Over the ages, rural women in subsistence and near-subsistence economies have maintained a sustainable relationship with the environment. This has been manifested in their different roles as users, producers, managers, and income providers. However, the introduction of Western-style development emulating the growth patterns of the North has not only overlooked the needs of the environment but also the needs and knowledge of women. The uninhibited exploitation of nature through development has started eroding the environment. In addition, with the marginalization of women from development schemes, women's cultural, social, economic, and legal status has regressed even further than it was. With no appropriate education, these women have been left defenceless in their confrontation with a changing and frequently adverse environment. / Although literature abounds with studies on women, education, and the environment, few studies attempt to link the three together within the framework of sustainable development. This information gap seems to have hindered development projects from implementing education programs targeting women and focusing on the environment. / This study seeks to fill this information gap. Based on rural women's holistic vision of development, it highlights the necessity of empowering women with a participatory, multifaceted, and integrated nonformal education, which targets gender equity as well as environmental protection and regeneration.

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Basic education is a crucial, often underfunded component of national development. Theories based on basic needs both illustrate the links between education and other goals associated with the elimination of poverty and define the types of education needed to maximise these links and advance these goals. Third World progress towards basic educational goals, as measured by first level enrollment, literacy and resources available to education, has been slowed particularly as a result of economic pressures. Measures taken by international organisations to relieve these pressures have not adequately protected the poor; and in some cases have adversely affected the maintenance of systems of basic education. / The World Bank, as the world's largest development organisation and as one concerned with economic adjustment, is changing its policies to adapt to this situation. (These changes are taking place in an institution noted for being more oriented to economic growth than to human needs.) There is, however, room for cautious optimism that trends within and without the Bank may converge to bring basic education to a higher place on the development agenda.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Donald G. Tewksbury. Dissertation Committee: Harold F. Clark, George Z. F. Bereday. Bibliography: leaves 276-287.

Thesis (Ph.D.(Curriculum studies)--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Paper copy accompanied by a CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-194) Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

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The current research aimed to identify the main factors that affect students’ performance in web-based courses in a university in Jordan. In order to achieve this goal the current research design employed a mixed methods approach in that it embraced an exploratory approach in the first phase and moved to an explanatory approach in the second phase. The exploratory phase consisted of conducting four group interviews with students enrolled in web-based courses at the Accounting Department at the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences and one group interview with Accounting instructors. While the explanatory phase employed a quantitative method (questionnaire) to examine the study’s proposed models. Astin’s Input-Environment-Outcomes (I-E-O) guided the current study’s framework to investigate factors that may influence student performance in web-based courses. Input variables were computer experience, student attitude toward web-based learning, self-efficacy, motivation, and prior performance. Environmental variables included student perceptions of the interaction of instructors; use of technology; and participation in the online learning environment. Data was gathered from a survey of 461 undergraduate students enrolled in two web-based accounting courses at the Hashemite University in Jordan. The most important contribution of the current study is that it conducted the analysis in the context of a developing country (Jordan). Therefore, this study will fill the gap in the literature regarding the effect of using web-based learning on student performance in Jordan and will provide the basis for further research in developing countries on student performance in web-based learning. The study also adds to collective knowledge of the effects of e-learning by adding a case study set in a new context to the existing range of studies. In doing so it broadens the scope of research on e-learning effectiveness. The results indicated that the study’s model was valid and fit the data and it was reasonable to test the model in terms of path significance. The study explained 73% of the variance in student performance, but only 3% of the variation in change in performance was explained. The findings of the current research revealed that input variables (particularly prior performance and student attitudes toward web-based learning) were the most significant, direct input factors affecting student performance. In addition, it was found that environmental variables (particularly student participation in web-based courses and student perceptions of the interaction of their instructors) also had a significant direct effect on student performance. These findings underline that it is not the technology used in the learning process that makes a difference in student performance in web-based learning, but it is instructor interactivity and the pedagogy used in teaching the Accounting courses at the Hashemite University. This is not to say that technology is unimportant or that it can be ignored. However, the functionality, usability and reliability of e-learning technology have rapidly improved to the point where questions of how it is deployed and exploited become more important than what it is capable of doing.

The total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of sub-Saharan Africa1in 1987 totalled about $135 billion, roughly the equivalent of Belgium with its population of 10 million (World Bank, 1989). Africa's deepening crisis is characterized by weak agricultural growth, a decline in industrial output, poor export performance, climbing debt, and deteriorating social indicators, institutions, and environment" (World Bank, 1989; 2). The World Bank's report (ibid) concludes that ''post independence development efforts failed because the strategy was misconceived. Governments made a dash for "modernization", copying, but not adapting Western Models". These strategies, although often differing on ideological issues resulted in poorly designed government investments in industrial development; a lack of interest or attention to peasant/'grassroots" agriculture and interference by governments in areas where they lacked the managerial, technical and entrepreneurial skills. When the political dimension of the South African government's repressive policies over the decades are superimposed upon the dismal scenario sketched above by the World Bank report, large scale poverty, instability, exploitation, ethnic strife, corruption and inequality, can be expected to exact a high toll on the people of South Africa. This dissertation examines the parameters within which development interventions should be undertaken, given their poor track record in Africa. It also studies the role of non-formal education (NFE) as a development activity,which impacts upon and interacts with, many other development interventions. The importance of this study can be found in the faet that given the extremely hostile environment for sustainable development in South Africa, strategies need to be evaluated against very stringent and exacting criteria. Para-statal organisations (not to mention government agencies) are inclined to reflect the wishes of their masters, thereby often obfuscating the real issues of development i.e. the elimination of political imbalances. Not only does the dissertation therefore come at an opportune time for the KIT but also for the development of the people of the region, in the sense that given the urgent demands for reparation for the sins of the past, new energies and resources are being focused upon the needs of the disenfranchised. The dissertation departs somewhat from a two-dimensional conceptualisation of development which normally sees it as a continuum between underdevelopment on the one hand and modernity on the other (Coetzee, 1989B)The three-dimensional approach applied in both the theoretical and empirical of the research, and which also touches upon time as a fourth dimension, enables the researcher to analyse the inter-dependencies of the various dimensions, thereby creating a different (if not new) mind-set in the evaluation of the KTT's activities. This should consequently raise new issues for development agencies to consider as development is primarily related to the creation of meaning (Coetzee, 1989B). Interventions designed to develop others can thus only be assessed in terms of the totality of people's needs which must include issues such as respect, esteem, freedom and justice. The findings of the dissertation are characterised by a very strong acceptance by the respondents of KTI's interventions. Despite some strong criticisms relating to the KTI's follow-through after training, it is clear that change was brought about in especially the economic dimension. The findings do, however, also indicate that KIT's approach to its development task does not sufficiently take into account the socio-political needs of the people and that its outcomes were focused primarily on the income generating capacity of the target population. Given the theoretical multi-dimensional basis of the study, it is trusted that consideration can now be given by the planners of the KTT to issues relating to a holistic need to create meaning in all dimensions. The dissertation finds that NFE plays an important role in development it also finds that NFE is neglected in the region when assessed against the extent of poverty and inequality. New priorities need to be set in the compilation of a strategic agenda for the 1990's.The World Bank (1989) indicates that: • more account should be taken of social reforms; • increased funding of human resource development is required; • development strategies should be people-centred; • institutional reforms at every governmental level must be pursued; •The nexus of weak agricultural production, rapid population growth, environmental degradation and urbanisation must be overcome by innovative and thoroughly co-ordinated strategies; and • westernisation should be rejected as being synonymous With development. This dissertation adds to the pool of evidence that unless rapid and massive investments in the human resources of the region are made, the capital injected into infrastructure, industrial development, housing etc. will be suboptimised and not lead to sustainable self-reliance. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sci)-University of Natal, Durban, 1990.