The study focuses on public relations as a significant aspect of the functions of the principal as the manager of a secondary school. A review of selected literature suggests that a large number of the daily administrative and managerial tasks performed by principals require public relations skills. Research was conducted, by means of questionnaires and structured interviews, among principals and teachers at House of Delegates secondary schools in the greater Durban area. The research analysis examines principals' qualifications and in-service training in public relations. The public relations practice at schools used in the sample are evaluated in terms of selected public relations issues, viz. fund-raising, communication with the school's publics, coping with crises and image-building. The results of the study indicate that few principals have received training in public relations and that public relations practice at House of Delegates secondary schools in the greater Durban area is weak and inadequate. In the view of the researcher, principals should be given special in-service training, to develop their public relations skills and to teach them sound public relations practice, so that they will become better managers of their schools. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Durban, 1993.

The crisis in Black Education has dramatically influenced the manner in which principals manage their schools. What is clear is that for more than a decade school principal's have been faced with a complex task of managing schools in a changing environment, which is characterised by many upheavals. It would seem that every school principal will inevitably have to reconceptualise the school as a management structure and perhaps, accept certain guidelines for effective management of his school. Therefore, the specific purposes of the study were:  to investigate the problems encountered by principals, who are assigned the duty of managing the schools in an unstable environment;  to put forward proposals for effective management in a changing environment. In this study special attention was paid to the management of urban secondary schools under the Department of Education and Culture, KwaZulu. The major findings which emerged from the study are that :  from 1976 to 1991 the school environment has not been stable enough for the principals to be able to practise their management and leadership skills effectively.  that a number of factors within and outside the school have contributed to the disorder encountered in the schools;  although principals continued in their positions as heads, they had almost no authority to suppress the unrest that threatened the normal functioning of their schools;  that principals have to be innovative and flexible enough, to deal with the situation as it presents itself;  that as long as the legitimacy of the KwaZulu Education System remains questionable to the communities, teachers and the pupils it servers, unrest in schools, under this Department, will never be eliminated and therefore principals will always remain deprived of their opportunity to manage their schools effectively. The study concludes with several recommendations arising out of the study. The most important being :  the establishment of a single based purely on academic considerations rather than political considerations;  as the school is part of its surrounding environment, recognition must be given to the norms, values and attitudes of the community from which its pupils are drawn;  unrest related problems, that affect both the home and the school, can be overcome if parents meet regularly with principals and teachers and have discussions on matters of common concern, such as reducing the incident of truancy, methods of curbing drug abuse, methods of handling adolescent problems and selection of subject packages;  maintenance of firm, fair and consistent discipline is essential for effective management of a school. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of Natal, Durban, 1993.

Current trends indicate that the population explosion and invasion of information technology, particularly in developing nations, are likely to overwhelm education systems and policy makers, educators, researchers and therefore the community faces enormous challenges. Also, many graduates of various levels and disciplines appear unable to practically apply their knowledge in problem solving situations. In an attempt to achieve and maintain high educational standards, many nations are devoting substantial proportions of the gross domestic product toward educational endeavours. However, few systems are adopting modern education practices that intrinsically motivate and engage learners, and are at the same time flexible enough to consider students' aspirations and interests. It is argued that such systems would make learning more relevant, meaningful and enjoyable to the learners and are bound to improve exit performances. In such a system, the role of the teacher is that of a facilitator, and not instructor. Constructivism, a philosophy which holds that knowledge is actively constructed by learners through learning, is regarded as promising to provide a long-term solution to many educational problems since its underlying principles are argued to be holistic. It has become imperative that technology in general and the computer in particular should play a role as educational tools as these have capabilities that could be designed to make learning relevant and interesting to learners. It is argued that its use within constructivist approaches and curriculum considerations would increase learner abilities. An eclectic approach to curriculum design is advised for success in this endeavour. Since computers permeate most aspects of our lives (directly or indirectly) their inclusion in teaching and learning situations must become a reality. This project is focused on underscoring the fact that computer based education (CBE), under constructivist philosophy, can provide solutions to problems brought about by extreme interpretations of the deductive or traditional teaching approach. Particularly, it attempts to show that use of three-dimensional (3D) visualizations could significantly aid comprehension and perception of, among other units of discourse, cytoplasmic structure, geo-referenced graphical data, and the understanding of spatial relationships. This is a technique that has, in the recent past, received little attention and no extensive educational research has been carried out with the aim of perfecting it. Recent research carried out by members of the Biological Pedagogy (Bioped) research group identified conceptual problems in learners regarding biological processes such as photosynthesis and respiration. Having established that the misconceptions in learners were attributable to their lack of visualization ability, the first part of the project involved identifying some of the specific visual problems. A qualitative research approach was used to ascertain from university lecturers what convictions, beliefs and experiences they had had with their students that related to use of visualization skills. Skills most required included interpretation of 2D and 3D structures as well as their rotation in space. A survey was also carried out among Cell Biology first and second year students of the School of Life and Environmental Studies in order to precisely determine aspects of three-dimensionality and visual skills suspected to cause conceptual difficulties. Quantitative data analysis showed that the most deficient skills in the learners included pattern folding (projecting 2D material into 3D objects), orientation of form (identifying 3D objects that are oriented differently) and rotation (identifying 3D objects from top and front views). These findings corroborated qualitative analysis of lecturers opinions and convictions. An educational computer game was designed with the aim of ameliorating these problems. The game consisted of 3D scenes where puzzles related to the skills mentioned above needed to be solved. It was recommended that visualization skills should be incorporated into the biology curriculum for all undergraduate students within the first year of the course. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, 1999.

All over the world HIV/ AIDS has created a new stigma and discrimination, bigotry and ignorance that have resulted in a new class of outcasts. AIDS 2000 will break the silence on this affront to human dignity. This was the theme of the XIII Annual AIDS Conference held in Durban in 2000. Fours years later, there is little evidence of this reality. There are communities of people living with HIV/ AIDS that still live lives cloaked in secrecy. HIV/ AIDS is not losing momentum. HIV/ AIDS has infected 50 million, and killed 16 million since the epidemic began (The Mercury,19 May 2000). In Africa, HIV positive women now outnumber infected men by two million. Recognition of the potentially devastating effects the disease could have, took place very slowly, in Africa. It is only since the middle to late nineteen eighties that a general understanding has established itself in society of how imp ortant the fight against HIV/ AIDS will be. In South Africa the dramatic transition to democracy in the early nineteen nineties meant that political considerations had to be given priority. In 1997, the KwaZulu Natal (KZN) cabinet launched an initiative to bring public attention to the effects the epidemic would have on our society. In 1999 this was followed up with the Cabinet's AIDS Challenge 2000 strategy which was to have been be funded to the extent of R20 million per year (The Mercury, 19 May 2000). HIV / AIDS has established itself at pandemic levels in the province of KZN (The Mercury, 19 May 2000). Uno fficial figures of people living with HIV/ AIDS stand at 40%. This has huge implications for education as it is stated that there will be at least 750 000 orphans- children with no parents in KZN by 2010 (The Mercury, 19 May 2000). This means that educators who are already burdened with responsibility will have to respond in direct and indirect ways to the pandemic. The researcher in this study has lived in Umhlatuzana, a suburb on the outskirts of Chatsworth for the past twenty years. I teach History and Life skills at a secondary school in Chatsworth. Since the introduction of Outcomes Based Education in 2000, HIV/ AIDS has become a part of the Life Orientation programme. My interest in HIV/ AIDS grew with the launch of the Government initiated Tirisano project - an HIV/ AIDS awareness initiative . As HIV-AIDS coordinator, my duties included teaching learners about HIV/ AIDS awareness and about the causes and prevention of HIV/ AIDS through responsible behaviour. Accordingly, I have set up a school HIV/ AIDS committee made up of both learners and staff, drafted and implemented a School AIDS Policy and held workshops at school. As the HIV/ AIDS coordinator I have attended many training workshops and seminars in and around Chatsworth. This exposure to issues concerning HIV/ AIDS, together with available literature has led me to conclude that HIV/ AIDS is still very much a taboo subject, even among so called 'enlightened educators'. Due to the scarcIty of available literature regarding Indians! living with HIV/ AIDS and according to The Mail and Guardian, because media representations and billboards depict Black, White or Coloured but no Indian repr esentations of people living with HIV/ AIDS, many Indians still think that it is someone else's disease, or 'that sickness' (02 December 2003). While stud ying the module 'Diversity and Education' at Masters level, I began to understand that being an HIV/ AIDS coordinator was much more than teaching learners about HIV / AIDS awarene ss of prevention and modes of transmission. The module 'Diversity and Education' was designed to develop a deeper understanding of the critical issues and skills required to create safe and inclusive schools for learners and educators who are living with and are affected by HIV/ AIDS. Through the Diversity and Education module I developed a raised understanding of the negative impact of HIVism on the lives of people living with HIV/ AIDS. According to Francis, HIVism refers to the negativetreatment meted out to people living with HIV/ AIDS (2004). Altho ugh the Department of Education has to be applauded in creating an awareness of the epidemic, there is concern that an important area of HIV/ AIDS has been neglected: The issues regarding human rights and HIV/ AIDS. It was especially during the Diversity and Education sessions togeth er with related literature that I discovered that globally, many women have negative experiences of living with HIV/ AIDS. An article that appeared in the Sunday Tribune, Herald (07 December 2003) prompted my research . It was a stolY of an Indian woman, Theresa Naidoo, who was HIV positive. In her story she communicates her experiences of betrayal, prejudice and discrimination. Her sto ry has inspired the research er to explore the experiences of other Indian women living with HIV/ AIDS. The researcher contac ted the Chatswo rth HIV/ AIDS coordinator, Kogie David, who is based at the Chatsworth Child and Family Welfare Centre . She coordinates the HIV/ AIDS counselors in the Chatsworth district. The researcher explained the nature of her research study and was informed that there were many women like Theresa, living with HIV/ AIDS. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Since HIV and AIDS became a health problem in the world in the early '80s, education has been identified as one of the ways to control the spread of the virus, for the virus is mainly spread through specific risk behaviors. uMgungundlovu district ranks as one of the worst-affected areas in South Africa, with HIV prevalence figures of 40% and above over the past five years The study aimed to establish how people living with HIV acquired knowledge about the disease; to investigate how they responded to the knowledge acquired; and to identify factors that affect their implementation of the knowledge acquired in their daily lives. I hoped that this study would capture some of the realities that we live in, so that HIV education programme developers and implementers can start to grasp the factors that individual HIV positive persons experience, which can play a positive or negative role on how one uses the knowledge they acquire to improve their own health and also be able to protect the next person. The study was a micro qualitative research, with a feminist approach, drawing on both interpretive and critical paradigms. It focused on a particular group of people in a specific area. Through my personal reflections, the semi-structured in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and the review of other existing literature (published and unpublished), the study attempted to investigate perspectives of people infected with HIV on HIV and AIDS education. The study was conducted with consideration of the positions of women and men in the diverse South African cultures. The study findings showed how the intersection of gender, power and culture, the context of reception and implementation of knowledge, the individual‟s habitus and the multi-disciplinary support systems, impact on the reception, receptivity and implementation of HIV and AIDS education. The conclusion, recommendations and suggestions for future studies from the study are presented, positioning the person living with HIV at the centre of responses to slowing down the spread of HIV. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

This study attempts to examine language policy and language training and development in industry, with specific reference to departmental practice at ESKOM. ESKOM is South Afiica's largest electricity supplier with wide national and international business dealings. The organisation has extensive training and development programmes and is committed to supporting equity and the development of employees' potential through training and development. It is for these reasons that I selected the organisation as the basis for my study. The study is conducted within the parameters of the Constitution 's multilingual language policy, the Skills Development Act of 1998 and the Employment Equity Act of 1998. According to the Constitution, the state must take practical measures 10 elevate the status and advance the use of indigenous languages (Section 6: C). The state may also not discriminate against anyone on the grounds of language and culture (Section 9:3). The study argues that in order to ensure equity, all South African languages must be used. One way of ensuring equitable language usage is through training and development. The broad issues that are examined include: '" language policy and practice '" languages used in industry * the dominance of English in industry *upliftment of black languages * the language of training and development programmes at ESKOM * language training and development programmes at ESKOM The study is based on qualitative and quantitative approaches. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit information from management and middle-management about language policy and practice at ESKOM. Individuals involved with training were interviewed about language in training and development, and to narrow the focus, workers attending literacy training were issued with questionnaires in Zulu or English, according to preference and proficiency. to elicit information about their language usage, English proficiency and literacy training. Data was therefore gathered from all possible areas, including areas of policy, practice and implementation. The results were analysed and a discussion of subjects' responses was presented. In summary, English is the dominant language at ESKOM, despite the Constitution's eleven language policy and the call for equity. In addition, although the majority of the subjects attending literacy classes stated that they did not understand English well, they felt that training should be conducted in English medium. The majority of the subjects also felt that it is imperative for all South Africans to acquire black languages, at least at regional level. Finally, the limitations of the study and suggestions for further research are also outlined. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

This study reports on a qualitative study that sought to explore the experiences of female Heads of Department in Primary Schools. The study was carried out in KwaNdengezi, Pinetown South. It made use of qualitative methodology to obtain data using semi-structured interviews and observations as its methods of data collection. Purposive sampling was used to select the participants of the study, and the study sample consisted of four female heads of department in four primary schools, with whom the interviews and observations were conducted. The main findings of the study revealed that female heads of department experience and internalize negative stereotypes and believe males do not listen to them and they also experience gender stereotypes and their impact when performing their management duties in schools. Other findings include the experiences related to dynamics of being mothers and teachers at the same time. Further the communication with teachers, teacher discipline and the role that gender stereotyped held by members of the society. There is the issue of unequal power relations between men and women within the schools, which is an underlying factor behind all the gender-based experiences of female heads of department in the schools. Despite the fact that female heads of department encounter gender-based experiences in their management roles and responsibilities, they are engaged in empowering style of management by means of involving all the colleagues in the decision making processes. The study concludes by recommending that female heads of departments require support from all the stakeholders of the school, and that the government should hold workshops and seminars to support them. At the school level, they should resist all attempts at being treated in a condescending manner, and become role models to other aspiring females to assume school management positions for effective management and delivery of quality education. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2012.

This is a qualitative study of girls’ and boys’ understanding and experiences of genderbased violence in one co-educational primary school in KwaZulu-Natal. The study sought to get insights into the problem of gender-based violence by investigating the lived experiences of both male and female learners within the school context. The aim of the study was to unveil forms of gender-based violence that the learners experience and some contributory factors, as well as the strategies for alleviating gender-based violence in this schooling context. The study adopted a qualitative case study research design. It employed semi-structured interviews as its method of data collection and these took the form of focus group interviews and individual in-depth interviews. A total of eight learners (four girls and four boys) participated in the study. The study found that there was a high incidence of gender-based violence in the school under study. This took the form of demeaning gendered comments, unfounded sexual rumours, sexualized gestures and jokes, sexual harassment, bullying and corporal punishment. Some school spaces, peer pressure, media and dominant discourses of gender were found to be some factors contributing to gender-based violence in this school. The findings indicate that boys are the group most culpable of continuing the cycle of genderbased violence by perpetrating acts of aggression on others learners. Boys drew on dominant discourses of gender in this context, which generally accord power to masculinities, at the expense of femininities. The resultant inequitable gendered power relations played a vital role in the perpetuation of the cycle of gender-based violence in the school. The study also finds that school teachers too were implicated in acts of gendervii based violence, which mainly took the form of assaulting learners, both male and female. In addition, teachers display a general acceptance of gender-based violence incidents as normal children’s behaviour, and take no remedial actions to stop such abuses. The study offers some suggestions that relevant stakeholders could employ to address gender-based violence at schools. These include supplementing teacher education curriculum, to provide training on how to deal with gender-based violence, a campaign to bring about greater awareness in schools and in the communities where parents are involved, additional professional support for schools and setting up structures for learner peer support. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2012.

This study investigated the challenges experienced by school governing bodies in the implementation of the code of conduct for learners. A case study was conducted in two secondary schools from the Mafukuzela-Gandhi circuit in the Pinetown Region of KwaZulu-Natal. The aims of this study was to find out how SGBs implement the code of conduct for learners at their schools; what challenges SGBs experienced in the implementation of the code of conduct for learners and why SGBs are regarded as the most important structure to implement the code of conduct for learners. This qualitative study was set in the interpretivist paradigm. The research tools compromises of semi-structured interviews, documents analysis and observations. The two theories which underpin this study are democratic school governance theory and discipline theory. A review of international and local literature around issues of discipline revealed that some of the challenges of learner discipline encountered by South African Schools were being experienced world-wide. The findings of this research were a revelation to me. I had the privilege of experiencing first-hand what secondary schools educators, managers and parents encountered and dealt with on a daily basis. It is evident that learner misdemeanor is on the increase; educator’s teaching time is being consumed in dealing with disciplinary issues; educators are becoming frustrated and demoralised; the tribunal hearing are not regarded as an effective structure by learners; parental involvement is lacking and parents seem to have abdicated the responsibility of their children’s behaviour and education to the school and SGB parents play a limited role in the activities of the school due to their incapacity and lack of empowerment. Some of the recommendations based on the findings are that schools must involve all stakeholders in the formulation of the policy. The contents and procedures outlined in the policy must be communicated to all stakeholders and there must be consistency in its application. SGBs must formulate innovative strategies to engage parents to actively participate in the activities of the school. The Department of Education must fulfill its obligation to capacitate parent and other stakeholders on the SGB. An empowered SGB will make a greater contribution to the governance of schools. / Thesis (M.Ed.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2012.

This research topic presents a discussion on psychosocial deprivation and how it impacts on learners academic performance. It is a case study guided by the following questions: To what extent does psychosocial deprivation influence scholastic performance of grade seven learners? How can the school counteract the effects of psychosocial deprivation? What forms of assistance do parents and teachers need in order to work together to benefit the learners? This is a quantitative study underpinned by the ecosystemic perspective as well as the social constructivist theory. The sample size consisted of seventy learners taken from a primary school which was later reduced to twenty eight learners. The findings of the study were lack of motivation, absenteeism, learning disabilities, difficulties learning English as a second language, stressful family life, poverty and the like were some of the factors that affect learners and eventually results in their poor academic performance. The learners’ environment or neighbourhood is seen as one of the many social contexts that shape children’s cognitive, social and emotional development. However the neighborhood context does not simply “imprint” itself on children, but can be mediated or moderated by other social contexts, in particular the family. Learners who struggle with schoolwork without receiving effective intervention often drop out of school and, as a consequence, have increasingly dire employment prospects. Many learners are invisible strugglers, falling through the cracks and being written off as not needing the extra effort and intervention that educators can provide. Schools, educators and education policy makers must strive to level the playing field by counteracting or minimizing the impact of socio-economic factors on learner’s academic performance by doing the following: Supplying educational materials timeously. Preparing syllabi suited to the age, level and language of learners. Provide ongoing learner support with the help of guidance counselors and social workers. Provide nutritious programmes to supplement those with inadequate diets. Parents and teachers should work together to promote teaching and learning. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2011.