The South African Schools Act (No. 84 of 1996) mandates the government to make financial allocations to needy schools. Section 21 of the Act read together with the National Norms and Standards for School Funding, stipulates that schools falling into certain categories (quintiles) receive given amount of funds per each and every learner. The funds are meant to help promote the equal and unparalleled access to education for all citizens as set-out in Section 29 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996). The study focused on investigating the manner in which two selected Section 21 primary schools are managing their allocated funds. The empirical study made use of a qualitative paradigm through which data was collected using interviews and focus group discussions to collect data from a sample comprising of thirty-five respondents. In terms of data analysis, the study used a qualitative analysis approach to interpret data into readable information for the various categories of audiences in the study. The findings of the study were, inter alia, that financial management skills are low in the schools, the amounts appropriated to schools needs to be revised upwards because schools need more funding for renovations and property development in schools, sanctions for those guilty of school financial misconduct are too soft and auditing of financial record is not being constantly done. The study recommends that the following be considered in order to help improve school financial management; the training of financial officers in school on how to best manage funds, imposition of stiffer penalties for offenders of financial misconduct and increase in allocation aimed at school property development.

The purpose of this study is to provide a critical examination of the concept of hospital governance in a community hospital in British Columbia. The format of the thesis is to model the development of the Canadian health system in an extensive case analysis. The case analysis approach permits the expounding of theoretical concepts of hospital trustee roles and functions. Through the application of qualitative research, the fundamental issue addressed was the involvement of the Lions Gate Hospital trustees with policy issues during a ten year period of analysis from January 1969 through December 1978. The hypothesis was that the hospital trustees were not substantially involved in policy making but were primarily concerned with operational management issues and this suggested that the role of the trustee did not evolve in concert with the change in the Canadian health system under national health insurance. The hypothesis was tested through application of the research methods of content analysis and grounded theory in a review of the minutes of the Board of Management and the annual reports. In tracing the evolution of the Canadian health insurance program, it was shown that the enactment of the hospital insurance components which preceded medical care insurance produced an emphasis on hospital care and diagnostic services rather than ambulant care. Cost sharing provisions initially for capital funding and later for operational costs encouraged and stimulated the demand for hospital facilities across Canada. With the advent of these third party Insurance schemes, the role of the hospital trustee should have changed from one of fundraiser to one of policy maker; however, the trustees at Lions Gate Hospital were found to be predominantly concerned with operational management issues rather than policy issues. National health insurance established the legitimacy of hospital trustees as policy makers and the professionalization of hospital administration established the feasibility of the Chief Executive Officers being held accountable for operational management. The missing link is support from the provincial government of British Columbia and the lack of definitive legislation and requirements embodied in the Hospital Act (RS Chapter 176; 1979). The current legislation inhibits policy making and long range planning and reinforces the conception of a hospital board as an administrative body. The lack of policy development initiatives by the Lions Gate Hospital trustees resulted from the restrictive mandate of the Hospital Act, the inadequate funding system for hospitals, the process of trustee selection, the education process for hospital trustees, the role of the Chief Executive Officer and the interaction with the organized medical staff. Weak and ineffective boundary spanning roles allowed the hospital trustees to function as an administrative board rather than a policy making board. The outcome of the analysis of the governance process at Lions Gate Hospital was an unfulfilled expectation that the hospital trustees would perform three basic functions - mandate, maintain and monitor. / Medicine, Faculty of / Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of / Graduate

Detta arbete handlar om ämnet informations- och kommunikationsteknik (IKT) i förskolans verksamhet. Styrdokumenten har nyligen reviderats och arbetet med det digitala i förskolan har förtydligats. Det är av största vikt att alla som arbetar i förskola utvecklar sin förståelse och kunskap av digitalisering, för att kunna se vilka möjligheter och utmaningar det innebär. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur kunskapen kring IKT ser ut i förskolan utifrån förskollärares perspektiv. För att undersöka detta har data samlats in med hjälp av en webbenkät där 41 förskollärare deltog. Resultatet visar att förskollärare är positiva till att arbeta med IKT men de upplever att det finns en tvivelaktig och kritisk syn på IKT som ämne. Förskollärarna redogör för vilka möjligheter de ser med IKT och hur de kan bidra till att barn utvecklar digital kompetens. Samtidigt vittnar de om en brist på kunskap hos kollegor samt avsaknad av engagemang från ledning och kommun. Studien synliggör att förskollärare förväntar sig att styrdokumentens nya riktlinjer kommer att ge stöd och motivation att arbeta med IKT. Slutligen diskuteras vilka förutsättningar förskollärare behöver för att följa sitt uppdrag och för att kunna integrera IKT i undervisningen.

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / Generally high employee commitment is a major characteristic of world class organisations (Lesabe & Nkosi, 2007). There is empirical evidence that the strength of organisational commitment helps predict employees' turnover intentions (Arnolds & Boshoff, 2004; Boshoff & Arnolds, 1995; Boshoff, Van Wyk, Hoole & Owen, 2002). There are a plethora of factors that may influence organisational commitment (Broadfield & Edwards, 1998) and stress has been postulated to be one such factor which is purported to be associated with organisational commitment and withdrawal behaviour (Nieumann, 1993). Job stress has become a concern to stakeholders of education including critics of education as well as teachers, the provincial administration, parents and governing bodies. Every year fewer tertiary students enroll for training in education, which exacerbates an already crippled teaching staff component within the Eastern Cape. Adding to the shortage of teachers is the rapid exodus of teachers, which is starts to happen from the time that they graduate, as they are often made lucrative offers by international recruitment agencies (Samodien, 2008). Samodien (2008) reports that the actions of international recruitment agencies, in an attempt to draw away new teaching graduates include lucrative financial offers, recruitment campaigns at university campuses, posted letters and e-mail, presentations on campus, guaranteed work, long term teaching contracts, tax-free salaries, a 13th cheque, fully-furnished rent-free accommodation, assistance in processing visa's, opening foreign bank accounts in host countries, and return tickets to South Africa Swartz (2008), the Head of Education in the Eastern Cape responded to the above report on the exodus by stating that teachers have always left the profession for "greener pastures", describing the exodus of teachers as "normal", that the international trend of open employment facilitates the poaching of teachers and that the problem is not unique to South Africa. However, of concern to him was the exodus of teachers trained in the fields of Mathematics, Science, and the Languages, and the smaller number of young people enrolling for teaching. He maintains that the Eastern Cape province has sufficient teachers to fill the existing vacant positions and that with projected growth levels, the province should be able to meet the need for teachers in the future.

The study investigated the linguistic challenges faced by Setswana-speaking Grade 7 learners when writing Science examinations in English. Learners from rural and township schools are only introduced to English as a language of learning and teaching in Grade 4, which creates problems for the learners because English is foreign to them. Teachers help by translating words or code-switching but it become a problem in the examinations because teachers cannot help the learners during the examination session. Since starting as a Grade 7 Mathematics and Science teacher almost three years ago, I have noticed that Grade 7 Setswana-speaking learners are struggling to understand the language used in formal assessments, which is English. I decided to investigate the linguistic challenges these learners face when writing Science examinations in rural and township schools. The purpose of conducting this research is to help policymakers to meet the linguistic needs of non-native English speakers. The study will also make curriculum development specialists and those who set provincial question papers aware of the linguistic challenges faced by non-native speakers of English in primary schools. Lastly, the study will help readers gain a better understanding of why some teachers prefer to use indigenous languages when they teach over English and why some prefer to use English over indigenous languages. Many literature sources state that non-native English-speaking learners underachieve academically because of learning in a language that is not their first language (O’Connor & Geiger, 2009; Dawber & Jordan, 1999; Ortiz, 1997; Statham, 1997). The participants comprised of four purposively selected Grade7 Natural Science teachers, two SGBs and Grade 7 learners from two primary schools in Hammanskraal, Gauteng. This study followed a qualitative research approach and falls under the interpretive research paradigm. It is a phenomenological study and focuses on the lived experiences of teachers and learners. Methods of data collection used were classroom observations, interviews, questionnaires, and document analysis. Data gathered indicated that Setswana-speaking learners made basic errors such as spelling, sentence construction, grammar, incomplete sentences, mixed languages, using words that do not exist, tenses and understanding instructions. Recommendation to the SGBs is that they should consider these linguistic challenges when they draft language policies for rural and township schools. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Humanities Education / MEd / Unrestricted

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies

Magister Legum - LLM / This research paper has examined whether and to what extent current legislation must be amended to make provision for the evolving role of the company secretary. The significance of the problem will be discussed by considering the definition of corporate governance and what it seeks to achieve. Why companies experience corporate governance failures, despite certain companies being considered examples of good corporate governance, will also be discussed. The research will also show that corporate governance failures have resulted in the enactment of legislation, codes of good corporate governance and a focus on the role players involved in corporate governance, particularly the company secretary.

The Schools Act has brought about a change in the way in which schools are managed and governed. Each public school should be governed by a governing body and the professional management of the school is vested in the principal (South African Schools Act, 1996b). The governing body of a special needs school consists of various role-players that include, among others, parents, educators, learners, and representatives of sponsoring bodies and of various organisations. Furthermore, these role-players should be knowledgeable about the legal requirements pertaining to the functions of a governing body. It is legally expected of each governing body member to know what the legal requirements of a governing body are. The governing body is expected to draft the school’s policies, such as the language policy, admission policy, religious policy, disciplinary policy and the financial policy (Schools Act, 1996). There are various types of public schools: mainstream schools [full-service schools] and special needs schools [special needs schools as resource centres] (DoE, 2005). Very little research has been conducted on the governance of special needs schools. The governance of a special needs school is more complicated than that of a mainstream school in respect to drafting the various policies. There are aspects such as limited resources to accommodate specific disabilities and the type of disability that the school caters for in terms of the admission policy that must be kept in mind. These aspects complicate the governance of special needs schools and require more thought and planning (Department of Education, 2007). This research specifically focuses on the governance of special needs schools and the aspirations that the individual governing body members of these schools have. The governing body members come from different backgrounds; they have differentqualifications and different experiences. These factors contribute to the ideas (aspirations) that they have in terms of their role as governing body members. The aspirations of the governing body members should correlate with the various school policies, due to the fact that the governing body draft these policies. The policy documents provide a clear indication of where the school is heading and of its mission. Not only should the governing body participants’ aspirations correlate with the school’s policies; they should also correlate with the legal requirements set out in the Schools Act. This research consists of two separate case studies relating to two special needs schools. Three governing body members from each school were interviewed, using semi-structured interviews. The semi-structured interviews assisted in ensuring that the participants were understood correctly and in getting clarity on certain aspects that were addressed. The various policy documents of each school were analysed to establish an idea of the school’s mission and for the purpose of triangulation. These documents include, among others, the language policy, admission policy, religious policy and the code of conduct for learners. The interview responses and the documents were compared to establish to what extent the governing body members’ aspirations correlate with the policy documents. The schools were not compared in any way; each school was regarded as an individual entity. In this study the following has been found: <ul> <li>1. Governing body members are not fully briefed or knowledgeable about their functions.</li> <li>2. Governing body members refuse to attend training sessions provided by the Head of Department on grounds that these sessions are not meaningful or convenient.</li> <li>3. Most of the schools’ policy documents, such as admission policies, language policies and religious policies have not been revised in up to nine years.</li> <li>4. Some of the participants in the research contradicted one another and the schools’ policy documents.</li> </ul> In conclusion it can be stated that the governing body members who participated in this research have served on governing bodies for many years, the shortest term of service being four years; they should be knowledgeable about their function and should have the best interest of the school at heart. This seems to be in contradiction to the findings of this research. Even though the governing body members lack sufficient knowledge and insight, they are extremely positive and have the best interest of the learner at heart. Copyright / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Magister Educationis - MEd / Parental involvement in their children’s schooling has been found to be an important factor with regard to children’s experience of schooling including their academic performance. This quantitative study focused on parental involvement at a school of skills in the Cape metropole, Western Cape. Epstein’s (2009) six typologies of parental involvement in their children’s schooling provided the theoretical framework of the study and guided the formulation of the research instrument and the data analysis of the study. A survey research design was used and 74 parent/caregiver participants were conveniently sampled after all ethical protocols were followed. The findings indicated that participants: (i) indicated a very positive attitude towards being involved in the education of their children at the school of skills and were inspired to be involved in the education of their children, (ii) were highly involved in the following typologies of parental involvement: learning at home, parenting and collaboration with community, (iii) communication between school and the parents as a form of parental involvement was found to be at a moderate level, (iv) participants were found to be minimally involved in decision-making as a form of parental involvement, (v) volunteering as a form of parental involvement was represented by low to moderate levels of involvement, (vi) participants’ marital status, forms of kinship relations with the learners at the school of skills (e.g. biological mother, foster parent) and levels of formal education were not found to have a significant statistical relationship with their levels of parental involvement in their children’s schooling. (vii) The challenges that participants faced with regard to their involvement in their children’s schooling included the following: a) a fair number of about 30% participants frequently found language as a barrier for them to assist their children with homework, b) about 46% of the participants indicated that they were seldom or never recruited by educators to volunteer at the School of Skills, c) about half of the participants indicated that their challenge was that they were not trained on how to offer their talents for volunteering at the school, d) participants also found it difficult to share information with the school about their child’s cultural background, talents, and needs.

AbstractCaldemo, Marie (2019). Meetings between teachers and children. The interaction between teachers and children during a day at preschool. Master thesis, Institution of School development and Leadership, Faculty of Education and Society, Malmö University.PurposeThis study investigates what happens in the meetings between teachers and children and how different circumstances affect the meetings between them.MethodThe analysis is based on sound recordings, captured from three teachers’ meetings during three days in three different preschools in a larger Swedish town. The recording were captured using a dictation machine. To augment the material, the teachers also supplied their daily schedules. The analysis of the recordings follows a hermeneutic method, where the whole can be understood from the parts and the parts can be understood from the whole. The study contains a categorization of different kinds of meetings based on the material. My purpose was to discuss the meeting from different perspectives; such as, identity forming, gender consolidating, teaching and directing. The concept “meeting” represents the processes that preschool teachers and other teachers participate in with children. I intended to study what actually happens in the interaction in these meetings.TheoryI study the interaction between teacher and child, using existing theories about meetings to describe what actually happens. Juul and Jensen (2003) argue that the best way to meet the objectives in a preschool in a constructive manner is to base all activities on care and relations. This includes realizing that children learn in different ways; e.g., through observation, conversation and reflection (Öhman 2016). How children actually observe, converse and reflect is affected by how it is received by the teachers they meet. Children need to be listened to, and they need support to express themselves and reflect in together with others. Adults’ interaction with children is the basis for the childrens’ ability to express themselves, converse and think independently. Säljö (2013) view humans as reflecting beings, who socialize to become part of a cultural context. People interact with each other as well as social environments and institutions, and as a result they understand how to behave in that particular environment. The human being becomes both and individual and a member of society, learns established behavior in order to coexist in different contexts. ResultsThe analysis shows that the most influential meetings are those where children are given directives. At the other end of the spectrum were meetings where teachers and children conversed about some topic over longer periods of time. Other research (Rantala 2016) shows that teachers often guide children directly or indirectly through questions. These situations can be characterized as teacher monologues. Guidance through long sentences is at times difficult for children to interpret and comprehend. Many meetings resulted from questions about how to accomplish something, affirming meetings and direct meetings caused by children’s questions. Questions which aimed for making contact or get an answer were common. The conclusion is that the teachers work towards bringing order and structure through directives and questions which aim to gain control. It is primarily routine situations that create those types of meetings. In a study about children’s participation in preschools, Johannesen and Sandvik (2009) concluded that adults control and regulate children’s movement and focus. In their description, adults are in the way of children but they have difficulties putting their finger on what is really going on. They believe their work warrants reflection. The recorded meetings show that the teachers want to be there for the children, work towards better contact and create relations. One of the teachers was less restricted by other activities, and had more freedom to develop relations with the children under a longer period of time. The conclusion is that this opened the opportunity for other types of meetings.