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Gender inequalities are still widely pervasive and deeply institutionalised, particularly in Africa, where the burden of disease is highly gendered. The public health sector has been slow in responding to and addressing gender as a determinant of health. The purpose of this inquiry was to gain a deeper insight into the different ways in which gender was represented in the public health curriculum in sub-Saharan Africa. A qualitative inquiry was undertaken on gender in the curriculum in nine autonomous schools of public health in sub-Saharan Africa. Official curriculum documents were analysed and in-depth interviews were held with fourteen staff members of two schools that served as case studies. A content analysis of the data was carried out, followed by discourse analysis. A poststructuralist theoretical framework was used as the ‘lens’ for interpreting the findings. Most of the official curricula were ‘layered’, with gender not appearing on the surface. Gender was represented mainly as an implicit discourse and appeared explicitly in only one core course and a few elective modules. The overwhelmingly dominant discourse in the official curricula was the ‘woman’ discourse, with a strong emphasis on the reproductive and maternal roles of women, while discourses on men, sexuality and power relations seemed to be marginalised. Gender discourses that emerged from the in-depth interviews with participants were lodged in biological, social and academic discourses on gender. The dominant discourses revolved around sexual difference and role differences based on sex. Participants drew on societal discourses (family, culture and religion), academic discourses and their lived experiences to explain their understandings of gender. Their narratives on the teaching of gender showed that gender was not taught or received a low priority and that it was insufficiently addressed in the public health curriculum. Barriers to teaching gender were: lack of knowledge, resources and commitment; resistance; and competing priorities. From this study it emerged that curriculum and the production of gender knowledge are sites of struggle that result in multiple understandings of gender that are manifest in dominant and marginalised discourses. Prevailing institutional power relations mirror dominant societal and political discourses that have a fundamental effect on curriculum decisions and resource allocations. This interplay between dominant discourses and power relations, underpinned by a strong biomedical paradigm, could explain the positioning of gender as an implicit representation in the curriculum, with a more explicit focus on gender in the elective modules than in the compulsory or core courses. Being implicitly represented, gender does not compete with other priorities for additional resources. It is recommended that the public health curriculum be reconceptualised by: accommodating multiple understandings of gender; questioning constructed dominant gender discourses; considering broader, varied and complex social, cultural, economic, historical and political contexts in which gender is constructed and experienced; and moving from curriculum technicalities to understanding the curriculum as a process and not a product. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / School of Health Systems and Public Health (SHSPH) / Unrestricted

The central aim of this study was to investigatethe role of principals in the implementation of polytechnic curriculum effectiveness strategy (PCS) in Zimbabwe. The specific objectives of the study were to: determine and evaluate the role and strategic leadership skills of polytechnic principals in the development of PCS, understand the challenges faced by polytechnic principals in the development and implementation of PCS, investigate the extent to which principals provide lecturers with opportunities to enhance their teaching skills through professional development and derive a suitable model to be used in drafting and implementing PCS. The main research question which this study sought to answer was, „What is the role played by strategic leadership in the implementation of polytechnic curriculum effectiveness strategy?‟ In an attempt to realise that end, a mixed method research design was used to collect data, making use of questionnaires and interviews. The participants included 5 polytechnic principals, 123 lecturers, 77 students and 9 company training managers. The participants were selected through purposive, stratified and simple random sampling techniques drawn from five polytechnics selected for the study. The findings suggest that most polytechnic principals are rendered ineffective in implementing the PCS. Though the principals have a sound theoretical knowledge of their roles, they however experience a litany of practical impediments. These barriers include, inter alia, lack of curricula knowledge in the currere approach, action research, Basil Bernstein‟s and Paulo Freire‟s pedagogical discourses and reconceptualisation of curriculum, shortage of relevant instructional resources and poorly evaluated polytechnic curriculum, low level of staff incentive, training and development. Two systemic impediments in the principals‟ role of implementing PCS are: lack of autonomy in crafting and implementing PCS and lack consensus between Curriculum Research and Development Unit (CRADU) and National Manpower Advisory Council (NAMACO) in crafting policies on curriculum standards. / Educational Management and Leadership / D. Ed. (Education Management)

L'inflation sémantique qui existe aujourd'hui en France autour de la notion de territoire n'aura pas échappé au plus fin des observateurs. Érigé par le politique en une notion incontournable dont il ne semble plus pouvoir se passer, objet de nombreuses disciplines scientifiques, notion au cœur de multiples controverses : annoncé mort, sur le retour, épuisé, dépassé, l'actualité du territoire est telle qu'on en perdrait presque le sens. Pourtant la question du sens, bien souvent évacuée par ceux qui y ont intérêt, est absolument centrale car à force d'être (trop) utilisée la notion questionne : qui parle du territoire et pourquoi ? Quelles réalités désigne-t-on lorsque l'on parle du territoire en France aujourd'hui ? Faut-il se séparer d'une notion qui semble désigner à peu près tout et son contraire ? L'objet de la présente recherche ne consiste pas en une mise à mort du territoire, ni en son exaltation, mais choisit la voie de la reconceptualisation de la notion, voie qui semble être la plus raisonnable à suivre dans une France qui ne peut, et n'a de toute façon pas intérêt, à se passer du territoire. Afin de reconceptualiser la notion, ce travail se penche sur les principales dimensions à partir desquelles territoire est communément défini, à savoir une dimension politique, le territoire est un espace approprié par le pouvoir politique, qui le gère, le découpe et l'organise ; une dimension sociale, le territoire a été érigé par le politique comme lieu de la solidarité, de l'égalité ; une dimension identitaire, l'espace devient territoire à mesure qu'il est approprié par des individus et des groupes qui s'y sentent appartenir. Afin de continuer à faire sens, ces trois grandes acceptions du territoire doivent êtres reconsidérées au prisme des mutations qui ont transformé notre société depuis le milieu des années soixante-dix et qui sont pour une large part de l'ordre du registre réticulaire : mobilité, fonctionnement selon le modèle du réseau, réticularité, interdépendances. Si ces mutations ont souvent été perçues comme contraires au territoire, car aux antipodes de la manière dont la notion avait été jusque-là construite et pensée en France, cette recherche souhaite prendre le contre-pied de cette idée, en démontrant qu'il s'avère nécessaire de repartir de ces diverses mutations, afin de redéfinir la notion de territoire aujourd'hui au regard de cette réticularité. Car si territoire est apparu à un moment donné pour traduire une certaine réalité, ce n'est parce que cette réalité a changé, que la notion doit être considérée comme obsolète. On peut travailler à sa reconceptualisation et c'est tout le sens de cette recherche. / The semantic inflammation regarding the notion of territory that exists nowadays in France will not escape from the most careful observers. Politics set this notion up as an inescapable concept that cannot be overlooked. The question of territory is the subject of many scientific disciplines, debates as well as controversies. The actuality of this notion, announced dead, on the return, exhausted or out-dated, is such complex, that one can almost lose its meaning. Yet the question of meaning, which is often dismissed by those who are interested in the territory phenomenon, is absolutely central. Consequently, the notion of territory being (over) used in common debates raises many questions such as who speaks of territory and why? What realities do we mean when we talk about territory in France today? Is it necessary to get rid of concepts applied on many fronts and designating all or nothing? This research purpose is not to delete or to exalt the notion of territory. The aim is to find a way of reconceptualization of this notion. This approach seems to be the most reasonable to follow in France that currently does not have any interest in doing without the concept of territory. This research focus is on the main dimensions from which territory is commonly defined, namely a political dimension that defines a space appropriated by the political power managing, organising or cutting the territory out, a social dimension removed as a place of solidarity or equality by politics, and the dimension of identity regarding a space becoming territory as individuals and groups belonging to this territory appropriate it. Those three major concepts of territory have to be rethought in the context of changes such as mobility, networking or functioning according to the network model and interdependency, that our society is facing since the mid-1970s. As those transformations have often been perceived in France as contrary to the territory notion, this research aim is to study the territory from the opposite point of view. So it is necessary to start from these various mutations' analyses in order to rethink the current notion of territory. The concept of territory has appeared at any one time to translate certain reality, however this notion shouldn't be considered as obsolete once this reality has changed. Its reconceptualization can be done and this is the main purpose of this research.

The central aim of this study was to investigatethe role of principals in the implementation of polytechnic curriculum effectiveness strategy (PCS) in Zimbabwe. The specific objectives of the study were to: determine and evaluate the role and strategic leadership skills of polytechnic principals in the development of PCS, understand the challenges faced by polytechnic principals in the development and implementation of PCS, investigate the extent to which principals provide lecturers with opportunities to enhance their teaching skills through professional development and derive a suitable model to be used in drafting and implementing PCS. The main research question which this study sought to answer was, „What is the role played by strategic leadership in the implementation of polytechnic curriculum effectiveness strategy?‟ In an attempt to realise that end, a mixed method research design was used to collect data, making use of questionnaires and interviews. The participants included 5 polytechnic principals, 123 lecturers, 77 students and 9 company training managers. The participants were selected through purposive, stratified and simple random sampling techniques drawn from five polytechnics selected for the study. The findings suggest that most polytechnic principals are rendered ineffective in implementing the PCS. Though the principals have a sound theoretical knowledge of their roles, they however experience a litany of practical impediments. These barriers include, inter alia, lack of curricula knowledge in the currere approach, action research, Basil Bernstein‟s and Paulo Freire‟s pedagogical discourses and reconceptualisation of curriculum, shortage of relevant instructional resources and poorly evaluated polytechnic curriculum, low level of staff incentive, training and development. Two systemic impediments in the principals‟ role of implementing PCS are: lack of autonomy in crafting and implementing PCS and lack consensus between Curriculum Research and Development Unit (CRADU) and National Manpower Advisory Council (NAMACO) in crafting policies on curriculum standards. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Education Management)

Text in English / Through an in-depth analysis of selected texts, this study engages with the ways in which Ogun is reimagined by recent selected Nigerian playwrights. Early writers from this country, influenced by their modernist education, misrepresented Ogun by presenting only his so-called negative attributes. Contemporary writers are reconceptualising him; it is the task of this thesis to demonstrate how they are doing so from a decolonial perspective. These alleged attributes represent Ogun as a wicked, bloodthirsty, arrogant and hot tempered god who only kills and makes no positive contribution to the Yoruba community. The thesis argues that the notion of an African god should be viewed from an Afrocentric perspective, not a Eurocentric one, which might lead to violence or misrepresentation of him. The dialogue in the plays conveys how the playwrights have constructed their main characters as Ogun representatives in their society. For example, Mojagbe and Morontonu present Balogun, the chief warlord of their different community; both characters exhibit Ogun features of defending their community. The chosen plays for this study are selected based on different notions of Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron and war, presented by the playwrights. A closer look at the primary materials this thesis explores suggests Ogun’s strong connection with rituals and cultural festivals. These plays exemplify African ritual theatre. Being a member of the Yoruba ethnic group, I have considerable knowledge of how festivals are performed. The Ogun festival is an annual celebration among the Yoruba, where African idioms of puppetry, masquerading, music, dance, mime, invocation, evocation and several elements of drama are incorporated into the performances. The selected plays critiqued in this thesis are Mojagbe (Ahmed Yerima, 2008), Battles of Pleasure (Peter Omoko, 2009), Hard Choice (Sunnie Ododo, 2011), and Morontonu (Alex Roy-Omoni, 2012). No in-depth exploration has previously been undertaken into the kinds of textual and ideological identities that Ogun adopts, especially in the selected plays. Therefore, using a decolonial epistemic perspective, this study offers a critical examination of how the selected Nigerian playwrights between the years 2008 and 2012 have constructed Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron. Such a perspective assists in delinking interpretations from the modernised notions mentioned above, in which Ogun is sometimes a paradoxical god. Coloniality is responsible for such misinterpretation; the employed theoretical framework is used to interrogate these notions. The research project begins with a general introduction locating Ogun in Yoruba mythology, which forms the background to how the god is being constructed in Yorubaland. Also included iii in this first chapter is a discussion on a decolonial perspective, the principles of coloniality, the aims and objective of the study, and the relevant literature review. Thereafter, chapter two focuses on Battles of Pleasure and argues that the play re-imagines Ogun as a god of peace and harvest as opposed to a god of war and destruction. Chapter three discusses how Ododo’s Hard Choice reconceptualises Ogun as a god of justice, in contrast to him being interpreted as a god who engages in reckless devastation of life. Chapter four explores Ogun’s representation in Yerima’s Mojagbe as a reformer who gives human beings ample time to change from their wayward course to a course that he approves. In chapter five, Ogun’s reconception as a remover of obstacles in Roy-Omoni’s Morontonu is examined. The study concludes with a discussion on how Africans should delink themselves from a modernist Eurocentric perspective and think from an Afrocentric locus of enunciation. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil.(English)