M.Ed. / Renewal represents an improvement in accepted existing practice. This implies that the old practice is just not good enough any longer. Similarly, the knowledge and training base of lecturers at technical colleges fell short with the introduction of the new National Intermediate Certificate, as well as the National Senior Certificate in 1992. The subject-related problems which emerged, could have been solved by various techniques. The quality circle, self-directed work team and support groups, are three group-related problem-solving techniques to be assessed in this study. The three techniques share group participation as a common characteristic. Each of these techniques still maintains a unique approach and method in solving a problem. One would have a remarkable problem-solving technique if one could capitalise on all the positive aspects of the various techniques. The introduction of the new National Intermediate Certificate and the National Senior Certificate, is a direct result of adherence to community needs. The new courses demanded implementation of computer training in various fields of study at technical colleges. A curriculum analysis focusing on Parktown College, led to the identification of three fields of study affected by the introduction of the computer. Lecturers responsible for computer training experienced and still experience various problems. These problems were identified by means of a focus group interview.

This thesis aims to answer the question: How is history knowledge contextualised into pedagogic communication? Empirically, it takes place at a specific point in the curriculum change process in South Africa, namely the period when the new curriculum for the Further Education and Training (FET) band was implemented in Grade 10 classrooms in 2006. The study is theoretically informed by a sociological lens and is specifically informed by the theories of Basil Bernstein, particularly his concepts of the pedagogic device, pedagogic discourse, pedagogic practice and vertical and horizontal knowledge structures. It is premised on the assumption that the official policy message changes and recontextualises as it moves across the levels of the pedagogic device. It tracks the recontextualisation of the history curriculum from the writers of the curriculum document to the actual document itself, to the training of teachers and the writing of textbooks and finally to three Grade 10 classrooms where the curriculum was implemented in 2006. The empirical work takes the form of a case study of the FET history curriculum. Data were collected from a range of different participants at different levels of the pedagogic device. It was not possible to interrogate all the sets of data with the same level of detail. As one moves up and down and pedagogic device, certain things come into focus, while other things move out of focus. Data were collected through interviews with the writers of the history curriculum, with publishers and writers of selected Grade 10 history textbooks and through participant observation of a workshop held by the provincial education department to induct teachers in the requirements of the new FET history curriculum. Data were collected in the Grade 10 history classrooms of three secondary schools in 2005 and 2006. The school fieldwork comprised video recording five consecutive lessons (ten lessons over two years) in each of the three Grade 10 classrooms, interviewing the history teachers and selected learners, collecting the test papers and assignment tasks and assessment portfolios from selected learners. The study uses the pedagogic device as both a theoretical tool, and a literary device for the organization of the thesis. Within the field of production, the study examines what is the discipline of history from the perspective of historians and of the sociologists of knowledge. History is a horizontal knowledge structure that finds its specialisation in its procedures. However, an historical gaze demands both a substantive knowledge base and the specialised procedures of the discipline. Within the Official Recontextualising Field, the study examines the history curriculum document and the writing of this document. The NCS presents knowledge in a more integrated way. The knowledge is structured using key historical themes such as power alignments, human rights, issues of civil society and globalisation. There is a move away from a Eurocentric position to a focus on Africa in the world. Pedagogically, the focus is on learning doing history, through engaging with sources. Within the Pedagogic Recontextualising Field, the major focus of the teacher training workshop was on working with the outcomes and assessment standards within the ‘history-as-enquiry’ framework. Textbook writers and publishers work closely with the DoE Guidelines and focus on covering the correct content and the learning outcomes and assessment standards. The three teachers within the field of reproduction taught and interpreted the curriculum in different ways, but the nature of the testing (focused primarily on sources) was similar as there are strong DoE guidelines in this regard. For Bernstein, evaluation condenses the meaning of the whole pedagogic device. This is even more so when the curriculum is outcomes-based. The assessment tasks that Grade 10 learners in this study were required to do had the appearance of being source-based, but they seldom required learners to think like historians, nor did they require them to have a substantial and a coherent knowledge base. The FET history curriculum is in danger of losing its substantive knowledge dimension as the procedural dimension, buoyed up by the overwhelming logic of outcomes-based education and the strongly externally framed Departmental assessment regulations, becomes paramount. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

This research was undertaken in the context of socio-economic transformation in South Africa, and more specifically, in the context of change in education policy. To support socio-economic transformation in South Africa after the first democratic elections in 1994, a competence-based National Qualifications Framework (NQF) was introduced in 1995. In responding to the particular socio-historical context of South Africa, the South African NQF is underpinned by the notion of applied competence, integrating practical, foundational and reflexive competence, which is the key and distinguishing feature of this competence-based framework. In this context of transformation, the research was aimed at an in-depth exploration of the notion of reflexivity and reflexive competence, and course processes that enable its development, with a view to providing curriculum development insights for learning programme development in the competence-based NQF, more broadly, and environmental education professional development programmes, more specifically. To enable these aims, the research was undertaken in the context of the Rhodes University / Gold Fields Participatory Course in Environmental Education (RU/GF course), as a case example of a professional development course that aims to develop critically reflexive practitioners. Within an interpretivist orientation, a multiple-embedded case study approach was used to gain insight into the relationship between course processes, reflexivity and the development of reflexive competence to clarify and provide a critical perspective on how competence develops in the context of the course. Data was collected over a period of one year using observation, interviewing and document analysis as the primary data collection techniques. Data was analysed through various phases and layers to inform data generation and the synthesising of data for further interpretation. Through the literature review undertaken within the study, various significant insights emerged around the notion of reflexivity and reflexive competence. Firstly, there appears to be a need to distinguish between reflexivity as social processes of change (social actions and interactions within social systems, structures and processes) and reflexive competence (a range of integrative elements of competence) that provides the evidence of an engagement within social processes of change. The second key insight emerging is the significance of social structure in shaping participation in reflexive processes, thus emphasising the duality of structure as both the medium for, and outcome of reflexive social actions and interactions and so challenges the deterministic conception of social structure. Further, the significance of an epistemologically framed notion of reflexivity and reflexive competence emerged, in the context of responding to the complex and uncertain quality of socio-ecological risks and in supporting change in context. Reflexivity, distinguished from processes of critical reflection, foregrounds a critical exploration of both knowledge and unawareness. As such a reinterpretation of reflexive competence is offered as a process of potential challenge to dominant and reigning forms of reasoning (knowledge frameworks) and consequent principles of ordering. Through this reframing of reflexive competence, the potential exists to destabilise dominant forms of reasoning and principles of ordering to create a broader scope of possibilities for action and change in context. This reframing of reflexive competence in the context of transformation in South Africa has critical implications for engaging within processes of learning programme design in the NQF to support an engagement within reflexive processes of change and the development of a range of integrative elements of reflexive competence. In this light, the study attempts to make the following contribution to curriculum deliberations within the context of environmental education and the NQF in relation to reflexivity, reflexive competence and change: ♦ Reflexivity is conceptualised as social processes of change with reflexive competence providing evidence of engagement within these social processes of change; ♦ An epistemologically framed conception of reflexivity and reflexive competence recognises how rules of reason and the ordering of the ‘reasonable’ person come to shape social life; and so ♦ Change is conceptualised as ruptures and breaks in dominant knowledge frames and the power relations embedded in these; ♦ Unawareness emerges as a key dimension within reflexive environmental education processes in responding to the unpredictable and uncertain nature of risks; ♦ An epistemological framing of reflexivity and reflexive competence highlights the need to develop open processes of learning to support the critical exploration of knowledge and unawareness; and ♦ Within this framing of reflexivity and reflexive competence, the difficulty emerges in specifically predefining reflexive competence to inform standard setting processes within a context of intended change. In framing data within this emerging conception of reflexivity and reflexive competence, a review of course processes highlighted potential areas for reorienting the RU/GF course to support change in context, for which I make specific recommendations. Drawing on the review of course processes in the RU/GF course, and in light of the reframing of reflexivity and reflexive competence, I further offer summative discussions as ‘possible implications’ for learning programme design in the South African competence-based NQF, broadly and environmental education professional development programmes in this framework, more specifically.

D.Ed. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Ed. (Educational Management) / The school is an educational institution that has been established in order to facilitate education. Prior to the establishment of schools, education was the responsibility of the parents and the community. Schools therefore came into existence when it was realised that parents could no longer cope with the specialised skill of transferring the increased knowledge necessary for the cognitive development of the child (Stone, 1988:22). The school is a means of handing down norms and a philosophy of life and is also an agent of the redevelopment and renewal of society (Stone, 1988: 18). Education is an existential necessity which is aimed at leading the child from nonadulthood to adulthood. Education which is a means to maturity formally takes place at a school. Therefore a school is seen as an institution for initiation of the development towards adulthood (Stone, 1988: 17). For the school to attain this objective, it has to consider the total person of the child, that is, a holistic approach towards education has to be adopted. Education has to transmit culture to the pupils in the service of the community from which it springs (Castelyn, 1985:49). Through the medium of its teaching, the school should educate the child to enable him to assume his role in civilized society as a mature adult. This can be achieved through the selection, ordering and presentation of subject matter in such a manner that the children acquire knowledge and skills that can be used to ensure a meaningful existence (HSRC, 1981a:11)...

D.Phil. / The purpose of this research is to develop a curriculum framework for a distance education course in sustainable urban agriculture, whereby it is envisaged to train the trainers of urban farmers. The factors which motivated this study are mainly socioeconomic and ecological in nature and include the food crisis of the urban poor, unsustainable agricultural practices, malnutrition, starvation, health risks and high population growth in cities. Sustainability in urban agriculture implicates a need for environmental education and ecological agriculture. An exploratory and descriptive research design was used in the empirical study to determine the feasibility of an urban agriculture course through distance education. The need for Environmental Education in this course as well as the best media to use for the course were determined. Secondly, the policies and assistance by local governments to establish an infrastructure for practising sustainable urban agriculture, aimed at improving socio-economic and environmental sustainability, were determined. In both these cases a quantitative research study was undertaken, using a questionnaire as the data collecting instrument and a research survey as the method of enquiry. The sampling population was purposively selected. The questionnaires were coded and the data from the closed-ended questions was computer-analysed while data from the open-ended questions was content analysed, using Kerlinger's method of content analysis. Thirdly, a literature study was done on the educational philosophies and the philosophical base undergirding this curriculum as well as curriculum design models and sources of change, influencing this curriculum. A curriculum design model was chosen to serve as a theoretical foundation for designing an urban agriculture curriculum. Finally an empirical study with a discriptive and exploratory research design was undertaken in a qualitative research study to set the curriculum framework for a distance education course in urban agriculture.

D.Ed. / The purpose of this research is to create a managerial training model to address the classroom and workshop management skills of teachers responsible for Farm Mechanics at agricultural schools. The research mainly comprises four sections. Firstly, literature exists on the inception and development of agricultural education since Pestalozzi's sense-perception and self-activity was regarded as fundamental to knowledge and education, up to present day implementation of outcomes-based education. Outcomes-based education is a new method whereby the existing gaps in education are inter alia, addressed as a whole. This presents a challenge to the agricultural school, the teachers, the parents and the community. The agricultural school with its colourful history, is a vocationally directed institution that serves the agricultural community in which it is situated in a special way — more specifically by introducing Farm Mechanics with its broad technical impact. On account of the multidisciplinary nature of Farm Mechanics as an educational presentation, stiff demands are made on the teacher, who usually lacks initial training and technical experience. Farm Mechanics covers approximately seven trades extending over the three main engineering fields namely, civil, electrical, and mechanical. Instruction and teaching are widely regarded as the most important tasks the teacher must fulfil in order to ensure that learners realise their full potential during and after their school days. One of the main reasons that students at tertiary institutions are performing badly and that novices in industry and agriculture are untrainable, is, among others, the shortcomings of teachers regarding classroom expertise and management skills. This problem can be overcome through a well-planned management training programme. The role of in-service training is an important instrument in coping with change and can be used to address the particular and distinctive training needs of the Farm Mechanics teacher.Secondly, an empirical study using qualitative- and quantitative research methods was done (phase one). The qualitative research consisted of interviews with Farm Mechanics teachers and educational specialists in agricultural- and technical fields of study. During these interviews certain problem factors were identified. The quantitative research was used to verify the qualitative research. This involved an analysis of the two most recent examinations in which the problem areas in the grade 8 to 12 syllabi occurred. With this information as basis, the pre-test questionnaire (phase two) was compiled. To obtain appropriate representation, a group of 21 Farm Mechanics teachers were chosen from two provinces to form the experimental and control group. The pre-test questionnaire was completed by the Farm Mechanics teachers and was analysed to determine the training needs in order to develop a management training model. Thirdly, different curriculum development models were probed in order to enable the researcher to develop a suitable management training model for the in-service training of Farm Mechanics teachers at agricultural schools. The results of the pre-test were used to perceive trends and to develop a management training programme addressing all the identified training requirements for Farm Mechanics teachers. Furthermore, a general management training model and more specifically the management training programme, were evaluated with a post-test questionnaire (phase three). After the completion of the post-test by the experimental- and control group, the information was processed. According to the results the attendance of the management training programme has shown a statistically significant improvement by the experimental group in their professional management skills. Deficiencies were however experienced in some management areas and recommendations were made in this regard. This research gives a synopsis of education management problems experienced by Farm Mechanics teachers at agricultural schools. The research does not provide for instant solutions for all problems which Farm Mechanics teachers experience in classroom and workshop management, but does give rise to optimism for positive co-operation and the continued search to improve agricultural education. Lastly, this research emphasises the fact that education and learning can only succeed if the teacher, as facilitator, commands effective classroom and workshop skills, as well as management expertise.

M.Ed. (Educational Linguistics) / This study focuses on the reading proficiency in English of black students who are attending an academic support school. From observations made on the difficulties experienced by many students in successfully completing reading tasks in the classroom., it appeared that many of these students were not proficient readers. As reading is a multi-dimensional research phenomenon, various dimensions of reading, which include bottom-up proficiency, top-down proficiency, metacognition, and affective and socio-cultural factors, have been investigated. While reading proficiency is the focus of the study, the relationship between reading and language proficiency as well as the influence of the sociocultural and educational background of the student on his reading have also been investigated. The research design for investigating the problem included a review of literature on the various reading models and on reading pedagogy, as well as on the relationship between language proficiency and reading proficiency. Literature on the influence of a disadvantaged sociocultural and educational background on reading proficiency was also reviewed. From these readings it was evident that reading is a complex process, the nature of which is still being investigated by reading theorists. Furthermore, the literature reviewed seemed to indicate that there is a relationship between language proficiency and reading proficiency, as well as a relationship between the sociocultural and educational background of the student and reading proficiency. The literature review was followed by a micro-genetic investigation of the research problem by a full participant researcher. Data were collected from nine students and processed. The findings indicate that most of the students are not proficient readers even though their bottom-up proficiency is adequate. Furthermore, it was found that a relationship between language proficiency and between sociocultural status and educational disadvantage and reading proficiency, does appear to exist. To conclude the investigation, suggestions for teacher training in reading pedagogy and for the teaching of reading in secondary schools to English Second Language readers were made. Finally, a model for reading pedagogy, which includes various aspects of the reading process, was devised.

M.Ed. / Wildlife areas are considered by many to be "wilderness" islands, which do not have anything to do with the local communities surrounding them. These areas are seen as elitist. The Kruger National Park is no exception to these thoughts. Due to its immense size, many neighbours of the park have over the years been ignored. A questionnaire was given to 127 of the neighbours along the southern boundary of the park to determine the environmental literacy of these neighbours. The neighbours sampled were from informal and formal settlements and tourist destinations such as lodges and hotels. From the results it was found that there was very little difference between these neighbours in terms of their environmental literacy. An environmental education model was proposed in order to address the lack of knowledge or misconceptions that the neighbours held about the environment.

M.Ed. (Curriculum Studies) / The purpose of this study is to determine whether affective considerations have a claim on inclusion in the curriculum and, if so, how these claims may be accommodated. The target group is the adolescents in their secondary school phase. Current research has indicated beyond doubt that curriculum planning can no longer be restricted to the cognitive domain. Feelings and emotions are involved in every learning experience and hamper or enhance cognitive development. Therefore the teacher's responsibility should be extended to include the education of feeling and emotion as well. The study proposes an approach based on sound educational principles and scientifically acquired data. The point of departure is the widely accepted principles and criteria for curriculum design. The relatively new communicative curriculum provides a useful framework, but it has innate weaknesses. Only if care is taken to counter the possible effects of such weaknesses, will the new sillabi have a chance of success. Affective aims should, however, not oust cognitive aims. Intellectual development is the primary goal of the school curriculum. A continuous stream of interaction flows between the affective and the cognitive fields. On all levels of curriculum design the approach should be to take the development patterns of the adolescents as the vantage points, formulate aims to accommodate affective development and only then to choose the relevant cognitive aims. Such an approach will hopefully lead to the achievement of a more balanced education for the volatile adolescent.