The aim of this research is to establish the extent to which principals of schools in Gauteng are implementing co-operative school governance. The shift to co-operative governance is a result of new legislation, and in particular the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996, which aims at redressing the inequalities of past legislation. To determine the extent, to which principals are engaged in co-operative governance, a questionnaire was designed to elicit essential information as to how co-operative governance has been practically implemented. The research attempted to evaluate the commitment and dedication of principals to the process of shared decision-making; decentralisation and accountability; to engendering healthy relations with governors; to ensure that legislation is complied with as regards the composition of governing bodies; and to encourage governors to attend training. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Education Management)

Ph.D. (Marketing Management) / The ability of independent schools to survive and grow would be enhanced by knowledge of what motivates parents when selecting independent schools in order to assist these schools in better targeting their marketing efforts (McGovern, 2011:16). The primary objective of the study is to recommend marketing guidelines for independent schools and was achieved to identify the choice factors influencing parents’ selection of independent primary schools, identifying the most important choice factors and demographic differences regarding the importance parents attach to choice factors. The external factors influencing the selection of independent schools, the relative importance of price, school facilities and the enrolment process were determined. The usefulness of the sources of information used in the decision-making process was investigated. Both exploratory (qualitative technique) and conclusive (quantitative technique) research designs were followed. For the qualitative technique, dept interviews with ten parents from different independent schools in Gauteng were conducted. For the quantitative technique, a non-probability judgement sample of 669 grade one parents from thirty (30) independent schools in Gauteng participated in the study. The findings of the study identified 29 different choice factors with small class size ranked the highest as choice factor. Previous interactions with the school are the highest ranked external factor influencing the decision-making process of parents and they prefer discount when two or more children from the same household are enrolled. With regard to school facilities, a computer centre is the most important for parents, and a science laboratory is less important. Parents prefer an interview with the principal when enrolling their child and the school open day and school website are the most valuable sources of information for prospective parents. Social media are not considered to be particularly a valuable source of information …

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for Master of Arts in Industrial Sociology in the Graduate School for the Humanities, Social Sciences and Education in the faculty of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand November 2016 / The study pursues the examination of transition in peri-urban areas through the case study of Midvaal Local Municipality. Peri-urban areas are experiencing a transition from rural urban coexistence to urban dominance. The peri-urban urban concept remains a complex one to define. Peri-urban concept has been accepted to mean the urban and rural linkages that are mutually reinforcing. Literature has reflected on urban bias developments of peri-urban areas with rural function being subdued. There is evidence of competing tensions between rural and urban functions. These tensions arise from competing interests such as residential estate developments and industrialisation of peri-urban zones. The study explores the urban bias extended to peri-urban zones that has potential to underscore rural functions, such as farming. Theoretical constructs assist to contextualise the transition in the peri-urban areas. There is convergence in the body of literature over transition of the peri-urban areas albeit not homogeneous. Unique country and within country transition of peri-urban zones make it difficult to forecast growth trajectory of peri-urban zones. The study finds that peri-urban developments have taken an affluent development trend, redefining the peri-urban as zones of high consumption. It is established that ultra-rich people are attracted to Midvaal. Accordingly, there are exclusive upmarket estates, namely, Eye of Africa golfing estate and Blue Saddle Ranches equestrian estate. These affluent development trends fracture the conceptualisation of peri-urban areas as vulnerable, poor areas that are a consequence of urban sprawl. Some of the pro-urban developments in periurban areas results in irrecoverable loss of agricultural land. Often, urban bias functions influence the neighbouring farm portions through land use or even influence price of land in these zones. There is an appeal of middle and upper class to peri-urban zones owing to country nostalgia, cheap land, security, recreation, ambiance, tranquillity and anti-urbanism. Peri-urban areas are being redefined along class lines in the South African socio-economic context. Racial property ownership patterns have been replaced by class patterns. The study establishes that ownership patterns within the estates under study are above the middle class income bracket of South Africa, rather a preserve of the affluent. The study establishes that Midvaal Municipality consents to the development of estates. There is an underlying motivation for the local authorities to be amenable to the upmarket estate developments. The municipality is actuated by revenue linked to upmarket residential estate developments. Developments of these estates inject revenue growth in the area. Upfront, developers invest in the laying of bulk infrastructure which is later taken over by the municipality. This type of relationship, if not guarded may yield elite capture of peri-urban. Development trends in peri-urban areas are not homogeneous. Some peri-urban zones still reflect a state of neglect, vulnerability and are homes of the poor. Whilst the municipality boasts being premised on agriculture strategy in its objectives as an agri-tropolis local authority, there is little evidence to suggest vibrant agriculture and contribution of same towards the GDP of the municipality. Instead, the growth path is dominated by non-agricultural functions and activities. There are contradictions and tensions of agricultural pursuit over industrial and residential developments. / MT2017

A research report is submitted to the School of Education, Faculty of the 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, 2016. / This qualitative study aimed to understand teachers’ identities and teaching practices in the Gauteng Primary Literacy and Mathematics Strategy. The research, which is a case study, was conducted with six Foundation Phase teachers, which included two Heads of Department (HODs). The setting of the study was a primary school that was declared underperforming in 2013, after the low performance in Annual National Assessments. The prescriptive syllabus type of curriculum known as the Gauteng Province Literacy and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS) was implemented due to the low Grade six Mathematics results. Semi-structured interviews were the primary research instruments used to generate data on how teachers understood their identities and teaching practices in a GPLMS school. A major finding was that teachers renegotiated their identities in order to deal with the changing teaching context that came with GPLMS. The study identified three groups of teachers who dealt with the changes in different ways: their learning trajectories and communities of practice, along with their personal identities shaped the ways in which they responded strategy. The teachers had a good sense of teacher identity before being declared underperforming. Another major finding was that teachers changed their pedagogical approaches order to teach according to the detailed, prescriptive lesson plans. What is problematic is that some teachers resorted to skipping some parts of the content, prescribed in the lesson plans, in order to finish the syllabus on time. Of great concern is that none of the participants received training on using the GPLMS or even CAPS from their district: teachers ought to have sound pedagogical knowledge that can ultimately afford epistemological access to the learners. Research on teachers’ identities and understanding teaching practices cannot be ignored since they teachers at the forefront of knowledge delivery. / LG2018

Thesis (M.Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2012 / The study has been prompted by the initiative of the Local Government of South Africa in introducing the Integrated Development Plan in local municipalities in 1998 as an interim integrated plan. Local Municipalities in South Africa have to use “integrated development planning” as a method of planning for future developments in their areas. Apartheid planning left South Africa with cities and towns that have racially divided business and residential areas; are badly planned to cater for the poor; have long travelling distances to work and poor access to business and other services; have great differences in levels of service delivery between rich and poor areas; have sprawling informal settlements and spread-out residential areas that make cheap service delivery difficult. Rural areas were left underdeveloped and largely unserviced. The aim of the study was to evaluate the impact of the IDP on service delivery in Emfuleni Local Municipality. The objectives of this study were: to evaluate the effectiveness of the IDP on service delivery and its implementation; to assess the capacity of the municipality to meet the IDP objectives and targets; to investigate the perceptions of the Emfuleni Local Municipality ward and Proportional Representative (PR) Councillors on their mandate and service delivery; and to identify and recommend strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the IDP on service delivery. The study was qualitative in design and collected data using interviews. The study found out that the public participation process, the Integrated Development Plan, service delivery protests and state of service delivery in Emfuleni has clearly shown that the Emfuleni Integrated Development Plan does not have significant impact on service delivery. Based on the findings of the study, the following recommendations are made: that there should an alignment of projects with community needs, establishment of a monitoring and evaluation unit, strengthen the intergovernmental relations system and regular feedback, communication and interaction with communities. These systems and structures will ensure that there is regular and coherent participation and involvement of the community as far as possible.

Thesis (M. Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2012 / Service Delivery in South Africa has been one of the critical concerns of the government lately. The departments have been unable to meet the targets as set in the major policies and strategies such as AsGISA, Millenium Goals of SA and other documents. The provision of basic services such as water, sanitation, housing, health and poverty as a whole were key to those service deliver plans. In spite of many attempts by different spheres of government, to deal with the problem, this proved to be failure. Issues such as poor interpretation of policies, corruption, maladministration of resources, lack of coordination and aligned programmes as well as lack of skills and monitoring by officials were to be dealt with in length in order to curb the problems of service delivery. The department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs came up with measures to speed up the process of delivering quality services to the communities of South Africa. This Turnaround Strategy was introduced in December 2009 and will hopefully deal with such problems. This is testimony to many protests by different residents in South Africa who are frustrated and in need of response by the government promises. This study attempts to outline the problems facing the development of human settlements in South Africa. This reveals that such service delivery problems are not unique and specific to individual settlement but are similar in all respects. Recommendations thereof may be specific and assist in the rapid finalisation of service delivery in Protea South. The contribution to be made by study will ensure that there will be no more protests and that each sector will have a better understanding of the other sectors.

This research was instigated by testimony of the failure and the subsequent crisis in the South African public healthcare system. Official investigations had brought to light alarming operational deficiencies in institutions under the aegis of the Gauteng Department of Health. The South African public sector and government departments, in general, are currently challenged by a complex transformation process which has a prime objective to ameliorate public accountability, service delivery and budgetary control. They are likewise faced with the equally labyrinthine and demanding task of establishing a public-sector organisation with meaningful and effective operational processes that are, in addition, expected to synchronise with the modern economy. The researcher is unequivocal: the success of the GDH in responding to the challenges of improving organisational performance and healthcare service delivery depends essentially on their knowledge management strategy. Knowledge, across public-sector organisations, is increasingly being acknowledged, not only as a strategic resource but also as a valuable organisational asset. In the context of this research, knowledge is defined as the experience that resides in the minds of people; termed tacit knowledge (as opposed to formal, codified or explicit knowledge). In an analogous manner, research studies abound with evidence that has identified knowledge management as having an influence on operational performance for healthcare service delivery. Yet, a brief inquest indicated that our overall understanding of the existence of the relationship between knowledge management and operational performance for healthcare service delivery in the South African public sector is, at best, exiguous. With these appraisals in mind, the researcher developed a theoretical model that revealed factors that could influence organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. The model focused on knowledge management capabilities and organisational performance. The prime objective was to operationalise the theoretically derived knowledge management capabilities constructs, identify statistically the enhancing or impeding factors that impact on organisational performance and develop a structural equation model to verify this theoretical paradigm. The ambition of this study was similarly to investigate the use of knowledge management by the Gauteng Department of Health for its transformation to achieve improved organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. This study in essence addressed four research questions: Firstly, what was the level of understanding of knowledge management in the Gauteng Department of Health and related healthcare facilities? Secondly, how were knowledge management strategies and practices aligned with the Gauteng Department of Health strategies and operational objectives? Thirdly, how was knowledge management used by the employees in the Gauteng Department of Health? and fourthly, how could the results of the literature review and the empirical data be used to create a knowledge-management culture and a collaborative working environment for the Gauteng Department of Health? The elemental, hypothesised pursuit governing the study was to determine the existence of a relationship between the use of knowledge management and an improvement in organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. Collaterally, what enabling environment would be instituted by the gatekeepers of the institutional praxes to capacitate other staff members specifically so as to include the succession planning conundrum? To accomplish this and after reviewing the literature, the effective factors in knowledge management were identified, namely, knowledge infrastructure proficiencies and knowledge process capabilities. The research followed the parallel mixed-methods approach in gathering and analysing research data. Data was collected using questionnaires with 496 respondents and interviews with 35 interviewees. The sample used in this study comprised employees of the Gauteng Department of Health and its regional healthcare centres. The survey respondents and interview participants were the general staff and executive/senior managers of the Gauteng Department of Health. These individuals were considered to possess the most comprehensive knowledge about their organisation’s characteristics and strategy, which included knowledge management adoption. In order to identify the relationships between the model elements, appropriate tests were initiated using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modelling were utilised and the proposed model was then extracted and content analysis was applied in evaluating the resulting qualitative data. The findings of this study furthermore indicated that knowledge management concepts were not universally understood in the Gauteng Department of Health. A structural equation model development strategy, postulated in the factor analysis, also produced a new best-fitting knowledge management capability model based on the new constructs. The structural equation model suggested that significant factors influencing the improvement of the organisational performance and healthcare service delivery are those of knowledge management capability. The regression analysis showed that most of the inter-correlations were significant, thus confirming the theory that knowledge management capabilities have a direct influence on organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. The research contributed theoretically to a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between knowledge management principles and factors that influence organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. Practically, the research contributed to confirming the use of knowledge management by the Gauteng Department of Health could to the improvement of its overall organisational performance and healthcare service delivery. The study further demonstrated the impact of knowledge management activities as a driving force for organisational change and the effect of knowledge management on the improvement of workforce productivity and organisational effectiveness. The new knowledge management capability model could additionally assist the Gauteng Department of Health determining the extent to which knowledge management is used and where to focus in developing and implementing knowledge management strategy. The study encourages practitioners to take cognisance of the fact that organisations are unique and that the factors which enhance or impede knowledge management are to be thoroughly examined. This case study was endorsed for its significant contribution to regional healthcare system, as well as the broader national healthcare structure. / School of computing / Ph. D. (Information Systems)

Three years into the human territory, the fight against HIV/AIDS still prevails. According to Fuller (2008), it is estimated that by 2025, 80 million Africans will have been killed by this pandemic, while 90 million are estimated to be infected by HIV. Close to 3 thousand women are infected with HIV daily. In the beginning of 2008, some 22,5 million sub-Saharan Africans were living with HIV (Fuller 2008). In South Africa, 5 million people are estimated to be infected with HIV, 250 thousand die each year due to AIDS-related deaths, while a thousand people die daily and 17 hundred get infected daily. South African women are the hardest hit population group, compared to their male counterparts (Fuller 2008; Zuberi 2004). In South Africa this epidemic crawled under the shadow of denial, fear, ignorance, stigma and discrimination, which disrupted efforts to prevent further spread and care for the infected and the affected individuals and groups. South African women are subjected to gender inequality, sexual violence and rape, and in the presence of HIV/AIDS their plight became exacerbated. They became subjected to blame and rejection because people do not want to associate themselves with this group, who possess the deadly infectious disease which is associated with commercial sex workers, intravenous drug users and homosexuals. The aim of this research was to investigate the plight of anticipated and enacted stigma among the South African women who receive treatment as outpatients in the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. The study was conducted among six women who are living with HIV/AIDS over a period of four weeks, with a qualitative research design adopted as research method. In-depth interviews were used as the primary tool for data collection. This study was conducted in order for the researcher to obtain insight into the subject of HIV- and AIDS-related stigma and to highlight the experiences of participants for policy and programme designing and development purposes.

This study examines the need for nature conservation legislation and the enforcement thereof in the Gauteng province. The study commences with an in depth examination of the historical background to nature conservation and nature conservation legislation in order to explain why the present condition exists. Some of the guidelines of the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) are considered in this regard as well as fines and penalties that are inadequate as deterrents for contraventions of nature conservation legislation. The necessity of the appointment of provincial departments of environmental affairs and the importance of environmental education as a means to an end are touched on. There is attention given to the economic importance of tourism for the realisation of economic prosperity to the regiol') and how that depends of adequate nature conservation legislation enforcement. The roles that different departments of the state and the private sector and organised pressure groups can play are also identified. An investigation has been conducted into the inner workings of the Gauteng Nature Conservation Directorate with a statistical analysis, sampling and arguments. Local and international case studies have been used as examples for analysis as well as statistics of previous trends. The study ends with conclusions which have been reached followed by recommendations which may be implemented. / Public Administration and Management / Thesis (M. Pub. Admin.)--University of South Africa, 2001. / M. Pub. Admin.

The aim of this research is to establish the extent to which principals of schools in Gauteng are implementing co-operative school governance. The shift to co-operative governance is a result of new legislation, and in particular the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996, which aims at redressing the inequalities of past legislation. To determine the extent, to which principals are engaged in co-operative governance, a questionnaire was designed to elicit essential information as to how co-operative governance has been practically implemented. The research attempted to evaluate the commitment and dedication of principals to the process of shared decision-making; decentralisation and accountability; to engendering healthy relations with governors; to ensure that legislation is complied with as regards the composition of governing bodies; and to encourage governors to attend training. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Education Management)