M.A. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

In the last decade, local authority leisure managers of the United Kingdom have operated in a constantly changing environment brought about by legislation, an ongoing increase in competition and increasing consumerism. Public sector leisure professionals have had to develop management strategies that not only allowed them to conform to legislative changes, but were flexible enough to respond to rapid increases in competition and customer expectations. One of the responses to this changing context has been the introduction of quality programmes into the management of public leisure facilities. This thesis establishes and investigates the rationale for the use of quality management as a management strategy within the public leisure sector. The research has three key objectives. (1) To establish what senior local authority leisure professionals consider to be the influences on the use of quality and quality programmes in local authority leisure facilities. (2) To establish how senior local authority leisure professionals conceptualise quality and quality management. (3) To establish what role these professionals played in the adoption of quality programmes within their local authority leisure facilities.

What are the thoughts of individuals regarding the proposed retirement fund reform? Has rising levels of debt in South African households begun to eat into our future retirement savings? This paper walks through South Africa’s retirement fund history, taking us to the present day’s retirement fund reform proposals, notably compulsory preservation funding, before describing the low savings and high debt environment which also provides challenges for policy makers.The high cost of not preserving retirement benefits is shown and contrasted to retirement fund costs. Stakeholders are considered before the description of individual attitudes, views and opinions takes place. Finally the association between the presence of debt and past actions and future desires relating to the use of retirement fund monies when changing jobs is shown. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This report analyses the NHES: 2005 data to present the state of American education in reference to “adult” participation in education. Psychosocial interaction theory is applied to the social event of attaining adulthood to analyze and report the propensity of American adults to participate in non-compulsory adult education. The review of the literature of perceptual demographic variables of adult attainment: age, prior education, subordinate responsibility, child-age dependent care, marital status, job stability, and home ownership. The analysis compares the data of participants and non-participants of non-compulsory adult education using binomial logistic regression analysis with tests, for a 95% confidence level and .05 significance. Included is a discussion of how appropriately aligned development opportunities and experiences may further increase education effectiveness and performance outcomes.

No description available.

The purposes of this master thesis “The Study of 12-Year Compulsory Education in Taiwan” are to retrospect Taiwan’s education systems, to study the detail measures about 12-year compulsory education policy and to explore compulsory education systems in advanced countries such as the United States, Finland, Japan and Germany and see if we are able to imitate the merits to apply to our education system. The paper also attempts to observe the possible impacts on the society and to evaluate how to carry out the policy that really improves our nation’s competitiveness. Furthermore, through the observation, hope to offer some suggestions to the related authority.The study finds that there are several problems existing in the present systems, chief of which are the gap between city and rural, uneven education qualities, uneven distribution of resources and excessive pressure from seeking further education. To solve these problems, it is necessary to lengthen the compulsory education in Taiwan. Based on the study, we acquire the knowledge about complete education system in Finland, the effective education reform in the United States, the sophisticated vocational system in Germany and the holistic-person education ideas in Japan. Meanwhile, the 12-year compulsory education policy is processing according to the plan step by step in Taiwan now.While implementing the policy, now there are many measures are on the way. The authority announced that by 2018, almost 90% of the policy will be performed. According to my study, the abundant budget for the education policy is an important promise and the legal education law is convincible for the nations. Besides, the government should shorten the years implementing policy. Also, I suggest the government should establish teachers’ life-long training system and cautiously plan the elite system in secondary school. / The purposes of this master thesis “The Study of 12-Year Compulsory Education in Taiwan” are to retrospect Taiwan’s education systems, to study the detail measures about 12-year compulsory education policy and to explore compulsory education systems in advanced countries such as the United States, Finland, Japan and Germany and see if we are able to imitate the merits to apply to our education system. The paper also attempts to observe the possible impacts on the society and to evaluate how to carry out the policy that really improves our nation’s competitiveness. Furthermore, through the observation, hope to offer some suggestions to the related authority.The study finds that there are several problems existing in the present systems, chief of which are the gap between city and rural, uneven education qualities, uneven distribution of resources and excessive pressure from seeking further education. To solve these problems, it is necessary to lengthen the compulsory education in Taiwan. Based on the study, we acquire the knowledge about complete education system in Finland, the effective education reform in the United States, the sophisticated vocational system in Germany and the holistic-person education ideas in Japan. Meanwhile, the 12-year compulsory education policy is processing according to the plan step by step in Taiwan now.While implementing the policy, now there are many measures are on the way. The authority announced that by 2018, almost 90% of the policy will be performed. According to my study, the abundant budget for the education policy is an important promise and the legal education law is convincible for the nations. Besides, the government should shorten the years implementing policy. Also, I suggest the government should establish teachers’ life-long training system and cautiously plan the elite system in secondary school.

Student Number : 9001367H - MPh research report - School of Public Health and Oral Health Sciences - Faculty of Health Sciences / Introduction: Compulsory Community Service (CS) for health professionals has been introduced in South Africa since 1997. Some of the aims for its introduction were to: 1) address the maldistribution of health service providers, 2) prevent qualified health professionals from emigrating and 3) improve clinical skills and knowledge of newly qualified medical graduates. The Oral Hygiene (OH) and Dental Therapy (DT) professions have as yet not been included in the performance of CS. However the Department of Health (DOH) is planning to introduce CS for these groups of health professionals in the near future. The role of the oral hygienist and dental therapist in South Africa (SA) cannot be over emphasized. Given the high caries levels, low oral hygiene education levels, large unmet oral health needs and the preventative approach of the DOH at all levels, the oral hygienist and dental therapist can provide invaluable human and technical resources that are currently required to address these concerns. Aims: To assess the attitudes of OH and DT students registered during 2004 at the five dental schools in South Africa regarding the introduction of CS. Objectives: 1) To obtain the demographic data of the OH and DT students, 2) to determine whether their current training programme prepares these students for CS, 3) to identify the provinces in which the OH and DT students would prefer to be placed for CS and 5) to identify the different types of professional activities that the OH and DT students would like to perform whilst completing CS. Methods: A self administered questionnaire was jointly developed between the Kwa- Zulu Natal Department of Health and the Division of Public Oral Health at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The questionnaire was sent to all OH and DT students who were registered at each of the five dental schools in SA during 2004. Results: There were a total of 163 students (68%) who responded to the questionnaire. Of the respondents, 109 (70%) were OH students and 54 (64%) were DT students. There were 132 (81%) females and 31 (19%) males. The average age of the student’s was 21 years (17-37; mode 19; median 20 and SD 3.2). There were 59 (36%) Whites, 53 (33%) Black, 31(19%) Asian and 18 (11%) Coloured students. The majority of OH students (63%) were against the introduction of CS. There was a significant number (p<0.05) of White students who were registered for the OH degree that did not want to perform CS. A significant number of respondents (p<0.05) felt that they were adequately trained to perform all the necessary duties that may be required of them during their CS. Most of the respondents chose Kwa-Zulu Natal (26%), Western Cape (26%) and Gauteng (22%) provinces respectively as their first choice province for carrying out their CS. The majority of students (p<0.05) chose their resident province as their first choice province in which they would prefer to perform their CS. Students indicated a preference to perform oral health promotional activities (56%), health educational activities (21%) and clinical work (18%) in their CS programme. Conclusion: The majority of DT students supported the concept of CS. This was in contrast to the OH students where less than half of them supported its introduction. Overall, most of the students chose the more urban provinces (Kwa-Zulu Natal, Western Cape and Gauteng) to complete their CS.

This thesis examines the experience of oral assessment in post-compulsory education from the student's perspective. A considerable literature has developed over the past three decades describing and analysing how students experience various aspects of learning, including various forms of assessment. Until recently, none of this literature has addressed how students experience oral assessment, and recent studies that have done so are limited in their scope and methodology - it would be true to say that very little is known about oral assessment from the student's perspective. The starting point for the consideration of oral assessment is the existing literature on oral assessment, nearly all of which has been written from the teacher's perspective. A survey of this literature identified six dimensions of oral assessment - primary content types; interaction; authenticity; structure; examiners; and orality. It is suggested that these dimensions can lead to a clearer understanding of the nature of oral assessment, a clearer differentiation of the various forms within this type of assessment, a better capacity to describe and analyse these forms, and a better understanding of how the various dimensions of oral assessment may interact with other elements of teaching and learning. Students' experiences of oral assessment were then explored through interviews with fifteen students in a post-compulsory certificate in theology. The interviews and the analysis of the interview transcripts were strongly informed by the phenomenographic methods and conceptual framework developed by Marton and others for describing variations in how phenomena are experienced. Six aspects of students' experience of oral assessment were identified - the indirect object of learning; the direct object of learning; interaction; audience; affective responses; and comparisons with written assignments - and variations in how these aspects could be experienced are described. Relationships between these aspects suggested three contrasting conceptions of oral assessment. The conception of oral assessment as 'presentation' represents an approach to oral assessment that focuses on reproducing the ideas of others in a one-way presentation. This conception is associated with a limited sense of audience, a failure to perceive interaction as significant, and an absence of anxiety. In this case, oral assessment is seen as either similar to written assignments, or as being a more limited form of assessment than assignments. The conception of oral assessment as 'understanding' is associated with students actively seeking to develop their understanding of the subject, making the ideas they encounter their own, being challenged to understand these ideas because of the questioning involved in the assessment process, and seeing oral assessment as having some advantages over written assessment. The conception of oral assessment as 'a position to be argued' is associated with a seeing theology in terms of developing one's own point of view, having a strong sense of audience, seeing interaction with that audience as both challenging and demanding understanding, and experiencing a heightened self-awareness. In this case, oral assessment is seen as a significantly richer and more personally engaging form of assessment than written assignments. The study of oral assessment from the student's perspective extends the dimensions of oral assessment described earlier and challenges our understanding of these dimensions. The study has significant implications for teachers using oral assessment and for students who are being assessed orally, including the challenge of helping students develop more complex conceptions of oral assessment. The study also provides the basis for further research into specific aspect of oral assessment and its application in different contexts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-201).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 2001. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 17, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Elizabeth Lugg (chair), Diane Ashby, Paul Baker, Rand Burnette. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 83-85) and abstract. Also available in print.