The study revolves around factors influencing the perceptions of service delivery by local municipalities in the Central District Municipality in the North West Province. Service delivery in general, as perceived by communities, has been a serious dilemma for most South African local municipalities. Factors in service delivery, as applicable in service marketing, have been examined through a detailed SERVQUAL research method. The focus areas have been service quality dimensions: • Reliability : the ability to deliver the promised service dependably and accurately; • Responsiveness : willingness to help and provide prompt customer service; • Assurance : knowledge, courtesy and ability of service providers to inspire trust and confidence • Empathy : caring and individualised attention given to clients; and • Tangibles : appearance of physical facilities, equipments, personnel and written materials. All five local municipalities in the Central District were involved in the study, and the main findings indicate that the residents in all the affected municipalities do not have confidence in the local government for service delivery. All five municipalities performed badly on the aspect of reliability and there is negative perception on responsiveness and willingness to provide prompt service by all the municipalities. The municipalities are perceived not to be able to command respect and instil confidence on their residents. The performance on empathy, where individual customised services are expected is poor. It is only on tangibles, where physical facilities are regarded as satisfactory. It is recommended that all municipalities should look inwardly and improve on their capacity on skills, financial management as well as bench-marking with international cities and towns for effective municipal service delivery. Service marketing as a management principle should be implemented immediately to save the current situation of loss of clientele and customer confidence. Other areas of quality improvement to be looked at are Total Quality Management and Work Improvement Team Strategy. / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2006

The restructuring of state assets was expected to contribute towards black economic empowerment and a broader redistribution of wealth to those who were previously excluded from participating actively in the economy of this country. However, there have been several accusations leveled at government. Some people believe that privatization of state assets has benefited a few. This has led to the enactment of the Broad based black economic empowerment act. There is also a concern from the communities and unions that privatization of state assets will result in poor service delivery and unemployment. The study was conducted through a quantitative methodology. The final questionnaire was administered to 40 taxi owners, 20 government employees, 20 contractors, 20 business owners and 40 local residents. Out of the 140 people, II 0 responded, thus a 79 % response rate, all was used for data analyses. The various variables (responses to individual questions) in the questionnaire were arranged to obtain a rating for each dimension covered. This procedure assumes equality of interval of the Likert scale and therefore the data is regarded as the least interval data (rather than ordinary data). The findings on the study showed that majority of the respondents were not in favour of privatisation. Recommendations made were as follows, the government through its education programmes in schools and in Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) canters must educate citizens about socio-economic and political issues as well as familiarizing them with the government's macro - economic policy, in particular the GEAR policy. The government should only make partial privatization, and not complete/ whole privatization. / (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2006

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are part of information systems on which organisations depend when conducting business. An ERP system offers useful functionality in the smooth running of any organisation. This dissertation investigates the impact of ERP implementation at SASSA North West Regional Office. It highlights problems of the current ERP system by delineating the weaknesses and pitfalls. The relevant literature has been visited and has served as a primary data that adds value to the dissertation. Collation of the relevant data is followed by a discussion of the employee perception of the impact of ERP implementation. The relative lack of research of impact on ERP implementation is the primary impetus of this study. The sample was drawn from SASSA North West Regional Office employees who were cooperative in the execution of the study. As a result of this. the research on the subject has moved beyond the limited confines of ERP implementation to focus more on the impact of the ERP system. ERP system is focused on standardisation and synchronisation of information as a result of improved organizational efficiency, but unfortunately problems with the ERP system can create challenges and dissatisfaction among the end users, resulting in failure to deliver the anticipated benefits. The findings of this study reveal ed that there is de ficiency in the ERP system; employees are worried about data loss when they use the system, find system errors, experience difficulty in expotiing data, and are not satisfied with the quality of output from ERP system. SASSA management should explore opportunity to ensure that the employees are trained to be familiar with the ERP system, improve system reliability, reduce possible system errors, and look at the conclusion and recommendations made in this dissertation. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence and level of parental involvement in the FET phase in Greater Delareyville and to identify the causes of poor parental involvement in learning and teaching. Parents have capabilities and responsibilities of creating vibrant learning areas to promote learners' performance. On the other hand, it is believed that a child, who has not developed any sense of security and competence at home, will fail to explore his/her world and develop a sense of curiosity that is essential for learning and teaching. It is further noted that situational analysis is the best effort to be carried out by parents to ensure that the environment/context in which the children learn is appealing and attractive to fulfill their needs. The problem is while parents should be interested at all costs in the life of their children, watch their moves, guide, advice them regularly, control their work and ensure that they are free to do their work without disturbance, many parents seem not to be interested. This also affects the children and parents of schools in the Greater Delareyville Area. In other instances, teachers blame parents for their lack of interest in their children's education. Data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. A computer aided statistical analysis was employed to compute the results of the study. The population for the study was drawn from the secondary schools of the Greater Delareyville APO. Out of the 200 secondary schools in the Greater Delareyville APO. 50 schools were randomly selected for the study. From each of the 50 randomly selected secondary Greater De!areyville APO: a principal, deputy principal, departmental head and an educator were requested to complete the questionnaire. The sample of (N=200) was composed of a total of (4 ) respondents from each of the 50 randomly selected secondary schools in the Greater Delareyvile APO. From the findings of the empirical study and literature review, it is revealed that parental mvolvement in the teaching and learning should be effective. !t !s r.ooed ~1:2: by implementing vaiious decisons made by the committee developed by schools, parents will be more involved in the teaching and learning of their children as they feel that their decisions are seriously considered. The following key words are important in the study as they sum up the writer's ideas in his work. They are thus briefly explained in terms of how they relate to one another in order to reflect a concrete topic of research. Parental involvement is a broad term that includes several forms of participation in education and with the schools in which parents can support their children's schooling by attending school functions and responding to school obligations such as parents- teacher conferences. The primary aim of this involvement is to improve their children's schoolwork, providing encouragement, arranging for appropriate study time and space, modelling desired behaviour, monitoring home-works and actively tutoring their children at home. (Cotton & Wikeland, 2009; 235) Learning is an activity in which the person being taught actively wishes to benefit from the teaching and absorbs particular learning content or by constructing meaningful and structured information in his or her own mind. As acts of teaching and learning are thus polymorphous, indicating that they take many forms (Van Heerden , Van der Merwe, Grobler and Loggerennberg; 2004: 61) Teaching is an act of appropriately displaying some subject matter with the intent that someone learns it. fcl phase refers to Further Education and Training made of various providers such as senior secondary school, technical colleges, National Government Organisations, private training centres, private companies, industry training centres and community colleges, (Policy Document, 1997: 9). However, this study focuses on parental involvement in high schools. / Thesis (M. Ed) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence and level of parental involvement in the FET phase in Greater Delareyville and to identify the causes of poor parental involvement in learning and teaching. Parents have capabilities and responsibilities of creating vibrant learning areas to promote learners' performance. On the other hand, it is believed that a child, who has not developed any sense of security and competence at home, will fail to explore his/her world and develop a sense of curiosity that is essential for learning and teaching. It is further noted that situational analysis is the best effort to be carried out by parents to ensure that the environment/context in which the children learn is appealing and attractive to fulfil their needs. The problem is while parents should be interested at all costs in the life of their children, watch their moves, guide, advice them regularly, control their work and ensure that they are free to do their work without disturbance, many parents seem not to be interested. This also affects the children and parents of schools in the Greater Delareyville Area. In other instances, teachers blame parents for their lack of interest in their children's education. Data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. A computer aided statistical analysis was employed to compute the results of the study. The population for the study was drawn from the secondary schools of the Greater Delareyville APO. Out of the 200 secondary schools in the Greater Delareyville APO. 50 schools were randomly selected for the study. From each of the 50 randomly selected secondary schools in the Greater Delareyville APO: a principal, deputy principal, departmental head and an educator were requested to complete the questionnaire. The sample of (N=200) was composed of a total of (4 ) respondents from each of the 50 randomly selected secondary schools in the Greater Delareyville APO. From the findings of the empirical study and literature review, it is revealed that parental involvement in the teaching and learning should be effective. It is hoped that by implementing various decisions made by the committee developed by schools, parents will be more involved in the teaching and learning of their children as they feel that their decisions are seriously considered. The following key words are important in the study as they sum up the writer's ideas in his work. They are thus briefly explained in terms of how they relate to one another in order to reflect a concrete topic of research. Parental involvement is a broad term that includes several forms of participation in education and with the schools in which parents can support their children's schooling by attending school functions and responding to school obligations such as parents- teacher conferences. The primary aim of this involvement is to improve their children's schoolwork, providing encouragement, arranging for appropriate study time and space, modelling desired behaviour, monitoring home-works and actively tutoring their children at home. ( Cotton & Wikeland, 2009; 235) Learning is an activity in which the person being taught actively wishes to benefit from the teaching and absorbs particular learning content or by constructing meaningful and structured information in his or her own mind. As acts of teaching and learning are thus polymorphous, indicating that they take many forms ( Van Heerden , Van der Merwe, Grobler and Loggerennberg; 2004: 61) Teaching is an act of appropriately displaying some subject matter with the intent that someone learns it. FET phase refers to Further Education and Training made of various providers such as senior secondary school, technical colleges, National Government Organisations, private training centres, private companies, industry training centres and community colleges, (Policy Document, 1997: 9). However, this study focuses on parental involvement in high schools. / Thesis (M.Ed) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are part of information systems on which organisations depend when conducting business. An ERP system offers useful functionality in the smooth running of any organisation. This dissertation investigates the impact of ERP implementation at SASSA North West Regional Office. It highlights problems of the current ERP system by delineating the weaknesses and pitfalls. The relevant literature has been visited and has served as a primary data that adds value to the dissertation. Collation of the relevant data is followed by a discussion of the employee perception of the impact of ERP implementation. The relative lack of research of impact on ERP implementation is the primary impetus of this study. The sample was drawn from SASSA North West Regional Office employees who were cooperative in the execution of the study. As a result of this, the research on the subject has moved beyond the limited confines of ERP implementation to focus more on the impact of the ERP system. ERP system is focused on standardisation and synchronisation of information as a result of improved organizational efficiency, but unfortunately problems with the ERP system can create challenges and dissatisfaction among the end users, resulting in fai lure to deliver the anticipated benefits. The findings of this study revealed that there is deficiency in the ERP system; employees are worried about data loss when they use the system, find system enors, experience difficulty in exporting data, and are not satisfied with the quality of output from ERP system. SASSA management should explore opportunity to ensure that the employees are trained to be familiar with the ERP system, improve system reliability, reduce possible system errors, and look at the conclusion and recommendations made in this dissertation. / Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2012

M.Sc. (Environmental Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <p align="left">The aim of this study is to evaluate the management of severe malnutrition in the two selected hospitals in North West Province.</p> </font></p>

<p><font face="Times New Roman"> <p align="left">The aim of this study is to evaluate the management of severe malnutrition in the two selected hospitals in North West Province.</p> </font></p>

Four Merensky reef underground exposures of different reef thickness, representative of the lithological variations exposed in mining, have been drilled and mapped. The relationship of the Merensky reef to the underlying rocks is paraconformable, and a broad-based definition of the highly variable Merensky reef, on the basis of detailed mine-wide mapping, is presented. Fifty two whole-rock samples from one drill intersection were analysed for major and trace elements by X-Ray Fluorescence spectrometry, and for platinum-group elements (PGE) by Neutron Activation analysis. The remaining three drill intersections were analysed for trace elements, and for PGE in one instance. Orthopyroxene and plagioclase mineral separates from one intersection were analysed for major elements by XRF, and the mineral compositions determined. The results of the whole-rock and silicate mineral chemistry are presented and discussed. Whole-rock geochemistry is controlled by modal composition, as are most trace elements. Incompatible elements such as Nb, Zr, Ba, Y and Rb occur in elevated abundances in the feldspathic pyroxenites and show systematic low-correlation relationships with Cu, Ni, Sand the PGE. These patterns are ascribed to the pore space competition between incompatible element enriched silicate melt and sulphide melt. The PGE are systematically associated with the base metal sulphide elements, with some localised decoupling, with Pd and Au showing the greatest chalcophile nature. The other PGE are highly correlated. Deviations in the geochemistry relative to the mode are analysed and discussed. Orthopyroxene and plagioclase mineral compositions consistently define three-way lithological associations, demonstrating limited geochemical relationship between the lithologies. These lithologies represent the footwall and hangingwall norites/anorthosites and the Merensky reef/Merensky pyroxenite sequence. The Merensky reef pegmatoid and the overlying Merensky pyroxenite have more evolved Mg# and Ca# than the norite or anorthosite. Ni in orthopyroxene correlates with whole-rock Ni, providing evidence of re-equilibration. A systematic relationship exists between plagioclase and orthopyroxene mineral compositions, with Ti in both phases defining primary and re-equilibrated trends. Apart from the elevated PGE abundances in the Merensky reef, the Merensky reef and overlying Merensky pyroxenite are geochemically indistinguishable. Certain evolved element distribution patterns coincide with the zone of elevated PGE, Cu and Ni abundances. Abundant geochemical evidence is consistent with late-stage in situ hydromagmatic alteration and modification to the Merensky reef, and in part, the Merensky pyroxenite. In contrast, the texturally similar footwall and hangingwall norites show very little evidence of hydromagmatic effects, where magmatic and submagmatic processes are well preserved. The whole-rock and mineral geochemistry defines and characterises the Merensky succession and provides certain constraints for petrogenetic modelling. A multi-stage process is envisaged for the petrogenesis and evolution of the Merensky succession, involving, 1) a magmatic stage, 2) a submagmatic stage, and 3) a hydromagmatic stage. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1994.