This study applies a process of correlation analysis and hedonic based modelling to investigate the influence of housing attributes and date of sale on transaction prices for residential real estate in the Nelson Mandela Metropole area. Availability of reliable data is a challenge in real estate studies in South Africa. This study integrates several publicly available resources for the purposes of constructing a statistical model. A model is constructed based on a forward variable selection routine using selection criteria. The resulting model shows six highly significant variables that can be used for modelling purposes. The resulting model is used to make comparisons in the value of the geographical location.

This research study has emerged as a result of my concern regarding many of my colleagues’ apparent low morale in the teaching profession. Since the new dispensation in 1994 the South African education system has undergone numerous and intensive curriculum changes as varying policies aimed at transforming education in South Africa have been implemented (Asmal, 2009). I, therefore, decided to investigate the lived experiences of Intermediate Phase teachers regarding curriculum renewal processes in South Africa over a fifteen year period from 1998 to 2012. This period encompasses the four curriculum renewal processes which have been implemented since 1994. The research undertaken was an empirical study and qualitative methods were used for data gathering purposes. Data collection tools included unstructured, individual, in-depth interviews and reflective journal entries. The qualitative data generated suggest that many teachers in the Port Elizabeth Metropole appear to be demotivated by the uncertainty around curriculum renewal and the impact this has on curriculum implementation in their respective classrooms. According to Ornstein and Hunkins (2004), the implementation process of a new curriculum requires extensive actions by the designers and implementers of the new programme and Smith (2008) asserts that managing change in education, and improvement in classroom instruction, are very complex tasks which teachers and learners face worldwide. The study revealed that the main obstacles to successful curriculum change initiatives are insufficient training of teachers, lack of support for teachers and time constraints under which teachers work. An investigation into the lived experiences of teachers regarding the post- apartheid curriculum renewal processes should make a valuable contribution to the debate in terms of providing insights for curriculum implementers of possible alternative curriculum implementation strategies for more effective curriculum renewal processes in the future.

Thesis (M.P.H.(Occupational Hygiene)), Faculty of Health Sciences,University of the Witwatersrand, 2009 / This study was aimed at describing the nature of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) inspections and blitzes conducted in the Port Elizabeth Integrated Department of Labour (DoL) in 2005, the nature and number of prohibitions, contraventions, as well as improvement notices issued. The objectives were to determine the number of OHS inspections conducted in the Port Elizabeth Labour Centre (PELC) in 2005; to describe the nature of the inspections and the type of industries inspected in the PELC in 2005; and to determine the frequency and nature of prohibitions, contraventions and improvement notices issued. The data was obtained from the PELC. The results of the study revealed that the inspectorate conducted a total of 1258 and this exceeded the target of 800 OHS inspections for the PELC. However, it is questionable how this target was developed. The target is not representative and does not give an overall picture of conditions in the workplace. The results indicated that inspectors were not competent in conducting boiler inspections as well on Major Hazardous Installation (MHI) since none of these inspections were conducted. On the inception of the OHS task team, there was a sudden increase in inspections conducted in the construction industry in October 2005 as well as the rate of finalisation of incidents in November 2005 and this was attributed to the fact that they were not conducting inspections on other labour laws and were only focusing on OHS. An assessment of the inspectors’ inspection checklists revealed that the inspections were being reduced to just a yes or no tick exercise, with no recommendation on appropriate action to be taken by the employer. It became evident that the inception of a special team in September 2005 contributed to an increased number of OHS inspections, since they were only focusing on OHS issues. This team ensured that in November 2005 there were 43 incidents finalised as compared to the 101 finalised over 11 months. They also ensured that a total of 258 OHS inspections were conducted from September 2005 to December 2005. Although these inspectors were not fully competent in addressing health and s afety issues their momentary focus on OHS activities ensured that they made a difference in the rate of finalisation of incidents. However, when some of the cases were taken to court no successful prosecution could be obtained because there are no OHS focused prosecutors, which have a clear understanding of Act. Discussions with the inspectors revealed that there was a lack of morale and loss of interest in their work, thus causing them not to put in much effort. These discussions revealed that this lack of morale was caused by the frustrations they often experienced in the execution of their duties due to lack of training as well as lack of cooperation from the employers. Furthermore, the inspectors revealed that the great number of resignations from inspectors who were leaving for greener pastures left them with a lot of work with no financial incentive. It also became apparent that there was no objective strategy underlying the number of inspections required relative to the purpose of the inspections, taking into account the nature and complexity of the industry that is to be inspected. The failure of the Service Delivery Unit to give a direction on how qualitative inspections should be measured demoralised them because the focus was only on the quantity (240 inspections per annum) of inspections that are to be conducted by each inspector. It is recommended that training, which should include a proper career path be conducted for inspectors to improve the inspectors’ capability and to motivate them. Strong relations with the South African Police Services and the Department of Justice should be promoted to ensure effectiveness of service delivery. These relations will ensure that inspectors are readily assisted by the police when they deal with uncooperative employers. Training of prosecutors will ensure that they understand the OHSA and its implementation and therefore effectively defend cases that are taken to court. The targets set for inspections should be scientifically supported and take into account the nature and complexity of the production processes. Lastly, revision of salary packages should be looked into to ensure retention of competent staff. The above recommendations will only be effective if the Business Unit Manager and the Regional Manager address them through the National Department of Labour since their implementation will affect all inspectors.

The failed projects of modernism and post-modernism leaves a theoretical void. More specifically the author takes issue with the apparent purposelessness of architecture. At the outset of this project the author ventured a Faustian attempt at relevance. Appendix A is a speculative description of architecture as a market deliverable - a consumer product. It proposes a design method adapted to a production-line view of architectural production. In this view the architect is an integrator of ideas, constraints, processes, implications - his main deliverable is a drawing. However, during the course of researching and designing this scheme even these sentiments were found not to be watertight. Inevitably the discourse degenerated into questions of poetics and spontaneity, character and meaning, liveliness and above all - Design. The term ‘design’ mentioned here refers to the same idea encountered among pre-graduate architectural students and lay-people - consumers of architectural pornography. Design in the sense: “Can you add some design to our house. Design in the sense: “No, it doesn’t matter if it works or not - I just want to know what it’s going to look like”. The architect is the queerly dressed individual with dark-framed glasses always dressed in black - a designer, a critic, a satirist, an esoteric. At the 2005 UIA congress in Istanbul Peter Eisenmann prophesied the end of this concept of the role of architecture. Our fascination with the ocular - the image - came to a climax with 9/11. Assuming a cyclic trend he predicts that the importance of the visual spectacle will wane (Sobuwa, 2005). It is clear therefore that selling architecture to the free-market gives us a profession that is relevant but not essential. The architect is a fashion designer - his most valuable asset is his opinion packaged in reputation. His career is built on benevolent clients, dedicated to the cause of ‘good architecture’, which he meets through ‘contacts’. Here is a movement away from art - which uses a moral language to describe itself - pure forms, honest use of materials, truth, god is in the... etc - and therefore unfit for the free market (since money still resides outside moral good despite Ayn Rand’s every effort) - towards craft - which is fundamentally a method. The architect therefore does not ask why?, or in what manner? but how? The architectural craft, the acquisition of which is deemed to be the main quest of tertiary architectural education is then appropriated as a design method. This design method is a system of sequential activities manifesting nonsequential thinking and can be graphically expressed as in Figure 1. The project presented here is an attempt to apply this method. / Dissertation (MArch (Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Architecture / unrestricted

This treatise examines the discursive management of homework practices in three primary schools in Nelson Mandela Bay. Grade four is focused on as it is hoped that at this stage of their schooling, the learners are receiving homework and are familiar with the concept. The three schools are from differing social, historical, political and economic backgrounds. The schools chosen are a former model C school, a ‘Coloured’ school and a ‘Township’ school. These three diverse schools have been selected to identify the dominant Discourses that inform the homework practices. The eventual effect of these Discourses on the learners is also included. The material and personal effects on the learners is discussed. The prevalent Discourses on homework in the model C school, work to produce disciplined subjects who are able to ‘self govern’ and thereby succeed in society. At school’s B and C the dominant Discourses are of a deficit nature. These discursively position the learners as victims and subjects who are unable to manage their academic and private selves, as a result of their circumstance. While the staffs at schools B and C appear to be well intentioned, this abovementioned deficit model is perpetuated by their talk. These principals and teachers need to become aware of the power that their discursive formations contain and the impact thereof. A qualitative methodology is adopted in this study. Three different methods of data collection are employed in order to promote triangulation and thereby increase the validity of the findings. Discourse and Critical Discourse analysis provide the tools with which to analyse and draw conclusions from the gathered data.

With a number of international and intranational conflicts still unresolved and new ones arising, refugees will continue to be in need of protection. South Africa, known for its tolerant constitution, is likely to receive more asylum seekers in the future. This research seeks to investigate the experiences of refugees in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, as reported by practitioners assisting refugees in the area. The explorative study aims at examining the issues refugees commonly find challenging, describing positive and negative developments in the experience of refugees and discussing how their experience can be improved. An analysis of basic human needs theory serves as a framework for the study. The researcher conducted face-to-face interviews with the participants. The analysis of the data gathered emphasised the challenges refugees face in seeking to satisfy their needs. The main themes that were identified from the data include: a lack of knowledge and awareness about refugee issues and a misconceptions regarding different groups of migrants; current socioeconomic challenges in South Africa; xenophobia; refugees as a heterogeneous group; and refugee access to services. The challenges faced by refugees in Port Elizabeth were identified as access to justice and correct documentation, access to healthcare, housing and education, as well as xenophobia, police protection and crime. Recommendations were made regarding the improvement of the refugees’ experience, including educating public sector employees and government officials about refugee rights, sensitising communities about refugee issues, offering refugees language courses and providing them with an induction into their rights and employing translators in health clinics to improve access to healthcare.

The study strives to highlight the factors contributing to unemployment in South Africa, specifically economic factors. The primary focus of the study is to analyse the impact of unemployment within the economy. The core the underlying causes of unemployment within the economy are low standard of education, low standard of living, and ineffective macroeconomic policies such as Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR). The assumption of the study is that unemployment is a socioeconomic issue which the government is struggling to address adequately. The study outlines the challenges faced by the government in tackling unemployment. It also uses the Kuyga Township as a case study, analysing the impact of unemployment and poverty within the community. The government has made efforts to address the aforementioned issue. It established specific macroeconomic policies to remedy the situation. However, these policies fell short and were ineffective. The apartheid system created an environment that continues to perpetuate both unemployment and poverty especially within poor communities. Kuyga Township has a high rate of unemployment which contributes to poverty. The study’s aim was to investigate the impact of unemployment in Nelson Mandela Bay area, determine the rate of unemployment, and compare strategies, projects and or programmes creating job opportunities in the area. It evaluated the success and failure of policies and strategies formulated to combat unemployment and alleviate poverty. The study also strived to determine the number of individuals affected by unemployment in Kuyga Township and the Nelson Mandela Bay area. The study makes recommendation and proposes plausible measures which the government could implement in order to manage and curtail the prevalence of unemployment and poverty within the Kuyga Township. It also highlights the role thatbusinesses can play in creating employment opportunities within the community.

Many disadvantaged schools in South Africa are characterised by poor performance, which is often linked to the legacy of the apartheid regime. Yet, some disadvantaged schools are surviving and even producing excellent results. Many successful businessmen, politicians and academics can attest to the success of these schools, being a product of such schools. Leadership, which has received a lot of attention in recent years, are often the cause of schools failing to produce the expected results. Previous studies have shown that leadership is the key to academic excellence and that to lead disadvantaged schools to success requires strong leaders with moral purpose, who possess qualities of transformational leaders, but also leaders who can focus on instructional leadership practices. This study focuses on the role of leadership in maintaining academic standards at a school in the northern areas of Port Elizabeth. The school has a proud tradition of good academic performances and has even been labelled as a 'model C school in the northern areas'. It has been found that teachers are committed and hardworking and the principal is perceived as having expecting high expectations for the children of the area. He believes as an educator one should never give up on the children. The study found that the principal is a strong leader who shows characteristics of a transformational leader and has the drive of an instructional leader to lead the school and to maintain academic standards. He is a well-respected leader who leads with moral purpose and who has the desire to uplift the community. The study has the potential to provide guidance and encouragement to school principals, and to inform the Department of Education's leadership training programmes.

South Africa has experienced a notable increase in adolescent drug use during the country’s transition from apartheid to democracy (Central Drug Authority [CDA], 2006). These findings are verified by epidemiological studies and two national youth risk behaviour surveys, highlighting the need for effective drug prevention interventions. Whilst drug use spans across age, gender and social strata, the rapid increase in both legal and illicit drug use among adolescents in the Northern Areas communities of Port Elizabeth has been particularly pronounced. The South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (SACENDU) statistics, which reflects on racial demographics in accordance with the Population Registration Act of 1950 (South Africa, 1950), reports that, in the year 2011, the ‘Coloured’ population constituted 62 percent of those individuals seeking treatment for drug abuse, compared to 15 percent ‘African’ treatment seekers in Port Elizabeth (Dada, Plüddemann, Parry, Bhana, Vawda & Fourie, 2012:44). Furthermore, methamphetamine use by persons under the age of 20 years in Port Elizabeth increased fivefold in a three-year period, i.e. from 7 percent in 2008 to 39 percent in 2011 (Dada et al., 2012), with the ‘Coloured’ population group accounting for the majority of methamphetamine users. These statistics reinforce a long-standing racial stereotype that associates ‘Coloured’ racial identity with an enhanced susceptibility to drug use. The National Drug Master Plan (South Africa, 2012a), and the Prevention of and Treatment for Substance Abuse Act (Act no 70 of 2008) propose that drug prevention programmes should address the values, perceptions, expectations and beliefs that the community associates with drug abuse (South Africa, 2008b). This view emphasises the importance of drug preventions interventions that are culturally sensitive and contextually relevant. The current study was guided by two conceptual frameworks, i.e. the Social Constructionist Framework and the Ecological Risk/Protective Resilience Framework, and focused on the Northern Areas of Port Elizabeth, a historically marginalised community inhabited by a predominantly ‘Coloured’ indigenous/ethnic group. The goal of the study was to enhance understanding of the socio-cultural meaning attributed to cultural identity, drug use, non-use and drug prevention in the Northern Areas of Port Elizabeth, with the view to developing guidelines for drug prevention interventions that are culturally sensitive and contextually relevant. The following objectives were formulated in order to achieve the goal of the study: • To explore adolescent narratives regarding the constructs ‘Coloured’, drug use, non-use and drug prevention programmes of three distinct groups of adolescents (drug users, non-users, and TADA peer mentors) from the Northern Areas. • To explore and describe the social service practitioners’ (social workers and social auxiliary workers’) constructions of drug use, non-use and drug abuse prevention in relation to adolescents from the Northern Areas, and how such constructions inform the drug prevention services rendered to adolescents from these communities. • To review the data collected from the adolescent narratives and the social service practitioners’ reflections on their drug prevention programmes against existing theory and models for drug prevention. • To synthesise the above information with a view to developing guidelines for culturally sensitive drug prevention programmes relevant and responsive to the specific social constructions of adolescents from the Northern Areas. A qualitative research approach, located in a narrative tradition of inquiry research design, was employed to achieve the goal of the study (Riessman, 2008). The study was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved an empirical study with the four sample groups (i.e. adolescent drug users, adolescent non-drug users, Teenagers against Drug Abuse [TADA] peer mentors and social service professionals (i.e. social workers and social auxiliary workers)). Phase two involved the co-construction of the practice guidelines for culturally sensitive and contextually relevant drug prevention interventions. Phase one started with the informal exploration of community stakeholders’ views on the identified research problem and the process of gaining access to the research population. Several gatekeepers (i.e. teachers, social workers, the Families Against Drugs [FAD] Support Group representatives, a minister of religion and a community stakeholder) were engaged to assist in recruiting participants from the four sample groups. A non-probability purposive sampling method was employed to purposively recruit 29 adolescent non-drug users and ten adolescent peer mentors (via the TADA Programme at one school). The same sampling method, followed by a snowball sampling technique, was employed to recruit the two remaining sample groups of ten adolescent drug users (in the recovery process) and nine social workers and social auxiliary workers respectively. The sample sizes were determined by the principle of data saturation.The data generation method used in respect of the non-users took the form of semi-structured written narratives, administered in a group context during school time, followed by a second round of data generation. The life-grid (Wilson, Cunningham-Burley, Bancroft, Backett-Milburn & Masters, 2007:144), a qualitative visual tool for mapping important life events, was employed to guide the co-construction of the biographical narratives generated during the individual semi-structured interviews with the sample of adolescent drug users. Focus group interviews were used to enhance an understanding of the peer mentors and social service practitioners’ views on the construct ‘Coloured’ and their existing drug prevention programmes. Each of the individual and focus group interviews was audio-recorded, transcribed and complemented by the field notes. Informal data gathering occurred through participant observation of two drug prevention programmes, attendance of a FAD Support Group meeting, and interviews with community volunteers and the South African Police Services (SAPS) Youth Development Forum. Both the content and the context of the narratives were analysed to arrive at the research themes, sub-themes and categories. The content of the narratives was analysed by employing categorical content analysis, whilst the form of the narratives (i.e. how the stories were told) was analysed by using the socio-cultural approach to narrative analysis (Grbich, 2007:130). The journey metaphor emerged from the adolescent drug users’ narratives, depicting a prototypical storyline of a drug use journey, starting with experimentation and culminating in abuse and dependence for some and an early exit from the journey for others. The conclusions that can be drawn from these findings illuminate key protective factors and processes at a multisystemic level that can be strengthened to enhance the adolescents’ resistance to drug use and/or delay the onset of use. Embedded in the participants’ narration of the drug use journey were nuances relating to internalised stereotypes of ‘White’ supremacy and ‘Coloured’ inferiority as an explanatory framework for venturing onto and prolonging the journey.The two themes that emerged during the process of content and narrative analysis of the qualitative data (from both adolescent drug users and non-users) were as follows: Constructing drug use as a ‘Coloured’ phenomenon and reconstructing ‘Coloured’ identity; Risk and protective factors located at individual, family, peer, school, community and societal domains. The four themes that emerged during the data analysis of the peer mentors and social service practitioners’ narratives were as follows: Construction of ‘Coloured’ identity; socio-cultural meaning construction about the reasons for drug use amongst adolescents from the Northern Areas; description of drug prevention services rendered in the Northern Areas; and reflection on barriers to rendering drug prevention interventions.

The world has become more competitive, complex and unpredictable, and this process is continuing. Evolution is taking place resulting in organisations being pushed by strategies and pulled by increasingly assertive customers who demand more accountability and responsiveness (Kartte, 2010). In order to remain competitive in this changing world, many organisations, even financial institutions have adopted Lean principles in order to eliminate waste, reduce cost and streamline everyday processes (Spear, 2012). There have however been a number of challenges that have prevented financial institutions from implementing Lean principles successfully. The primary objective of this study is to improve the effectiveness of Lean principles within a specific financial institution. More specifically, this study will identify the effectiveness of successfully implementing Lean principles at a financial institution by investigating the influence of employee knowledge, understanding and skills, communication, motivation and ownership from management, organisational culture and the impact of trade unions in organisations as mentioned in the problem statement above. Convenience sampling was used to select a sample of sixty eight (68) employees within the specific financial institution. The sample was stratified to include senior managers, managers, team leaders and lower level employees. Questionnaires were distributed personally to the focus groups from the above categories.