High levels of unemployment and skills shortages in key parts of the South African economy are well documented. The failure of the South African economy to absorb new entrants to the job market is also well documented. The paradox of an economy that was growing for over a decade during the late nineties and early 2000s creating a lot of vacancies and yet at the same time seeing ever growing levels of unemployment numbers also makes for interesting reading. Learnership programs are intended to address this situation by reducing the problem of skills shortages and leading in the human capital development that is aligned to industry needs. Thus is the purpose of this study to determine whether the beneficiaries of the learnership programs, the graduates, find benefit from having completed these learnership programs. It is to evaluate whether they find the program to have been effective in either equipping them sufficiently to improve prospects of finding permanent employment or successfully starting their own businesses. An extensive literature study of the history of the FET and its development, the concept of learnership and legislation and statutes applicable to the sector in South Africa was undertaken so that the skills development initiatives in the country are contextualised. The empirical part of the study involved a self-constructed questionnaire designed to illicit perspectives of the FET training and learnership within the FET graduate population that have completed their studies at an FET institution within Nelson Mandela Bay. The data collected indicate that a substantial majority of the sample find The data collected indicate that a substantial majority of the sample find the training to be effective and confirm the literature findings that learnerships can improve the issue of skills shortage in industry. The study makes recommendations that encompass work-based strategies and training based strategies to further improve the program. The recommendations are targeted at the FET college, the work-place training providers and the MERSETA and are meant solely to assist the organisations in overcoming the identified challenges emanating from learnership implementation.

This time of great change, of shifting paradigms, provides a great platform for universities to rethink their processes (Duderstadt, 2000). Thanks to the pioneering success of the Toyota Motor Company for the invention of lean manufacturing. This operating system has been implemented in many manufacturing companies, with recent successes reported in the service industry. With its focus on quality improvement, cost reduction, efficiency and excellency, lean has been recognised as one of the mechanisms for process improvement and organisational change. In terms of fully embracing lean principles, the service industry still lags far behind the manufacturing, with institutions of higher learning still quite far. Numerous authors have confirmed that institutions of learning are not an easy environment to change. Universities are still characterised by bureaucratic systems based on conventional processes that are not necessarily relevant to today‘s world. The old saying that change in the universities occur one grave at a time is not farfetched (Hines and Lethbridge, 2008 and Paul and Brindley, 1996). The impact of globalisation on business education and how to respond to this phenomenon is a challenge. This necessitates a need for more streamlined and efficient organisations; hence lean has been promoted as a strategy to achieve competitive advantage (Simmons and Masson, 2003). The research study aims to identify areas where lean principles can be implemented to improve the NMMU MBA application process. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees directly involved in the process in order to understand it better. The results of the respondents were reported in a process chart diagram and spaghetti diagram. The interviews also revealed five themes that emerged during the analysis of responses. These themes formed the basis for development of recommendations in Chapter 6 of the study.

According to Nel, van Dyk, Haasbroek, Schultz, Sono and Werner (2004:19), organizational culture is simply the manner in which things are done in an organization. It is also known as the personality of the organization. Irrespective of what is called, the culture of the organization develops overtime, and employees are often not even aware of its existence. Organizational culture is, however, of particular importance to management because it helps them understand how employees feel about their work. Culture involves general assumptions about the manner in which work should be done, appropriate goals for the organization as a whole and for departments within the organization, and personal goals for employees. It is particularly the latter that makes the nature of the psychological contract of special importance in the pursuit of organizational success. It is represented by formal goals, structures, policy and communication. Shaw (1997:15) agrees with Nel et al (2004) that organizational culture composes of the shared values which are important concerns and goals shared by people in the organization that tend to influence the behaviour of the employees. These values persist overtime even with changes in group membership. In the light of the above literature, I’m conducting a research for a masters’ degree in Industrial Psychology at the University of Fort Hare, the topic being “The impact of organizational culture on employees’ behaviour within tertiary institutions in the Eastern Cape Region”. This study seeks to investigate: 1) Determine the extent of influence of organizational culture on employees’ behaviour. 2) Identify how management enforces such a culture into the workplace. 3) Determine the significance of creating organizational culture and its implementation. This questionnaire was designed, in this regard, by the researcher to assess the above mentioned objectives. This questionnaire was distributed to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and the University of Fort Hare.

M. A. / The inequalities regarding opportunities for the various cultural groups in South Africa to obtain access to tertiary education, could largely be attributed to the insufficient schooling that was available to black scholars until now. A new political dispensation and the coupled drastic changes to the educational system, including tertiary institutions, demands that the admission policies regulating the access tot tertiary education be reviewed and changed to provide for the educationally disadvantaged student. The Rand Afrikaans University created an alternative admission policy to accommodate educationally disadvantaged students and or students who do not qualify in terms of the usual admission criteria. Apart from certain minimum requirements, the policy requires that the learning and developmental potential of the prospective students be established. Language proficiency, intelligence, learning potential and other non-cognitive components are elements of the alternative evaluation. RAU found that the admission policy creates the necessity to research the predictive validity of the cognitive part of the test battery, with regard to the criterium academic performance. This research project attempted to assess whether the psychometric test battery which the University uses, within the framework of an academic support programme called Project 100, can be viewed as valid in predicting future academic performance of these students. The battery includes the measurement of intelligence by means of the LSAT; learning potential as assessed by the APIL; as well as language proficiency that is measured by using the Leesbegripstoets and the Reading Comprehension Test. M-score was also included into the statistical procedures, as to see whether the predictive validity of this factor is really as low as it is generally assumed. The statistical procedures that were employed to establish the predictive validity, included correlation coefficients for determining the validity of the individual components. Multivariate regression analysis was performed to determine the predictive validity of the components of the battery in conjunction with each other. Using the technique of discriminant analysis, the success of grouping through the test battery was assessed - looking at the proportion of the cases correctly classified into the categories pass, fail, and no admission to exam; and the categories successful and unsuccessful. The individual correlation coefficients revealed that each component correlated significantly with academic performance. M-score also correlated with academic performance, but this coefficient was the lowest of all the factors. The component which correlated highest with academic performance, was language proficiency. The GSAT and the APIL correlated to the same extent with performance, and the relationship between the two instruments was also relatively high. This implies that these two instruments probably measures the same construct. The results from the regression analysis proved M-score, APIL and the GSAT in combination to explain more of the variance in academic performance than any of these factors individually. M-score seems to explain other aspects of performance than intelligence and learning potential, and should for this reason be reckoned with when assessing a prospective student's potential success. The discriminant analysis showed that the tests successfully distinguish between the categories successful and unsuccessful, but not between the three categories pass, fail and no admission to exam. The factors should however never be seen in isolation. No single factor can predict academic performance to the full. The person should be seen as a whole, and the influence of non-cognitive factors should always be kept in mind.

A research report submitted to the WITS School of Education, Faculty of Humanities; University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education by combination of coursework and research, Johannesburg, 2017 / Student success at university is dependent on various academic and non-academic factors. Some students may face barriers to their success due to these factors. Academic development for students and staff, as well as student support programmes can play an important role in helping students to overcome the barriers they may be experiencing. This study aims to differentiate between different forms of academic development and student support, and their functions as well as to understand how these types of programmes or initiatives were conceptualised and operationalized at WITS. An important aim was to understand the provision of academic development and student support from the top-down, through examining WITS‟s policies on these issues. This was done through a comparative case study of two Schools in different Faculties at WITS. A series of interviews was conducted with practitioners working within programmes, at Faculty and School-level, and those who have had extensive experience within the field. What emerges from this research is that there are different programmes or initiatives in place in both Schools. These include teaching and learning development initiatives, student academic development programmes and student support programmes. However, without a policy or guidelines, the nature of academic development and student support tends to be uneven and each of the practitioners had varied perspectives based on their experiences in the field. There are various challenges faced by the programmes, but these are navigated differently by the practitioners given their context and agency. This unevenness and the varied experiences of the practitioners in this study tend to suggest the need for a policy to guide the implementation of academic development and student support. / XL2019

Bibliography: p. 151-153. / The dissertation, "Institutional Change in Higher Education: A Case Study" examines efforts to bring about fundamental institutional change at the University of Natal over a period of some 1 0 years, 1988 to 1997. The case study is characterised as being of an embedded single case design. It is an instrumental rather than an intrinsic study. It attempts to extend understanding of the complex social phenomenon of institutional change in higher education, through analytic generalization. The two sub-units of the case study relate to different attempts by the executive of the University of Natal to bring about consensus on the need for fundamental change and the nature of the change: through a more-or-less conventional strategic planning process; and by the adoption- as a strategic initiative- of the notion of becoming a learning organization. The two sub units are examined on the strength of University documents and interviews with past and present University office bearers and staff, within a conceptual framework of organizational theory derived mainly from Mintzberg, McGregor, and Senge. Both the strategic planning approach and the learning organization approach are seen to have failed as means of engineering consensual change and in the latter half of 1997 the University experiences a restructuring crisis as a result of financial pressures. A puzzle around restructuring, viz. why the University should pursue structural change which goes beyond the needs of simple cost-cutting and efficiency, is addressed first in terms of a perceived need for innovation, within the foregoing organizational theoretical framework. The analysis is then extended (effectively recontextualised) within a more pedagogic , social and political theoretical framework which is dependent largely on Bernstein. This analysis sees the changes being pursued at the University of Natal as being consistent with a shift in higher education generally to a market-dominated, competitive discourse in which University lecturers become knowledge entrepreneurs, competing within the institution and between institutions for scarce resources in response to perceived market needs . In this process, the narcissistic and introjected identities of academic departments, in which professionals in bounded disciplines determine priorities themselves , are replaced by projected identities and priorities are determined outside the discipline and the University. This cannot happen overnight. However , plans at the University of Natal to remove their administrative authority from academic departments are seen as a step in this direction.

Higher education landscape in South Africa could not escape the transformation which was necessary to ensure that South Africans receive quality higher education without any unfair discriminatory criterion. The 36 higher education institutions had to be merged and reduced to 21 and form a single coordinated higher education for the country. Tshwane University of Technology as a university with a multi-site institution has also resulted from this transformation agenda of the government. This merger is constituted by former Technikons Pretoria, Northern Gauteng and North-West. As a multi-site institution, managing other learning sites which used to be independent with their respective senior management structures became more challenging. An Interim Vice-Chancellor during the merger period appointed campus directors as an attempt to address challenges faced and discontent among staff and student. This study endeavours to describe and determine the roles of these Campus Directors in the institutional decision-making process of the University. / Public Administration / M. Tech. (Public Management)

The purpose of this study was to to investigate the impact of leadership practices on service quality in private higher education in South Africa as a source of competitive advantage. Higher education institutions and, more specifically, private higher education institutions, have faced increasing pressure on many fronts in recent years. These pressures include increased competition, lack of support from key constituencies, an increase in the size and diversity of the student population, dealing with changing technology, increased calls for accountability, a higher demand for quality by all the stakeholders involved, more responsibility for research and teaching and greater emphasis on efficient and effective management. The literature review for this study suggested that leadership impacts positively on quality and, equally important, on service quality. The academic leaders at these institutions have a tremendous influence on the quality of the education provided and the service rendered to the growing number of students. Using a quantitative methodology and a cross-sectional survey research design, this study was conducted on five campuses of a prominent private higher education provider across South Africa using two survey instruments. The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) questionnaire was utilised to conduct the leadership survey while the SERVQUAL instrument was applied in the service quality survey. The campus principals of the five campuses and some of their selected subordinates completed the LPI survey. The SERVQUAL questionnaires were completed by 984 students from the five campuses. Correlation analysis was the major statistical tool used to analyse the data. The findings of the study indicated a strong positive linear correlation between the leadership practices of principals and service quality to students at these institutions. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

Met die implementering van die Wet op Tegniese Kolleges, 1981 (Wet 104 van 1981) het 'n nuwe tydvak vir hierdie inrigtings begin. Indien die kort tydperk waarin tegniese kolleges in hulle huidige vorm bestaan in ag geneem word, kan aanvaar word dat daar nog verskeie probleme op hierdie terrein le. In hierdie werk is daar gepoog om enkele relevante probleme aan te spreek. Met die toekomstige rol van tegniese kolleges in die RSA in gedagte is veral drie belangrike knelpunte ondersoek, naamlik: * die werkterrein van tegniese kolleges; * bestuurstrukture vir tegniese kolleges binne dieAfrikaanse onderwysstelsel; en * die outonomie van kollegerade. Ten einde hierdie probleme te kon deurskou, is die huidige posisie van naskoolse beroepsonderwys aan tegniese kolleges, en die bestuurstrukture van hierdie kolleges binne die Suid­ Afrikaanse onderwysstelsel, nagegaan. Uit die literatuurondersoek, wat ook die situasie van soortgelyke onderwysinrigtings in 'n paar oorsese lande insluit, het dit geblyk dat sekere aanpassings aan die bestaande stelsel gemaak sal moet word ten einde tegniese kolleges in staat te stel om hulle toekomstige rol in die RSA te kan vervul. Om die menings van kundiges op die gebied van tegniese kolleges en naskoolse beroepsonderwys oor genoemde knelpunte te bekom, is 'n kwalitatiewe studie uitgevoer. Tydens ongestruktureerde onderhoude met tien informante is beskrywende data ingewin. Om 'n meer volledige siening oor die aspekte te verkry is resente uitsprake in toesprake, referate en skrywes bygewerk. Nadat alle data geanaliseer en bespreek is, is tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat die wyse waarop tegniese kolleges huidiglik funksioneer aangepas sal moet word sodat hierdie inrigtings hulle toekomstige rol in die RSA sal kan vervul. Die vernaamste aanpas­sings wat aanbeveel word is: * die werkterrein van tegniese kolleges moet so wees dat hulle onderrigprogramme inpas by die van technikons; * die ideale bestuurstruktuur sal wees as alle tegniese kolleges onder 'n sentrale onderwysdepartement ressorteer; * die outonomie van kollegerade moet uitgebrei word; maar * ten einde dit te kan doen sal kolleges gerasionaliseer moet word. / The implementation of the Technical Colleges Act, 1981 (Act 104 of 1981) introduced a new era for these institutions. If the short period of time in which technical colleges have been in existence in their present form is considered, it can be accepted that many problems still exist in this field. The researcher has endeavoured to address certain relevant problems. With the future role of technical colleges in the RSA in mind, three important aspects came under close scrutiny, namely: * the fields of study of technical colleges; * management structures for technical colleges in the South African education system; and * the autonomy of college councils. In order to deal with these matters, the present position of post-school vocational education at technical colleges and the management structures of these colleges in the South African education system were examined. The study of literature, which included the study of educational systems of similar institutions in several overseas countries, revealed that certain adjustments would have to be made to the existing system in order to enable technical colleges to fulfil their future role in the RSA. A qualitative study was conducted in order to acquire the opinions of knowledgeable persons in the field of technical colleges and post-school vocational education on the above-mentioned aspects. During unstructured interviews with ten informants descriptive data was elicited. In order to obtain a more comprehensive view of these aspects, recent statements in speeches, papers and articles were also taken into consideration. After all the data was analysed and discussed, the conclusion was reached that the way in which technical colleges are functioning at present will have to be modified to enable these institutions to fulfil their future role in the RSA. The most important modifications which are recommended are: * the fields of study of technical colleges should be such that their instructional programmes fit in with those of the technikons; * the ideal management structure would be for all technical colleges to fall under a central education department; * the autonomy of college councils should be extended; but * in order for this to take place, colleges will have rationalised. / Educational Management and Leadership / D. Ed. (Onderwysbestuur)

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Technology: Library and Information Studies, Durban University of Technology, 2013 / Academic libraries should lead in the instructional change process by being at the nexus of teaching, learning and research in the university. This study was set in the context of the current higher educational landscape of South Africa. In particular, it focused on the emerging role of the University of Technology (UoT) library to enhance academic success. This was an exploratory study juxtaposed with a literature review pertinent to national and international library integration programmes and practices. Justification for this study stemmed from the current local and international trend for academic libraries to become proactive partners in teaching and learning through academic integration and leadership in promoting the university’s mission and goals. Underpinned by the process learning theoretical framework, the aim of this study was to explore the extent to which academic integration has been adopted by UoT libraries in South Africa. Process learning was chosen by the researcher because it is considered a learner-centred teaching technique for student engagement and it is consistent with the constructivist theory postulated and applicable to UoT libraries. The specific objectives of the survey were to determine: what academic integration programmes are offered by UoT libraries to enhance teaching, learning and research in South Africa; existing information literacy programmes and assessment practices in UoT libraries; what postgraduate/research programmes are offered by the library to academics and students and how they are represented in strategy or policy documents; and the similarities and differences in academic integration programmes in all six UoTs in SA. A mixed methods approach (quantitative and qualitative methodologies) were used to collect data regarding programmes and practices prevalent in UoT libraries across all six UoTs in South Africa. An online questionnaire was administered using SurveyMonkey. Forty-two subject librarians participated in the survey, yielding a sixty- two percent response rate. The objectives of the study were achieved by the identification of the following key academic integration programmes: embedded information literacy programmes; resource collection and development; faculty collaboration and partnerships to promote academic success; research scholarship and open access initiatives; social media networking; and reading and writing programmes. This study found that while academic integration has gained momentum in UoTs in South Africa, greater effort should be made in collaboration with academics in: embedded information literacy and blended learning; open access and scholarship; reading and writing programmes; and collaboration in postgraduate interventions. The findings also revealed that while most libraries internationally have embraced reading and writing programmes, libraries offering reading and writing programmes to enhance academic success are relatively scarce in UoTs in South Africa. It is recommended that the subject librarians engage in academic integration practices by: supporting the curricula and research programmes; improving institutional outcomes; improving collaborations; building intellectual or knowledge centres and providing relevant information to students and staff within a knowledge society.