Magister Public Health - MPH / BACKGROUND: Namibia has generalised Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB) epidemics. In response to the TB/HIV co-epidemics in Namibia, the Ministry of Health and Social Services approved a policy of TB/HIV collaborative activities at national level and the integration of TB/HIV services at the point of service delivery. The present study explored barriers and facilitators of integration of TB and HIV service delivery in Tsandi District Hospital, which lies in rural northern Namibia. It focused on understanding the perspectives of healthcare workers and service users on integration of TB and HIV services at the health facility. AIMS & OBJECTIVES: The study aimed to describe the barriers, facilitators, and opportunities of integrated TB/HIV service delivery in Tsandi District Hospital. The specific objectives were: to describe the staffing and support systems in place for the integration of TB/HIV care; to describe the perceptions and experiences of integrated TB/HIV care by the health care workers, management and co-infected clients; and to describe the factors that facilitate or hinder the integration of TB/HIV services in the district from the point of view of district hospital managers, health care workers and co-infected clients. METHODS: The study used a descriptive qualitative study design with semi-structured key-informant interviews conducted with five healthcare managers and senior clinicians and focus group discussions with 14 healthcare workers and five TB/HIV co-infected patients, supplemented by non-participant observation in Tsandi district hospital over two weeks between May – June 2011. Sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed, and thematically analysed. RESULTS: Several factors influenced whether and to what degree Tsandi district hospital was able to achieve integration of TB and HIV services. These are: (1) model of care and nature of referral links; (2) the availability and use of human resources and workspace; (3) the system of rotating staff among departments in the hospital; (4) the supply and mode of providing medicines to patients; (5) information systems, recording and reporting arrangements; (6) and the amount of follow-up and supervision of the integrated services. The main suggested barrier factors are: (1) poor communication and weak referrals links between services; (2) inadequate infrastructure to encourage and deliver TB and HIV care; (3) staff shortages and high workload; (4) lack of training and skills among healthcare workers; (5) financial constraints and other socioeconomic challenges; and (6) fragmented recording and reporting systems with limited data use to improve service delivery. The four main facilitating factors are: (1) positive staff attitudes towards TB/HIV integration; (2) common pool of staff managing different programmes; (3) joint planning and review of TB and HIV activities at the ARV Committee; and (4) informal task sharing to alleviate healthcare worker shortages. CONCLUSIONS: This study recommends that the district build on the current facilitators of integration, while the inhibitors should be worked on in order to improve the delivery of TB/HIV services in the district. Simple and practical recommendations have been made to address the some of the barriers at district level. It is hoped that these will inform future planning and review of the current model of care by the District Management Team.

Effective implementation and monitoring of education policies in schools impact directly on the quality of education in public schools in general and on the vision and mission of the North West provincial department of education in particular, where the research was conducted. The effectiveness of the implementation and monitoring of education policies in schools are investigated by analysing data collected in through questionnaires and interviews conducted on the study in the Moretele Area Project Office (APO) of the Bojanala Region of Education in the North West Province. The study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of the implementation and monitoring of educational policies by educators, Principals and District Officials in schools. The study focused on their understanding of the concept policy and its purpose, since policies serve different purposes and are constructed for different reasons. It has immerged from the study that much still has to be done in order to improve on effective policy implementation and monitoring in schools. Educators have shown that they are aware of the concept policy and its purpose. There are, however, challenges identified in terms of implementing these policies and also ineffective communication by the district offices and the schools. This assertion is evidenced by the findings from the questionnaires that revealed a serious communication problem between districts and schools. It was also found that educators are aware of the different authoritative roles held by policies in education system. They were able to give examples of policy documents that have national authority, provincial authority, and district and school authority. What seems to be still lacking is the effective application of the theoretical knowledge gained on policies when executing their duties. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Mozambique embarked on major curriculum reforms of basic education at the start of the 21st century. This study focuses on the implementation of these education policies at Marrere Teachers’ Training College. It is guided by the following questions: How has Marrere Teachers’ Training College as an institution responded to the new government initiatives? What has changed and what has remained the same at Marrere? Why? What are the perceptions, beliefs and attitudes of lecturers and administrators regarding the new policies? What teaching strategies and practices are used in classrooms? How do lecturers teach? How are students assessed? What are the educational challenges facing the College? How can its practices be improved? I have chosen a qualitative case study design in order to build a holistic picture of teaching and learning in a natural setting. Marrere College was chosen because it was among the first teacher training institutions to introduce the reforms and because a special programme, the Osuwela Project, introduced prior to the introduction of the new curriculum, included several of the reform’s innovations. Marrere College has been experimenting with the implementation of curriculum change for longer than most of the other colleges in the country. Among the emerging findings is that lecturers have a superficial understanding of interdisciplinary pedagogies, especially in the social sciences, and few of them have applied these pedagogies in classrooms. On the other hand, the reforms seem to have had a deeper impact on their advocacy of learner-centred teaching strategies, although question-and-answer practices continue to be widely used. The College has also gone a long way in changing the organisation of subjects and in implementing new methods of assessment. While there has been in-service training of lecturers, there are inadequate resources and follow-up support by the Ministry of Education. The literature that informs this study is the scholarship on educational change, particularly the relationship between policy and practice. There are many international studies that have attempted to understand these problems over the last thirty years, but no such studies on teacher training in Mozambique. This study seeks to contribute to our understanding of the modalities of educational change in resource-poor contexts. It also hopes to make a contribution to the implementation of the basic education policies by the Mozambican Ministry of Education and to the practices of lecturers and administrators at Marrere and other colleges. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

An important stage in the policy process involves deciding what strategy is to be adopted for implementation so that the objectives of the policy are met in the best way possible. A Policy Implementation Strategy (PIS) adopts a broad view of implementation, which is argued to transcend formulation and decision-making, thereby offering a more realistic view of the policy process. Governmental decision-makers are often faced with having to choose one PIS amongst several possible alternatives, at varying cost levels. In order to aid in such a decision-making process, PIS effectiveness forecasts are proposed as a decision-support tool.Current methods for such a purpose are found to include ex-ante evaluative techniques such as Impact Assessment (IA) and Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA). However, these approaches are often resource-intensive and such an investment is not always rewarded with accurate predictions. Hence, a judgmental forecasting approach for making PIS effectiveness predictions is proposed as a means for screening the different PIS under contention to provide a shortlist of candidates with particular potential. The selected few can then be further analysed via the quantitative evaluative techniques such as IA and CBA. Judgmental approaches to forecasting are considered ideal for such a role because they are relatively quick and inexpensive to implement. More specifically, a structured analogies approach is proposed as information about analogous PIS is believed to be useful for such a purpose.The proposed structured analogies approach is tested over a series of experiments and the evidence suggests that a structured analogies approach is more accurate when compared to unaided judgment and the more support given to the expert the better. Furthermore, experts were seen to produce considerably more accurate predictions than non-experts. Level of experience and number of analogies recalled did not seem to affect accuracy. The expert forecasts were also comparable to those produced by governments. The thesis concludes with suggestions for future research in the area.

No description available.

While policy makers have attempted to standardize teacher evaluation, policy is implemented and enacted by school administrators. This study addresses the following question: Considering the legislative efforts to remove control of evaluation from local figures, do teachers perceive school principals as influencing the implementation of state-level evaluation policy and, if so, in what ways? I examined interviews from 14 teachers across four high schools within a district in North Carolina derived from a larger mixed method case study of teacher perceptions of evaluation policy and classroom practice. The results suggest a state-centralized teacher evaluation policy, such as the one utilized at the time of this study, can look vastly different to teachers at the school-level due to principal enactment of the policy. Furthermore, the data suggest the following themes influenced policy implementation: the capacity of principals to evaluate in a timely manner, what a principal chooses to value in a policy, and the perceived effectiveness of a principal as an evaluator of teaching. By taking a closer look at what is happening "on the ground"between teachers and principals in four schools utilizing the same state-level evaluation policy, the lessons learned in this study can help inform future policies.

Thesis advisor: Dennis Shirley / Throughout the relatively short history of American social studies education, its purposes have shifted in response to social and educational changes. The contest for the American social studies curriculum has continued since its inception, influenced by various stakeholders and educational theorists. Given widespread socio-political turbulence, particularly in the years following the 2016 election, this dissertation takes place at an opportune time to revisit the purposes of social studies. This dissertation explores the perceptions of 21 pre-service and in-service teachers and asks the question, “how do teachers perceive the purposes of social studies education?” To approach this question I adopted a constructivist grounded theory methodology. I conducted 21 interviews and allowed theory to emerge from the data to answer two sub-research questions: “How do pre-service and in-service teachers perceive the purposes of social studies education?”, and “How do teachers make sense of complex internal and external pressures and relate to the purposes of social studies education?” Several notable findings emerged from the results. I found teachers adhered to no singular, unifying purpose of social studies education. I argue for a fluid approach to purpose that allows for greater teacher professionalism and autonomy. When faced with pressures such as state policy, teachers exhibited varying degrees of resistance and prioritized their autonomy and the needs of their students. Teachers that resisted state policy were most commonly experienced in-service teachers. Notably, teachers perceived a debate between the importance of skills versus content in social studies education which I framed within existing educational sociology debates on the various dichotomies underpinning educational purpose; between neoconservatism and postmodernism, between instrumentalism and intrinsic meaning, between top-down policy and bottom-up context-driven instruction, between teacher alienation and self-actualization. The majority of teachers believed that developing specific social studies related skills was more important than content knowledge which highlighted a trend away from the intrinsic value of social studies knowledge and towards the instrumentalization of education. Social studies was increasingly defined by its utility. Finally, teachers noted the changing ontology of teaching itself given the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and rapid technological change. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Maintenance of water resources protection practice for water availability, uninterrupted water utilization, and for ecosystem integrity is critical for sustainable achievement of resource security for all. Therefore, operationalization of water resource protection strategies such as resource directed measures, especially at catchment level where water resources utilization takes place is critical. The main aim of the current study was to develop a citizen science framework for operationalization of resource directed measures at catchment level. Such a framework used a nexus approach, and its development was guided by the principles of socio-ecological model from a systems thinking perspective. This demonstrated importance of resource directed measures which are accepted as relevant policy implementation strategies towards improved and integrated water resources management practice at catchment level, where local citizens become part of such practice. Local operationalization of resource directed measures provides a basis for practical policy implementation at catchment level, thereby informing decisions taken on water resources protection and sustainable water use for several purposes. It provides an understanding of how policies which are formulated for water resources protection purposes influence land use activities and other non-land use activities to ensure water availability for current and future generations. Furthermore, localized operationalization of resource directed measures facilitates ecological ecosystems protection such that goods and services derived from such ecosystems are sustained. The research problem of the current study was a lack of available and feasible plan for resource directed measures practice at catchment level which has a direct influence on the continued water quality deterioration and unsustainable utilization of water resources. This study argued that a citizen science framework needed to be developed and such a plan must be informed by science-policy interface that is practical, reflective and must consider the nexus approach using the concept of citizen science in order to improve the practice of resource directed measures at local level in an acceptable manner by practitioners.

Educational ministries have sought to address the increasing obesity rates across the world and promote optimal childhood health, growth, and intellectual development, by implementing school nutrition policies. In 2011, the Government of Ontario (Ministry of Education) implemented in an initiative: the School Food and Beverage Policy (P/PM 150). Although P/PM 150 is well intentioned, there remains a gap between what this policy states and the way in which it is being executed - resulting in unplanned and unexpected outcomes. To examine this divide and have another perspective on P/PM 150's execution, the following research question was addressed: How is Ontario's School Food and Beverage Policy (P/PM 150) being implemented in secondary schools by school boards and the Ministry of Education? This qualitative case study therefore explores the implementation of P/PM 150 from the perspective of school board supervisory officers in Ontario. Data collected from interviews as well as from P/PM 150 related content on the Ontario Ministry of Education, school board, and school websites/social media pages, were examined through a pragmatic lens. Thematic coding (using NVivo 10) was employed to analyze the interview data, whereas document and content analyses were used to examine the online content. A second coder analyzed a sample of websites and interview transcripts to ensure inter-rater reliability. Upon examining the interview transcripts, seven main themes emerged: 1) supervisory officer roles; 2) the importance of communication; 3) monitoring strategies; 4) P/PM 150 barriers and facilitators; 5) the policy's impact on pedagogy; 6) the P/PM 150 mindset; and 7) recommendations for promising practices. When analyzing the Ministry, school board, and individual school websites and social media pages, much of the content pertained to 1) the policy's subject matter (i.e., its layout, the policy's associated resources, etc.); 2) its administrative procedures; 3) the procedures' and P/PM 150's review processes; 4) the policy's implementation process (e.g., training, monitoring, etc.); 5) promoting P/PM 150; and 6) the policy's outcomes (e.g., nutrition education and partnerships). These findings may be of potential interest to the Government of Ontario (Ministry of Education), school boards, teachers, and policy designers in other sectors, such as health.

Honour-related violence and oppression has been politically prioritised in Sweden during the past two decades. National policies have been formulated, laws adopted, and the school has been identified as a crucial actor for preventing this type of violence at the local level. Yet, the prevalence of the violence still constitutes a threat to the freedom and safety of children and youths in the Swedish society. To gain a deeper understanding about the apparent discrepancy between policy and practice, this study adopts a micro-level perspective and zooms in onto the actors responsible for implementing existing policies. Teachers from four different purposefully selected schools have been interviewed. Drawing on insights from street-level policy implementation theories, the study explores how the teachers work to implement the National Agency for Education’s policy targeting honour-related violence and oppression. Notably, Lipsky’s analytical categories for successful street-level policy implementation, comprehension, capacity and will, function as point of departure. The broad nature of the categories have allowed for contextual insights to be included and a number of constraining and enabling mechanisms for successful micro-level policy implementation to be identified. The findings demonstrate how the teachers’ access to information is contingent upon their personal interest in the topic or on other individuals’ commitment. The large room for manoeuvre permits teachers to use their creativity to include the perspective of honour, but likewise allows for misunderstandings and resistance to influence the policy outcomes. The lack of clear bureaucratic goals, limited resources and a high level of discretion force teachers to find their own strategies to adequately implement the policy. To deal with increased pressure they are however likely to resort to simplifications and familiar routines. In turn these may obstruct at-risk students from receiving appropriate support. Finally, the findings confirm the importance of taking the strategies, decisions and motivations of implementing actors seriously when trying to understand policy success or policy failure.