule and documentary analysis. The constructivist grounded theory provided a theoretical framework for this study. Data were analysed simultaneously with the data-collection process informed by the constructivist grounded theory. This investigation revealed that teachers do not apply the investigated OBE principles in the teaching of African languages in the senior phase. Instead, they still teach in the manner they used before the introduction of the OBE approach. There were many reasons advanced by teachers for their failure to apply these principles in their teachings. A lack of knowledge and skills necessary to apply this new approach was prevalent. This lack of knowledge could be attributed to the inadequate teacher training received and noncommitment to OBE approach by the teachers. The study found that the investigated principles were not applied because of a lack of application strategies, the failure to interpret policy documents and resistance to change by teachers. In view of the findings in this study, the researcher deemed it imperative to make recommendations which could be used for further studies in order to achieve the proper application of OBE principles in the teaching of African languages. / D. Ed. (Didactics) / Educational Studies

A critical evaluation of the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) was undertaken to uncover strategies for infusing values across the curricula – values that may facilitate the development of spiritual intelligence (SQ) in adolescents. A literature study was conducted to determine whether SQ may be harnessed to cultivate values within an educational context. In addition, moral and spiritual development in adolescence was explored and a case made for values-education. An empirical investigation was undertaken using both a qualitative research design and semi-structured interviews. A purposive sample was used comprising 14 education specialists, principals and Life Orientation teachers from six secondary schools in Gauteng and Mpumalanga provinces. The most important finding was the fact that values-education in the NCS was problematic. The conclusion was thus drawn that teachers should be trained to incorporate values within curriculum activities − values that could engender SQ and, thus, address the moral dilemmas in our schools. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

Violence is common-place in South African schools and managing learner aggression is central to learners’ academic performance and holistic development. There is empirical evidence that suggests that the school curriculum is an essential vehicle for driving the process of creating social and emotional competent individuals, capable of social cohesion and tolerance. This evaluation research aims to evaluate whether the CAPS Life Orientation curriculum is adequately addressing social and emotional competence in learners in order to reduce violence in schools. A comprehensive literature review was conducted which revealed that Social and Emotional Learning programs are highly effective in addressing issues of violence and social problems in schools along with producing a positive school climate with high learner academic achievements. Data collected from the Life Orientation Curriculum documents, Grades R-12, and the elite electronic interview, revealed that the Life Orientation curriculum covers most of the essential elements necessary to make an impact on the development of learners’ social and emotional skills, but may lack the necessary knowledgeable teachers to facilitate such an important study area. Furthermore, not enough time and resources are allocated to Social and Emotional learning. Based on these results, recommendations are made through a ‘framework to advance social and emotional learning in schools model’ for the CAPS Life Orientation curriculum Grades R-12. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

This study encompasses a reflection of the way back at the beginning of the democratic South Africa when there was an immense yearning for a curriculum which could transform the education system in South Africa into a new national system for schools. After numerous attempts, in search of a tangible, user-friendly curriculum, Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) was finally brought forth and at the moment, it is regarded as being the turning point of our education system and also geared at promoting the highest possible standard of education in all schools in South Africa. This study investigates some problems experienced at the apex of the management and implementation of CAPS, especially in some schools in rural areas. It focuses on some of the drawbacks which are putting a strain on the smooth running of schools during these prime stages of curriculum implementation such as disciplinary problems, overcrowded classes, large workloads for educators, the gap between well-resourced and under resourced schools as well as non-delivery of textbooks to schools in some provinces. This study examines how school management teams (SMTs), imbued with management and leadership responsibilities are able to put up systems that will ensure that evaluation, assessment and monitoring tools are utilised effectively in support of teaching and learning in schools. It is against this background that this study is therefore informed and guided by the instructional leadership paradigm which, if correctly engaged, can effectively strengthen curriculum management and implementation. For the purpose of conducting empirical research, the mixed method design was used as it offers a wider scope of collecting data and promotes triangulation. Six schools were selected on the basis of proximity to the school I am attached to, two primary schools and four secondary schools. All these were done after having obtained ethical clearance with the College of Education at Unisa and permission from the Limpopo Department of Education. Questionnaires were distributed to all educators in the six schools to fill, while one-to-one interviews were conducted with the principals of each of the six selected schools. The research highlighted that instructional leadership is critical in the implementation of CAPS with the SMTs members affirming their commitment to various aspects of instructional leadership. Furthermore, the findings also affirmed the opportunities that shared leadership offered schools to share moral purpose. However, the findings also enumerate lack of resources, lack of curriculum knowledge and larger workloads of teachers as crucial factors that inhibit the implementation of CAPS. As a result of this research, a number of recommendations and opportunities for further research are offered to Limpopo schools and their SMTs, the systemic authorities responsible for Limpopo Education and for those responsible specifically for policy making and curriculum development in the South African education system. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Education Management)

Currently, South African special need schools that cater for intellectually disabled learners are implementing the continuous assessment policy statement (CAPS). This study explored the CAPS curriculum which is used in special needs schools, in order to determine whether or not it can develop disabled learners intellectually. In other words, can the curriculum be used to ensure that disabled learners are also prepared for future employment opportunities? Disabled learners also have a constitutional right to be lead through education to independent adulthood. This study looks at the characteristics of the intellectually disabled. It mentions some of the official South African documents in this regard and then discusses the theory of Paolo Freire. The researcher addresses two programmes that she feels could improve the curriculum quality of learners with special needs in special needs schools. A few negative aspects, as well as the time frame for South Africa to completely implement inclusive education, according to the White Paper, contributed to this research. Comparisons are drawn between two international policies and acts and South African policies and programmes, in order to determine the effectiveness and standard of South African inclusive education. This research was conducted in a special needs school in a suburb of Laudium in the Gauteng Province South Africa. It was a qualitative study and adopted a case study design. The researcher collected data from the principal, HOD, occupational therapist, two teachers and an administrative staff member, who were the participants in the study, using a questionnaire as an instrument for data collection. Inclusive analysis was used to narrate and explain the data. The researcher found that the CAPS curriculum does not equip, prepare or develop learners who are intellectually disabled. The teachers and staff members feel that they need more training and development to support learners with special educational needs, together with a suitable curriculum to ensure effective teaching and learning. / Inclusive Education / M. Ed. (Inclusive Education)

This is a study on the nature of learning, particularly the emergence of active learning processes in the case of an environmental education teacher professional development programme – the Eastern Cape Border-Kei cohort of the 2008 Schools and Sustainability Course. This was a part-time, one-year course supporting teachers to qualify, strengthen and deepen opportunities for environmental learning in the South African curriculum. An active learning framework (O’Donoghue, 2001) promoting teaching and learning with information, enquiry, action and reporting/reflection dimensions was integrated into the Schools and Sustainability course design to support these environmental learning opportunities. In this study, the notion of active learning is elaborated as a situated, action-oriented, deliberative and co-engaged approach to teaching and learning, and related to Bhaskar’s (1993) notion of transformative praxis. The study used a nested case study design, considering the case of six Foundation Phase teachers in six primary schools within the Border-Kei Schools and Sustainability cohort. Interviews, observations (of workshops and lesson plan implementation in classrooms) and document review of teacher portfolios (detailing course activities, lesson plans, learners’ work and learning and teaching support materials) were used to generate the bulk of the data. A critical realist theory underpinning the methodology enables a view of agency as emergent from social structures and mechanisms as elaborated in Archer’s (1998b) model of morphogenesis and Bhaskar’s (1993) model of four-planar being. The critical realist methodology also enables a view of emergent active learning processes as open-ended, responsive to particular potential, but dependent on contingencies (such as learning and teaching support materials, tools and methodologies). The analysis of emergent active learning processes focuses particularly on Bhaskar’s (1993) ontological-axiological chain (MELD schema) as a tool for analysing change. The MELD schema highlights1M ontological questions of what is (with emphasis on structures and generative mechanisms) and what could be (real, but non-actualised possibilities). It enables reflection on what mediating and interactive agential processes either reproduce what is or have the potential to transform what is to what could be (2E). Thirdly, the MELD schema enables reflection on what should be – this is the 3L “axiological moment” (Bhaskar, 1993: 9) where questions of values and ethics in relation to the holistic whole are raised. Finally, the schema raises questions (4D) of what can be, with ontologically grounded, context-sensitive and expressively veracious considerations. The study describes the agency of course tutors, teachers and learners involved in the Schools and Sustainability course, as emergent from a social-ecological context of poverty and inequality, and from an education system with a dual transformative and progressive intent (Taylor, 1999). It uses a spiral approach to cluster-based teacher professional development (Janse van Rensburg & Mhoney, 2000) focusing on the development of autonomous (Bernstein, 1990) and reflexive teachers. With teachers well-disposed and qualified to fill a variety of roles in the classroom, these generative structures and mechanisms had the power to drive active learning processes with potential for manifestation as transformative praxis. Through the analysis of the active learning processes emergent from this context, the study shows that the manifestation of transformative praxis was contingent on relational situated learning, value-based reflexive deliberations, and an action-orientation with an emphasis on an iterative relationship between learning and doing. These findings enable a reframing of an interest in action in response to environmental issue and risk, to an interest in the processes that led up to that action. This provides a nuanced vision of active learning that does not judge an educational process by its outcome. Instead, it can be judged by the depth of the insights into absences (2E), the ability to guide moral deliberations on totality (3L), and by the degree of reality congruence (1M) in the lead up to the development of transformative agency (4D). The study also has a methodological interest. It contributes to educational and social science research in that it applies dialectical critical realist philosophy to a concrete context of active learning enquiry in environmental education. It reports on the value of the onto-axiolgical chain in describing a diachronic, emergent and open-ended process; in providing ontological grounding for analysis (1M); in understanding relationality in situated learing processes (2E); in focusing on value-based reflexive learning (3L) and in understanding transformative learning as “tensed socio-spatialising process” (Bhaskar, 1993: 160) where society is emergent from a stratified ontology, and agency and change are open-ended and flexible processes not wholly determined by the social structures from which they emerge (4D). Considering the knowledge interests defined in the 2011 South African Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education (South Africa. Department of Higher Education and Training, 2011) and the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) which were implemented in South Africa from 2012 (in a phased approach), the study concludes with recommendations for exploring environmental learning in the CAPS. The study proposes working with a knowledge-focused curriculum focusing on the exploration and deepening of foundational environmental concepts, developing relational situated learning processes for meaningful local application of knowledge, supporting transformative praxis through the “unity of theory and practice in practice” (Bhaskar, 1993: 9), and implementing a spiral approach to cluster-based teacher professional development.

The purpose of this study was to determine what language and behavior changes occur when parents are included in a curriculum that provides intervention for children with language delays and behavior and social delays. This project was a collaborative effort between the Early Intervention Special Education Program for three-five year old children in the school distrtict, and the County of Riverside, Department of Mental Health Services.