Abstract Due to the implementation of shortening working-hour, a lot of enterprises chose to respond to the coming of the ¡§84 working-hour policy¡¨ by reducing salary and freezing personnel matters. Since the medical treatment industry different from other industries considering the fact that the medical treatment industry is a non-profitable institute and also a manpower and cost-intensive industry. This research aims to learn, as far as the shortening working-hour is concerned, whether or not exercising manpower for the medical treatment industry is more difficult than that in other industries. The cognition and viewpoints of the medical treatment industry towards shortening working-hour, and what types of working-hour strategies, educational training strategies, operation cost strategies, and management strategies, should be applied in terms of hospital management. This research aims to study the understanding of the medical treatment industry concerning the shortening of working-hour and their corresponding strategies. 540 copies of questionnaire were dispensed and 133 copies were collected and analyzed through SPSS. The followings are the findings of this research: 1. The understanding of hospitals on shortening working-hour: On the one hand, 56.4% agreed with the implementation of shortening working-hour policy because it helps to moderate the unemployment. On the other hand, over 50% disagreed with the above statement on half of the other entries. The results suggested that hospitals were generally not satisfied by the implementation of the said policy. 2. Hospitals¡¦ strategies corresponding to the shortening working-hour policy: ¡]1¡^57.1% (the highest percentage) choose not to complement when having job vacancy as their working-hour strategy. ¡]2¡^69.9% applied educational training in improving their employees¡¦ to understand on time and cost-reducing as their educational strategy; 64.7% focused to train their employees to have multiple specialties; 54.1% choose to enhance the training on information and computer application, and operating skills. ¡]3¡^75.6% choose to reduce the manpower and expenses under the existing scope as the operation cost strategy; 56.5% choose to enhance the internal information passing and increase the efficiency. ¡]4¡^83.5% choose to improve the manpower exercising as the management strategy; 66.9% choose to simplify the working procedures; 55.6% choose to improve the communications between employer and employees and the collaboration; 54.9% focused on the implementation of the merit system to improve the working efficiency 3. The current situation of hospitals after the implementation of shortening working-hour policy: Over half of the hospitals conform to the Labor Law on daily normal working hour and weekly normal working hour. However, few changes have been made on the ways of employment. For example, although 66.9% hired part-time works, most of them were under 10 part-time workers. Furthermore, as far as contract taking and outsourcing are concerned, the percentage has not exceeded 50%. Nonetheless, as far as educational training is concerned, 51.9% choose to have partial public-holiday and partial private-holiday which suggested that hospitals expected their employees to adopt the partial private-holiday way to improve their professional ability when they have more leisure time after the working hour has been shortened Keywords: shortening working-hour, flexible working hour, working-hour strategy, educational training strategy, operation cost strategy, management strategy

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This thesis is a comparative study of competing education and training (ET) policy options in South Africa today. The thesis examines the economic and ET policy proposals of the South African state, and in particular, the recently published National Training Strategy and Education Renewal Strategy. These documents are both critically examined and contrasted with the policy proposals which are currently emerging in the African National Congress (ANC) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). The analysis establishes a continuum of ET systems, with the policy proposals of the South African state representing a <low-skill equilibrium' system and the Framework for Lifelong Learning document of the ANC/ Cosatu reflecting a more highskill equilibrium' orientation. A <macro-institutional' theoretical perspective is employed throughout the thesis, an approach which combines a focus on the e macro' structural features of capitalist society with an analysis of the vast nexus of interlocking social institutions existing at the sub-structural level. This macro-institutional approach is particularly evident in the manner in which two key theoretical themes have been foregrounded throughout the text. The first has to do with the central macro' question of the market/state relation and its relevance for ET. The second has to do with the e institutional' dynamic of" the interaction between the ET system, the labour market and the organisation of work and the manner in which this interaction mediates the impact of ET on society and economic performance. The strength of the <macro-institutional' perspective is that it emphasises that the reform of ET in isolation of other societal changes is insufficient in the pursuit of higher productivity and improved economic performance. What is essential is comprehensive reform: reforms which impact on a whole range of key institutional locations. This requires coherent and long-term planning, a form of governance most often obtained by consensual co-ordinated market economies and seldom under free market conditions. The conclusion to this thesis suggests that the ANC/ Cosatu economic and ET proposals are more likely to obtain comprehensive reform' of the South African social structure than those proposals emanating from the current state.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study begins with an ethnographic self-study which allows for a reflection on traditional learning experiences. This study is located in the context of the initial development of dental health professionals within those higher education institutions that endeavour to provide education and training in a rapidly changing context. This context is characterised by the simultaneous need to address the blurring of boundaries and the dichotomies that exist such as the first world and the third world, the developed and the less developed world, the rich and the poor, health and wealth, the private and the public sectors, the formal and the informal sectors, the advantaged and the disadvantaged, the privileged and the underprivileged. The definitions, concepts, theories and principles around curricula and professional development are examined in an effort to extend into discoveries of educational research usually beyond the purview of dental health practitioners, policy makers or higher education specialists involved in training these dental health practitioners. It poses key questions regarding the nature of professional competences within dental health science undergraduate studies and how the curricula are organised around these perceptions of competence. Investigative tools include participant observation, interviews and questionnaires which have included both education deliverers - the teaching staff - and education consumers - the students. The areas of access by students to programmes (input), activities whilst in the programmes (throughput) and their competences at the exit end of the programme (output) are examined. It was found that institutions and programmes are paradoxically positioned declaring missions to be globally competitive and internationally recognised and at the same time wanting to reach out to the population who are disadvantaged and who form a majority. Whilst the needs of the wider community is for basic dental services and primary health care, the resources appear to be geared for producing technologically-superior professionals who will cater for a largely urban and middle class populations. The resources available, particularly human resources, for this training, are going through a critical shortage. Simultaneously demands are being made to challenge the epistemological rationale of the curriculum practice of the training sites at both universities and technikons (now known as universities of technology). These findings reveal that the SAQA demands and the proposed transformation of higher education provided an impetus for schools and departments within universities and technikons and their institutes to look at educational concepts and to transform curricula. This shift was found to be hampered by a variety of causes which included territorial protection, lack of a deep understanding of the education and training concepts and lack of human, physical and financial resources. It was also found that traditional designs of programmes are locked into tribal boundaries which restrict movement beyond these. The boundaries are ring-fenced by historical legacies and practices which confine programmes within these borders and continue to cement the fragmented development of dental health science professionals. The education and training of the different dental health science occupational categories are fragmented between institutes, within institutes and with three separate professional regulating bodies and, seemingly, disjointed functioning national and provincial departments of health and education. This (education and training) is found to be dominated by the traditional mould of teaching, learning and assessment with pockets of change in some schools and departments. Teaching units in the form of subjects, which operate as discrete units and remain entrenched by the habituations of subjects and departments within schools, restricts movement in the competence-based direction. The framework offered by this thesis sets broader and more fluid principles and guidelines which embody the notion of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values and which course designers and educators can utilise so that renewed ways can emerge for their programmes. This allows for a cross over into each other's territories (regulatory, institutional and the health and educational services) that will allow for courses to be designed more holistically and rationally with appropriate transformatory potential.

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The main objective of every school should be to provide quality teaching and learning. To be able to achieve these goals, a school needs adequate resources. Quality educators are vital in this regard. According to Clarke (2009) in “School Management&Leadership”, Graham Hall of the Wits School of Education estimates that South Africa needs to recruit at least 20 000 teachers a year. This number merely serves to replace those teachers who leave the system annually. Since local training institutions deliver only 7 500 qualified teachers every year, it means that there is an annual shortfall of 12 500 (Clarke, 2009). The challenge of teacher shortages needs to be addressed urgently. One option may be to give aspirant teachers the opportunity to do in-service training, also known as school-based educator training or an internship. However, this creates new challenges –one of which is that different role players need to take responsibility for this method of teacher training. The involvement of the school is obvious, because it plays host to these students. Many schools reacted positively to the request made by the Department of Education to assist with educator training. This unfortunately resulted in such schools burdening their already overworked workforce with even more responsibility. Furthermore, although a school may be willing to contribute to teacher training by accommodating and assisting student teachers, it cannot be assumed that its management will act responsibly and accountably. Only limited guidelines, regulations and prescriptions for managing the student training programme exist at this stage. This means that every school acts in good faith and hopes that it will hit the target. The limited nature of these regulations also allows for the school-based educator training programme to be easily mismanaged or even misused. A more streamlined, uniform system is needed, without limiting the creativity of schools. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted