Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / Substance abuse has been identified internationally and in South Africa as an escalating problem that has harmful effects on the substance user and on society. The cost of treating substance-related disorders places a strain on the allocation of financial resources to treat the problem. When relapse occurs in substance users who have already undergone rehabilitation, it increases the costs of treatment. Waiting lists at treatment centres are also negatively affected for first-time admissions when relapsed substance users are re-admitted. The study aimed to identify relapse indicators by post-discharge follow-up of adult substance users in a registered, non-profit, state-subsidised treatment facility in Cape Town. Marlatt’s Dynamic model of relapse was used to explore the individual and socio-cultural factors which were potentially associated with relapse. A quantitative research design using archival data and purposive sampling was used to identify possible relapse indicators. The participants were ex-patients who had undergone an inpatient treatment programme and who had been followed up post discharge. Ethical clearance was obtained from the University of the Western Cape Higher Degrees Committee. Written permission was granted by the treatment centre who is the original data owner.The majority of participants were male. More than half of the sample reported polysubstance use and, for more than half of them, the age of onset of substance use was between 11 and 15 years. Severe depression was present for more than a third of the participants, whilst the majority of the sample was assessed as being substance dependent. A large proportion of patients had family members who also used substances. The majority of the sample was unemployed and more than half had received previous substance abuse treatment. Significant associations were not established between the identified variables within the groups of factors. Additional studies are required to explore the factors contributing to relapse in this patient population.

Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / Career maturity is an essential requirement in human existence. Super (1979) identified five stages which highlight the level of maturity an individual should have achieved at a certain age. However, increasingly, it is being recognised that individuals are not at the level of career maturity where they ought to be. In order to address the matter relating to career maturity, the current research investigated the nature thereof amongst first year university students. The prevalence of specific aspects of career maturity (namely, self-information, decision-making, career information, integration of self-information and career information, and career planning) were investigated. In addition, the correlations between the aspects of career maturity and certain biographical variables such as age, gender and race were examined.

Magister Artium - MA / This mini-thesis aims to gauge the extent of occurrences of suicidal ideations among a sample of first-year students at the University of the Western Cape. The study investigates whether differences among those with suicidal ideations exist with respect to gender, race, religious affiliation and faculty for which students are registered. The sample of the current study consisted of 161 students from two first year Psychology classes at the University of the Western Cape. Non-probability convenience sampling was used whereby only those students who attended the two lectures were asked to participate in the current study. Students self-completed a questionnaire which included a brief demographic section and a section with the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS). The overall occurrence of suicidal ideations in the chosen sample was 26%. No significant differences among those with suicidal ideations in terms of gender, race, religion or faculty were observed. The results of this study highlight the importance of establishing prevention and intervention programmes on university campuses to create more awareness about suicide and offer more education to students on this topic in general, as well as to specifically offer counselling and support to students suffering from suicidal ideations.

The Eden District Municipality (EDM) is a local authority whose area of responsibility covers the Garden Route and also includes the Klein Karoo. The boundaries are from Storms River in the east, to Swellendam in the west and the Swartberg Mountains in the north. The EDM covers a very big area with seven big municipalities to consider and work with. Five of the municipalities, Langeberg, Mossel Bay, Knysna, George and Oudtshoorn have their own fire fighting services. The EDM fire fighting serves mainly the rural area. This is very costly due to the large distance required to travel to a fire, whereas the local municipalities are operating in their own towns. The new municipal boundaries include the rural areas, but the municipalities cannot service the rural areas because they do not as yet charge rates in the rural areas and therefore there is no revenue for the fire fighting service. They operate on the basis of verbal working agreements that make coordination of fire fighting very difficult. The fire fighting functions of the EDM as a category C municipality and the local municipalities as category B municipalities have been specified in the Municipal Structure Act. The allocation (division) of functions and powers relating to fire fighting service between the district municipality and local municipalities as determined by the Municipal Structure Act (Act 117 of 1998) has not been done. Due to the lack of invested capital, the resources are in a bad state. Some of the services have no capacity to attend to chemical fires or hazardous substance emergencies. Internationally, private fire fighting services can be contracted by government departments. These private fire fighting services are very large and the areas that they serve are extensive. These services have their own personnel structures functioning in an organisational structure that serves them well. These private services are very cost-effective and can therefore offer reasonable rates. Based on an investigation of various fire fighting services and different structures, the proposed structure for fire fighting in the EDM area will be a combination of structures. The diverse nature of the area will make the location of a sectoral structure and extension of its capacity difficult, and several factors that will impact on an new structure must be kept in mind. If all works well it will be relatively easy to achieve the five operations performance objectives envisaged for restructuring namely quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost.

The topic of business incubation has been the subject of considerable academic research, and a focal point in entrepreneurship support ecosystems. Business incubators provide entrepreneurs and start-up businesses with a shared space (either physical or virtual). The incubator offers a systematic shared support structure that enhances businesses' chances of succeeding and growing into entities that eventually graduate to a location beyond the ‘safety net' of the incubator. Academic research in the field of incubation has predominantly focused on (i) understanding business incubation models that are most effective within particular operating environments; and (ii) understanding support services that are most useful to incubatees of the incubator. This research instead explores the influence that funding sources have on business incubators, with a focus on understanding how incubators in turn assist their incubatees in accessing finance. Research focusing on funder influence on incubators, and support provided to incubatees to assist with access to finance, is at a nascent stage within the South African business incubation landscape. The research was undertaken utilising a multiple case study approach, with individual business incubators constituting a case. Incubators were classified into three case typologies, depending on their predominant funding source: mixed; private; or public funded. From the population of business incubators in South Africa, a sample of 8 incubators within the Western Cape Province were selected. Semi-structured interviews with participants were undertaken over a three month period and involved undertaking interviews with 8 incubator managers, and 10 current or former incubatees. Qualitative data from participant interviews were analysed using a combination of NVivo12 and MS Excel, in order to determine responses relevant to the research question and subquestions. The information collected was categorised into themes of relevance using initial and pattern coding methodologies. The research suggests that funders influence the work of incubators through driving their own objectives, utilising the incubator as a tool. Public sector funders set objectives for incubators that were linked to achieving socioeconomic goals (poverty alleviation and economic redress). Public sector funders were found to be strongly focused on achieving their own performance indicator goals, even if these did not align to the work of the incubators. Private sector funders set objectives for incubators that were linked to achieving the goals of their organisation or fund mandate. Private sector funders were found to lack long-term commitment to funding incubators. Communication between public and private sector funders was found to be, in general, poorly co-ordinated. Lack of co-ordination between funders negatively affected the impact of incubators. The cross-case multiple case study methodology revealed that in the Western Cape, similarities exist in the channels of support provided by incubators to assist their incubatees in accessing funding, regardless of the funding structure of the business incubator. However, heterogeneous priorities exist in funding support services provided to incubatees. Bias was identified in the process of sourcing of funding for incubatees. Incubators pursued a blend of proactive and reactive approaches to accessing funding for their incubatees, depending on their relationship with funder(s). The researcher recommends a strengthening of efforts to co-ordinate objectives across the two broad spheres of incubator funding sources (public and private) in order to build effective and sustainable business incubators in South Africa. Financiers of incubators should review stakeholders and other financiers involved in the incubator to clarify policy, commitments and performance metrics. Emphasis must be placed on ensuring alignment (i) between incubator financiers; (ii) between the objectives of the financier(s) and the incubator. The current study is well suited to being expanded in future, both in terms of: (i) widening the interview participant base to include incubator financiers; (ii) a geographic expansion to focus on South Africa as a whole.

This study investigated the impact of air connectivity on macroeconomic factors, specifically tourism, FDI and trade in the Western Cape, based on quarterly data from 2010 to 2018. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds approach for cointegration was used to assess whether long-run relationships existed between air connectivity and tourism, FDI and trade. The ARDL bounds test found a cointegrated relationship between air connectivity and tourism, FDI and trade respectively. Air connectivity was found to have a positive and significant long-run relationship with tourism This also supports the literature findings that air connectivity improves countries' accessibility and increases tourist arrivals from various markets. This confirms that air connectivity leads to an increase in the number of international tourists visiting the Western Cape, which contributes significantly to the tourism industry and the Western Cape economy. In addition, air connectivity was observed to have a positive but statistically insignificant long-run relationship with FDI and trade respectively. Therefore, this study concludes that air connectivity plays a key role in the economy, specifically regarding tourism through the facilitation of more tourists into the Western Cape. Furthermore, although the study showed positive and insignificant relationships between air connectivity and FDI and trade respectively, air connectivity is related to FDI and trade and these relationships require further investigation. Therefore, it is recommended that policymakers and decisionmakers on the African continent need to have initiatives that support the improvement of air connectivity, especially given that Africa has only a 2.2% market share of global air passengers and less than 10% of the continent's population uses air transport. Other African countries and regions should use a similar approach to what the Western Cape has done to improve the air connectivity between Cape Town and the rest of the world. In addition, investment in airports and airport-related infrastructure is critical and necessary, as poor airport infrastructure has been cited to be one of the obstacles in improving air connectivity in the continent. Furthermore, the development of an air connectivity index for the continent is required. This index will have to take into account the availability of data and the African context. Where data does not exist, a robust plan for the collection of data will also have to be developed. Lastly, the regulation of the aviation market needs urgent attention, starting with an Open Skies policy. The deregulation of air access could play a significant role in improving the African Continent's air connectivity.

Magister Scientiae (Biodiversity and Conservation Biology) - MSc (Biodiv and Cons Biol) / African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) mainland colonies are a popular tourist attraction in the Western Cape of South Africa. The African penguin population is in decline and the species is listed as endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. This thesis aimed to investigate the impact of ecotourism upon African penguin colonies by comparing two colonies of differing levels of tourist visitation in the Western Cape in 2017. The high visitation colony is a mainland colony where ecotourism activities take place (Stony Point), and the low visitation colony is an island colony where ecotourism does not occur (Robben Island). As well as inter-colony comparisons, nests at the high visitation colony within areas of differing exposure levels were also compared.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / The South African society is in a period of transformation that constantly challenges economic, social, and even psychological paradigms. Affirmative Action forms an integral part of the process of redistribution and has, for the longest time, attempted to make inroads into the mainstream of economic life in South Africa. The public service, being a government employer, generates a certain expectation with regards to substantive transformation amongst its ranks. For this reason, this study focuses on the Provincial Administration: Western Cape and the impact that affirmative action policies and strategies have had on management positions between the period 1995 and 1999. Government Affirmative Action policies and legislation have more than placed this issue in the forefront of social change and transformation, yet this investigation leads one to conclude that there is a lack of commitment from the provincial administration in terms of realizing national goals and objectives. This study critically assesses the dynamics at work in the transformation process in the administration and establishes the strengths and weaknesses of particular policies and strategies. Data relating to management positions, and the implementation of affirmative action policies and strategies during this period, suggest that little or nothing has been transformed.

In this thesis I have developed a general concept of outdoor recreation in river basins, and where possible, have applied this study to the Upper Berg River Basin. The formulation of a physical plan for the development of the outdoor recreation areas, is beyond the· scope of this thesis. The comprehensive, local statistical. data to be collected, analysed and synthesized for this purpose would take a team of planners, months, if not years; to complete.

No description available.