The education system in South Africa is undergoing vast changes in the post apartheid era. These include amalgamating the previously segregated departments, developing disadvantaged schools, financial cut-backs and the implementation of the controversial Right Sizing Document (1996). Kwa Zulu-Natal currently has a severe shortage of education facilities. Many children are not attending school and there is a dire need for qualified educators. Outcomes Based Education is being phased in, concurrently with the other changes. Despite this, the Right Sizing Document calls for a reduction in teaching personnel. It is unclear how reorganisation and the prospects of redundancy and redeployment have affected teachers. The aims of this study were to determine teachers' mental health status, stress levels and incidence of burnout during a period of major transformation and to explore teachers' perceptions of the changes. The researcher used a descriptive cross sectional design. A sample of 217 teachers was used, from urban primary and secondary government schools in the Pietermaritzburg North region. Data were collected using two standardised self-report measures, the General Health Questionnaire (Best 30 item version) and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Teachers were also asked to respond to a list of statements on Redundancy and Reorganisation Issues, designed by the researcher. The data were analysed by z-tests, analysis of variance, Pearson's correlation, Mann-Whitney tests and Kruskal-Wallis one way analysis of variance. Responses to an open-ended question were analysed qualitatively. The findings indicated extremely high distress levels for all the respondents, irrespective of age, gender and post level, in comparison with published norms and the findings of other studies. This distress did not appear to be associated with their own professional role and competence as teachers but seemed to relate to the uncertainty of their employment situation. The impact of the current changes on teachers' psychological and physical well-being were reflected by their responses to statements in the Redundancy and Reorganisation section of the questionnaire. It is recommended that the education authorities should develop a recovery strategy to address this urgent situation. Consultation and negotiation with teachers should be an inherent aspect of reorganisation and change, to prevent a repetition of the current situation. The role of professional organisations and various other issues that warrant further investigation are specified. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of certain demographic and personality factors to the experience of burnout in teachers. A number of other studies recommended the investigation of these variables as possible factors influencing burnout. Using a sample of 141 teachers from both Private and State schools in the Pietermaritzburg area, certain variables were investigated. The demographic factors included age, gender, marital status, number of children, class size, and type of school. The personality factors included five factors of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience and Agreeableness, as measured on the Neo-Five Factor Inventory. Burnout was measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory. A Correlation Matrix was used to determine the relationship of the demographic and personality factors to the dimensions of burnout. A Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis was done to determine which factors related best to the dimensions of burnout. Results indicated that certain aspects of personality and demographic variables such as Neuroticism, Extraversion, age, marital status, number of children, type of school, and class size were significantly related to the components of burnout. The research findings indicated that younger teachers are more prone to burnout than older teachers; that single teachers experience more stress and burnout than married teachers; and that having children acts as a buffer against stress and burnout. Male and females did not appear to differ in their experience of burnout. Of the personality variables explored, people scoring high on Neuroticism and low on Extraversion were found to be prone to burnout. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 110-120).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-120). Also available in print.

This thesis presents an empirical investigation to address the psychosocial work environment as an established social determinant of health. The focus was narrowed to a single occupation, teachers, due to high reported stress levels in national surveys and other consequential policy challenges. The focus of intervention was narrowed to tackling the causes of stress after a scoping literature review found that most effort in this area has been directed towards individual-level interventions and programmes. A systematic review was conducted to assess the evidence-base, which demonstrated availability of limited and low-quality evidence for the evaluation of organisational interventions for teacher wellbeing. It was found that organisational interventions lead to improvements in teacher wellbeing and retention rates, although most of the trials in this review were affected by methodological shortcomings. Because of the paucity of such intervention studies, and the heterogeneous nature of the interventions in the four included studies in this review, implications for practice were found to be very limited. Further well-designed research in the development and testing of organisational interventions for teacher wellbeing was recommended as a result, while outlining the requirements for a rigorous study in this area. An intervention development endeavour was subsequently undertaken, which pointed to participatory approaches. An intervention entitled Change Laboratory was identified due to its relatively robust theoretical and methodological basis. An exploratory pilot trial of the participatory organisational change intervention was conducted in four secondary schools in the UK, with 2 schools as intervention and 2 schools as control. Qualitative findings, process evaluation, and quantitative findings of the study are subsequently presented. The analysis focuses on the actions that teachers and managers collaboratively designed in the intervention schools, in order to address organisational and systemic factors generating stress. The common theme in the output of both Change Laboratory cases was their focus on the object of decision-making, and leading to an expansive learning in terms of a reconceptualization of decision-making within their respective organisations. The central contradiction was found to be between the macro perspective and priorities and agendas of the senior leadership that shape policies and processes, and the micro perspective of those having to enact and comply with the decisions made by senior leaders. The intervention outputs can be seen as mediators synthesized from this contradiction. Following the intervention impact longitudinally demonstrated a developing and evolving reconceptualization of pedagogy, which is more central to teachers' object of activity and their professional identity. The analysis demonstrates that professional identity may be a crucial dimension of wellbeing at work in tandem with work-related stress theories. The findings suggest that the Change Laboratory group initially embarked on a re-conceptualisation of decision-making, and utilised the new systems and way of working as a means to address teaching and learning which is more central to their professional identity and their object of activity. The quantitative findings suggests an indication of beneficial effects of the intervention at end-of-intervention point, also considering the limitations. The process evaluation focuses on delineating the different facets of the intervention and assuring intervention integrity, assessing feasibility and acceptability, and generating insights for scaling-up of the intervention. An implementation framework developed in this study was found to be of value in the endeavour to adopt, adapt, and develop process-oriented structural interventions.

Thesis (DEd (Education))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / Teaching is one of the most challenging and demanding professions in the world. It seems as though teachers are being stretched to the limit and that this has a negative impact on educator morale. Expectations placed on educators seem to be expanding exponentially in South Africa. A study has been undertaken to analyse and assess educator morale in schools in the Wellington area. The main aim of this study was to establish which factors influence educator morale. The aims that emerged was a literature study about educators’ morale and to establish how educators’ morale influence the functioning of schools. The last aim of the study was what can be done to assure continuous high educator morale. The literature study formed the starting point of this investigation. The literature study was followed by a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods within an interprevistic research paradigm. A questionnaire was used to collect data and feedback was given to three focus groups. The questionnaire concentrated mainly on aspects on national and provincial level, those in the school community and on school related levels whilst the third group related to the daily educational task of the educator in the classroom. The qualitative instrument was handed out to 137 respondents in schools in the Wellington area. The validity of the responses and the findings were tested by means of feedback to the focus groups to get their views about the findings of the literature study and the feedback from the questionnaires. The reliability of the data was tested by means of interviews with three focus groups. Triangulation was applied by means of qualitative and quantitative research methods, a literate study and focus group interviews. In conclusion, recommendations were provided to improve educators’ morale in schools in South Africa.

The purpose of this study was to identify the perceptions held by junior high school principals, their spouses, and school counselors regarding occupational stressors of the junior high school principals in the State of Texas. The occupational stressors center around five areas of concern: (1) administrative constraints, (2) administrative responsibilities, (3) interpersonal relations, (4) intrapersonal conflicts, and (5) role expectations. A randomly selected sample of 300 junior high school principals were sent questionnaires for themselves, their spouses, and their school counselors. Descriptive statistical methods were employed to calculate means and standard deviations of the principals', spouses', and counselors' perceptions of the occupational stressors of the principals. T-test and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyze the data.

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the inhibitors affecting classroom teaching by surveying the perceptions of secondary teachers. This purpose was based on the growing crisis of "teacher burnout" which was thoroughly documented. Since it appears that burnout most often affects those teachers who work in conventional classrooms, characteristics of teaching effectiveness within these classrooms were the basis for inhibitor comparison. Seven characteristics were produced by a crosstabulation of studies on effective teaching spanning the last fifty years. The inhibitor choices presented with these seven characteristics were extracted from an extensive list produced by the literature and classified under six areas of origin. The characteristics and inhibitors ultimately selected were surveyed among teachers in a large Southwest metropolitan area.

This study focuses on the lack of support services necessary to implement Environmental Education, in the Nsami Circuit, Limpopo Province. The aims of the study were, firstly, to investigate how teacher’s needs are neglected and how retraining of teachers is being relegated. Secondly, if Environmental Education were introduced in schools, to investigate the possibilities that it would create with regards to an awareness of local environmental issues. Thirdly, when projects are initiated at schools, to investigate the benefits to both teachers and learners. Lastly, to investigate the assumption that for any implementation of Environmental Education to be effective, teachers’ needs should taken care of, in terms of training through workshops as a way of helping them to adapt accordingly. An extensive literature review was undertaken to examine core areas of Environmental Education and the current curricula to establish where the emphasis of Environmental Education lay. The theoretical framework constructed from the review concluded with the premise that the issue of Environmental Education is of immense importance as reported in the NEEP-GET Project. The study, to investigate the essence and intensity of frustrations teachers’ experience in offering Environmental Education in South African schools, recommends that the Department of Education should treat the issue of training teachers through in-service training, seminars, workshops and other means a priority if effective and successful teaching and learning of Environmental Education is to be experienced. / Prof. H. G. van Rooyen

The morale of educators in certain schools is very low. From the literature review I concluded that not all schools experience low morale in the same way. There are different factors impacting on the morale of educators at different schools. In this study, the causes of low educator morale, indicators of low morale, the importance of high morale and how low morale can be dealt with were addressed in order to provide guidelines to improve low morale. An empirical study was conducted and 2 schools in the Northern Areas of Port Elizabeth were used in this case study to establish to what measure the educators are exposed to the abovementioned variables. The data was analysed qualitatively and quantitatively. South Africa is divided into different demographic areas. The majority of people living in the communities where these schools are located are poor, unskilled, unemployed and the crime levels are very high. The socio-economic context within which these schools are located also has an impact on the morale of the educators at these schools and it affects their working lives. Educators, SMTs and principals took part in the empirical study so that their views can be compared and to facilitate the researcher to make recommendations on improving low educator morale. The research outcomes were analysed and deductions, recommendations and a need for further research were given. The empirical and literature study emphasised that the morale of educators is low in the schools and this morale status impacts on learners’ achievements, the health of the educators and the health of the institution. The educators in this study ranked their own morale status as low and some of the causes of the low morale according to the empirical study are lack of resources, ill-disciplined learners, uninvolved parents and an ineffective management style of the principal.