Thesis (Master of Education), University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, School of Education, 2016 / Skills in South Africa are seen as essential for building the economy. This is why the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) sees developing a skills planning mechanism as important in the current context. The 2013 White Paper on the Post-School Education and Training System says that the function of skills planning should be centralized in DHET, with support from universities and/or other national research institutes. More specifically, DHET (2013) suggests that skills planning is required in the short, medium, and long term in order to shape the education system accordingly to meet the demand for skills. The literature on skills planning is full of debates on the kinds of skills planning that are possible in different contexts of economic and education systems. There are different notions of what skills planning is, how possible it is to predict skills demand, and how this should be done. There are also differences in ways in which economies are managed which have direct implications for skills planning. However imperfect, skills planning is needed as it provides an indication of what skills are needed to enable development in the country and provide guidance for the state to support initiatives. This study investigates the emerging skills planning mechanism in South Africa, the views of different stakeholders in this process and the projects that form part of skills planning. It argues that in the South African environment, skills planning has focused on the elements potentially needed to plan skills, however it is unclear how these elements will work together in a skills planning mechanism

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Master of Arts in Industrial Sociology in the Graduate School for the Humanities, Social Sciences and Education in the faculty of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand November 2016 / The study pursues the examination of transition in peri-urban areas through the case study of Midvaal Local Municipality. Peri-urban areas are experiencing a transition from rural urban coexistence to urban dominance. The peri-urban urban concept remains a complex one to define. Peri-urban concept has been accepted to mean the urban and rural linkages that are mutually reinforcing. Literature has reflected on urban bias developments of peri-urban areas with rural function being subdued. There is evidence of competing tensions between rural and urban functions. These tensions arise from competing interests such as residential estate developments and industrialisation of peri-urban zones. The study explores the urban bias extended to peri-urban zones that has potential to underscore rural functions, such as farming. Theoretical constructs assist to contextualise the transition in the peri-urban areas. There is convergence in the body of literature over transition of the peri-urban areas albeit not homogeneous. Unique country and within country transition of peri-urban zones make it difficult to forecast growth trajectory of peri-urban zones. The study finds that peri-urban developments have taken an affluent development trend, redefining the peri-urban as zones of high consumption. It is established that ultra-rich people are attracted to Midvaal. Accordingly, there are exclusive upmarket estates, namely, Eye of Africa golfing estate and Blue Saddle Ranches equestrian estate. These affluent development trends fracture the conceptualisation of peri-urban areas as vulnerable, poor areas that are a consequence of urban sprawl. Some of the pro-urban developments in periurban areas results in irrecoverable loss of agricultural land. Often, urban bias functions influence the neighbouring farm portions through land use or even influence price of land in these zones. There is an appeal of middle and upper class to peri-urban zones owing to country nostalgia, cheap land, security, recreation, ambiance, tranquillity and anti-urbanism. Peri-urban areas are being redefined along class lines in the South African socio-economic context. Racial property ownership patterns have been replaced by class patterns. The study establishes that ownership patterns within the estates under study are above the middle class income bracket of South Africa, rather a preserve of the affluent. The study establishes that Midvaal Municipality consents to the development of estates. There is an underlying motivation for the local authorities to be amenable to the upmarket estate developments. The municipality is actuated by revenue linked to upmarket residential estate developments. Developments of these estates inject revenue growth in the area. Upfront, developers invest in the laying of bulk infrastructure which is later taken over by the municipality. This type of relationship, if not guarded may yield elite capture of peri-urban. Development trends in peri-urban areas are not homogeneous. Some peri-urban zones still reflect a state of neglect, vulnerability and are homes of the poor. Whilst the municipality boasts being premised on agriculture strategy in its objectives as an agri-tropolis local authority, there is little evidence to suggest vibrant agriculture and contribution of same towards the GDP of the municipality. Instead, the growth path is dominated by non-agricultural functions and activities. There are contradictions and tensions of agricultural pursuit over industrial and residential developments. / MT2017

Research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce in Development Theory and Policy. / Over one billion people in the world are under-nourished, and over two billion suffer from malnutrition of micro-nutrients – known as ‘hidden hunger’1. This is largely due to the fact that two thirds of the world’s population depend on cereal or tuber based diets (e.g., wheat, maize, potatoes) which tend to satisfy energy demands but not essential micro-nutrients2. The industrialisation of food production systems that occurs as part of the process of economic development has been linked to great improvements in access to food on the one hand, but this has also resulted in major transitions in population-level food consumption and lifestyle patterns. The changes affecting both dietary and physical activity have been termed the ‘nutrition transition’3, which signals the change from consuming large amounts of fibre and low amounts of fat, to a diet comprised of highly processed, high-energy foods. Developing countries now face a ‘triple burden’ in terms of overcoming under-nutrition of micro and macro nutrients, as well as addressing over-consumption related to the ‘nutrition transition’ that accompanies economic development4. Given this setting, this paper sets out to understand how the industrialisation of the wheat to bread chain in South Africa has influenced population consumption patterns and to what extent consumer interests have been marginalised in the pursuit of industrial efficiencies during the development of this chain. This will be done using a ‘Systems of Provision’ approach which enables a vertical analysis of the processes leading up to consumption, whilst allowing for the incorporation of historically defined, context-specific influences on chain development and consumption patterns, including political, socio-economic and cultural factors, which other vertical approaches, such as the Global Value Chain framework do not enable. / MT2017

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management (in the field of Public Policy) , April 2016 / Child labour is a social problem that affects several countries worldwide, and South Africa is not an exception. It is the result of adverse economic conditions in the country, where children feel they have to resort to finding employment in order to support their families. There is a general consensus that child labour in South Africa needs to be dealt with, and this is seen via the ratification of the two most important ILO conventions that speak to child labour. The ratification of these conventions led to the development of a child labour policy for South Africa; the Child Labour Programme of Action. However, despite the existence of this policy and its implementation, child labour continues. This report looked at how the child labour policy was implemented, and to verify if the continued occurrence of child labour was due to a disconnection between the policy as it is presented on paper, and those who are supposed to implement the policy on the ground. The report used qualitative methods, specifically documentary analysis and interviews. The documents that were analysed included the Child Labour Programme of Action, as well as its follow up documents. Meanwhile, government officials as well as members of civil society were the interview subjects. The main finding of the research is that the implementers of the policy do not have a full understanding of the policy and what it entails. And because of this they are unable to properly implement the policy to produce an effective solution against child labour. The report concludes with recommendations intended to help the government to get more out of the Child Labour Programme of Action. / MT2018

The South African Refugees Act1 makes a distinction between an asylum seeker and a refugee. The Act defines an asylum seeker as “a person who is seeking recognition as a refugee in the Republic”. A refugee on the other hand, is a person “who has been granted asylum” in the Republic.2 The legal position in South Africa is that before a person is recognized as a refugee, he or she is protected by the Bill of Rights to a certain extent. In the case of Lawyers for Human Rights v Minister of Home Affairs the Constitutional court confirmed that the protection afforded by the Bill of Rights applies to everyone, including illegal foreigners and asylum seekers.3 This means that asylum seekers and refugees are entitled to most of the rights in the Constitution except those specifically reserved for citizens. Practically though, a refugee enjoys more rights than an asylum seeker. It is therefore in the interest of asylum seekers to have their status as refugees determined. The process of applying for refugee status can be a challenge for those seeking refuge in the Republic of South Africa. For applicants coming from non-English speaking countries, language barrier can also present its own challenges. In terms of the Refugees Act, the first application is to the Refugee Reception Officer at the refugee reception office. The application must be made in person.4 When an asylum seeker is deemed fit to qualify for asylum, he or she will be issued with a permit in terms of section 22 of the Refugees Act. The permit allows the asylum seeker to temporarily reside in South Africa until the finalisation of the asylum claim. This permit does not mean that the asylum seeker is already recognised as a refugee. The permit is an indication that the asylum seeker’s application as a refugee is not yet finalised. The application is considered finalised when it has gone through the hearing before the Status Determination Officer and any review or appeal following from that decision. It is the Refugee Status Determination Officer who will grant asylum or reject the application.5 For people applying for refugee status, the determination by the Status Determination Officer may in itself mark the beginning of the process to be repatriated back to the country they were running away from in the first place. An aggrieved applicant can also apply to have the adverse decision reviewed or even lodge an appeal in accordance with the provisions of the Refugees Act.6 For as long as the application is still pending, the government cannot deport any asylum seeker. An asylum seeker who enters the Republic of South Africa, either through a port of entry or illegally faces many challenges before he or she could reach a refugee reception office. Those who come in through a port of entry face being turned away by Immigration Officers due to lack of documentation. Often, asylum seekers find it hard to reach the refugee reception offices as there is no co-operation between the Immigration Officers, the South African Police Service and the functionaries in the refugee reception offices. To make things worse, the Immigration Amendment Act has reduced the days from fourteen to five, for asylum seekers without valid documentations to reach any refugee reception office. Since refugee reception offices are located only in five cities in the country, these have conditioned asylum seekers and refugees to stay and make their living in those cities as they are required to make frequent renewal of their permit. The closure of some of the refugee reception offices like the Johannesburg refugee reception office has caused a major concern to asylum seekers and refugees. This persistent closure of refugee reception offices may be seen as a further persecution in the eyes of asylum seekers and refugees. The inability of the different functionaries to differentiate between asylum seekers and economic migrants adds to the problem concerning the process of refugee status determination. Instead of seeking to identify people in need of protection from persecution or events seriously disturbing public order, the process is used as an immigration control and this causes more people to be turned away or returned to countries where their lives may be at risk. The communication between the asylum seeker and all the functionaries of the Department of Home Affairs is very important. The lack of professional interpretation functionaries to help asylum seekers who need interpretation contributes to the problems asylum seekers face. Often, asylum seekers have to provide their own interpreters if the Department is unable to do so. The purpose of the study is to investigate the status determination process from a South African perspective and to make recommendations which will try to resolve the problem(s) identified. / Public, Constitutional, and International / LL. M.

Thesis (MPA.) -- University of the North, 2001 / Refer to document

M. Tech. Comparative Local Development / Small Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) play a critical role in the economic development. Indeed, SMMEs have been recognised as major sources of poverty reduction, employment creation and incomes. It is therefore not surprising that policy makers and researchers, particularly in developing countries have acknowledged SMMEs as an important topic in development policy. Despite their belated discovery by policy makers and their contribution to the economy, their growth remains constrained by a number of key constraints including access to finance. Access to finance has a significant impact on the development or failure of SMMEs. That is to say, finance has increasingly been recognised as a major obstacle in the development of SMMEs. Without finance, SMMEs may not able to develop and sustain their businesses through innovation, hiring of additional staff and the addition of more facilities. The SMMEs sector is known to be very diverse. Indeed, Studies point that there is no single definition of SMMEs, they are defined differently in different contexts and most of SMMEs in Africa operate in the informal sector. This situation has challenged policy makers, making difficult the development of one size fits all policies. The objective in this study is to examine the problem of finance in SMME development and promotion in Africa and more particularly in Gabon and South Africa. The study examined the existing literature on SMMEs in general and more particularly the problem of access to finance in SMME development. The study highlights that SMME's access to finance is constrained by factors such as a lack of information, high interest rates, financial sector policy distortion, the high risk of SMME operations, blacklisting of SMME owners and a lack of government support awareness. In addressing this problem, a number of policies have been developed and include the market developing policies, the market enabling policies and the market harnessing policies.

This study investigates prevailing factors that impede the implementation of affirmative action in the Durban Automotive Cluster. This study will enable DAC affiliates to determine their obstacles and challenges with respect to the implementation of affirmative action. The service provider of the DAC CB and M Analysts) will also be able to advise companies through their development programmes and recommend what has to be done in order to bring blacks on board. This study relied on primary data. In-depth interviews were conducted with the senior managers ofDAC affiliates using unstructured questionnaires. Secondary data from the DAC database was analysed to strengthen the qualitative data. The data focused on the distribution of different population groups across the levels of occupations. The aim of the study is not to generalise about affirmative action but to obtain more in-depth clarity on the research problem. The findings have established that the pool of technically qualified and experienced blacks is very small and hence they are in short supply in the market. A number of factors such as direct ownership and low turnover of staff were raised as one of the aspects that hinder affirmative action. Constraints such as attitudes of white middle management appeared to have been addressed by these companies. The findings also clarified the role of human resources department in driving affirmative action. In most companies, the human resources department is part and parcel of management and actively involved in affirmative action. The study discovered that poaching also arises as a result of the shortage of skilled blacks. Retention of black employees is a problem for the majority of the companies. Despite these shortcomings, this study revealed that proper channels such as training, development and mentoring were followed for both internal and external recruits. This is being done to avoid window dressing. The other constraint of the affirmative action programme is government capacity. The key constraints to delivery are limited staff capacity, scarcity of human resources at governmental level; lack of coordination and integration with other spheres of national and provincial government labour departments and the lack of effective organizational, technical and managerial support for affirmative action. With respect to globalisation, the automotive sector is a dynamic and global sector which is changing fast due to technology and globalisation. As a result, the requirements of the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's) who are competing globally were seen as a hindering factor to the realisation of affirmative action. In conclusion, the achievements of affirmative action programmes amongst DAC affiliates were very modest in relation to both national expectations and their own stated goals due to shortage of skills, family and direct ownership and poaching. Implementation has proved far more complex and resource demanding than originally anticipated. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

The study aims to research the performance of past and present motor industry policy in South Africa - with special reference to Phase VI of the local content programme and the Motor Industry Development programme (MIDP) - in the light of the domestic macroeconomic environment and global developments in the world automotive industry. The overall objective of this dissertation is to contribute to the debate on motor industry policy which concerns what future policy would be appropriate for the development of a viable and competitive motor vehicle industry. Thus this study is primarily policy-oriented, and the empirical analysis produced deals with important developments in the local motor and component industries and attempts to examine key variables to establish the likely impact of industry-specific policy changes - both past and future. The method of investigation involves the study of relevant theoretical literature regarding domestic automotive policy, and considers policies of low-volume automobile producing economies, especially Australia, Philippines, India and Malaysia. Also, empirical data of various sub-sectors of manufacturing in South Africa were examined and compared to the motor vehicle sector in order to determine the extent to which the macroeconomic state of the domestic economy as distinct from automotive policy might explain the performance of the South African motor industry. The dissertation presents a review of the local content programme of motor industry policy in South Africa since the early 1960s. It examines the claim that import-substituting policy in the motor industry actually had a negative impact on the country's balance of payments. The study finds questionable whether local content policy contributed significantly to the large net foreign exchange usage by the motor industry in real terms. There is evidence that increases in the nominal industry trade deficit can largely be explained by the weakening of the Rand, especially during the mid-1980s. Also, empirical data was used to make an examination of the performance of automotive exports under Phase VI and the MIDP in the context of economy-wide trade liberalization. It was found that exports of automotive products grew significantly under both Phase VI and the MIDP in real Rand terms. Thus, it seems probable that industry-specific policy played a major role in the strong export performance of the sector since the late 1980s through to the 1990s. The study then reviews the revised version of the impact of the MIDP and considers the future of the industry. The state of the domestic macroeconomic environment and globalization of the international automobile industry, including the influence of Transnational Corporations' (TNCs') strategies, will undoubtedly determine the future direction of South Africa's automotive sector. In the short to medium term, we might expect an increase in imported vehicles and some rationalization of the industry. Over the longer term, the possibility of fewer OEMs and component suppliers, and automotive exports are likely to rise as trade and the inflow of foreign investment accelerates due to foreign collaboration and global competition. A simple theoretical model applicable to the South African automotive industry attempts to show the welfare implications of a protective automotive regime (similar to Phase VI) and compares it with that of a more liberal (tariffs-only) automotive regime that may be considered as a likely policy-option for South Africa post-MIDP. The theoretical analysis indicates that the tariffs-only policy is superior to that of a more protective regime in that static efficiency losses are lower. However, the dynamic effects of such policy changes and of possible TNC responses to them, which are referred to in the previous paragraph, are not included in this simple model. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2001.

This research sought to investigate middle management‟s roles in implementing the new curriculum at grade 10 -12 levels; it involved a small qualitative study of two schools in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands. At a policy level, the role of middle managers at school level in South Africa has changed. The transformation of the curriculum in South Africa placed a need in all spheres of the education system to be flexible and innovative in accepting change. In fact this need for change is mostly required by the middle management of the schools who bear the brunt of working with teachers and learners in implementing the new curriculum. Hence this qualitative study was undertaken to investigate their roles. In investigating the topic the following three questions were considered as of critical importance in understanding middle managers roles in the new curriculum. The first question explored middle managers‟ main roles in implementing the new curriculum. Secondly it explored how middle managers responded to the current reform process at the FET level, and lastly it investigated how middle managers intertwined assessment in implementing the new curriculum. The review of the literature focused on curriculum implementation internationally and locally and also explored the role of the middle managers as leaders and managers in the curriculum implementation process. The study took place in two rural schools and participants included four middle managers (three heads of department and one principal). Data were collected using semi-structured questionnaires and interviews. A selection of documents (planning and teaching documents) was also collected for analysis. In a nutshell analysis revealed that endeavours were made towards the planning process. There was a presence of the subject framework, work schedule and the lesson plan. This indicated that the initial process of designing the learning programmes was being done. However, data revealed that middle managers fulfilled a management rather than leadership function. Their roles consisted largely of curriculum implementation processes at the expense of curriculum innovation and change. Barriers included a lack of time for proper planning and innovation due to a full teaching load as well as a lack of training by the Department of Education in the area of curriculum development and innovation. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.