An investigation into the social/personality guidance needs of a group of secondary school pupils
- Authors: McGregor, Dale
- Date: 1989
- Subjects: Interpersonal relations in adolescence , Personality in adolescence , Educational counseling , Adolescent psychology , Youth -- Counseling of
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1353 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001419
- Description: School guidance aims to meet the social/personality, educational and vocational needs of pupils, and the curriculum, organised and drawn up by the relevant State education departments, attempts to address these needs. This investigation set out to discover the guidance needs of pupils specifically in the social/personality area, and further, to state these needs in such a way as to allow the logical development of guidance programmes. Group and individual interviews were conducted using a sample of 72 high school pupils, selected from standards six to eight. The results show clearly the areas in which the pupils perceive their needs to lie. It is also apparent that further research in this area is strongly indicated.
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Educare work in Ciskei with special reference to the Keiskammahoek district
- Authors: Oosthuysen, Lucia
- Date: 1989
- Subjects: Educare , Education, Preschool -- South Africa -- Ciskei , Education, Primary -- South Africa -- Ciskei , Readiness for school -- South Africa -- Ciskei
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1356 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001422
- Description: High drop-out rates in the sub-standards in developing countries prompted the researcher to investigate preschool education in first and third world countries, and attend to the related problem of school readiness. The rapidly expanding Educare preschool project in the rural area ot Keiskammahoek in Ciskei was investigated as an example ot community-based low-cost preschool education. A final sample of 41 children who had attended Educare Centres were matched to a control group on age, sex, primary school (where possible), and breadwinner's occupation. The Abbreviated Aptitude Test for School Beginners (standardised on Xhosa-speaking school beginners) was used to test tor significant differences between the two groups six to seven weeks atter school entry. A t-test was used on raw scores and chi-squared tests on staves. No signiticant difference was found between the means of the experimental and control groups. On a subjective rating scale for general-linguistic development and socio-emotional adjustment, no significant difference between means of the experimental and control groups was found. The experimental group's tailure to perform better than the control group, could be ascribed to various reasons, amongst others, the possible shortcoming that the pairs were not matched on intelligence, severe lack ot equipment in Educare Centres, large numbers of children in the majority of groups, uniform programmes for a wide age range, irregular attendance ot children, the low level of training of supervisors and poor home conditions. Scholastic abilities of school beginners in the Keiskammahoek District, as tested, were poor. Results deviated grossly from standardised norms. The expected percentage for the combined categories Very Weak and Weak is, tor instance, 31%; in this investigation, however, 73% of the testees fell in these two classes. Chronologically older children generally performed better. A highly significant difference existed between testees under six years and those over six years. This investigation indicated the need for better organised preschool education in rural areas in Ciskei. proposals with substantial financial implications are: Better training of para-professional staff by qualified staff. Training of qualified staff to provide expertise in preschool education in Ciskei. Provision of sufficient educational materials by Government subsidies and private sponsors. Institution of bridge classes by the Ciskei Department of Education to promote school readiness. Suggestions without financial implications include: An investigation of regulations regarding entrance age for basic education. Only in exceptional cases should children under six be admitted. Daily programmes in Educare Centres geared towards learning readiness without becoming academic. An age limit of three years for admittance to Educare Centres. Very young children should be catered for separately. Liaison between Sub A teachers and Educare staff. , Adobe Acrobat 9.53 Paper Capture Plug-in
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Some reading problems encountered by Ciskeian second language English readers in subject content areas, with special reference to geography at the Standard Six level
- Authors: Pillay, Lionel Franklin
- Date: 1989
- Subjects: Content area reading , Language arts -- Correlation with content subjects , Language and education , Geography -- Study and teaching (Secondary) , English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1368 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001434
- Description: Since in our educational system a great deal of learning is supposedly dependant upon a child's ability to read and assimilate information from textbooks, this study investigated what reading skills are required by a second language reader of English to read textbooks with comprehension and understanding in relation to the reading skills of a competent reader and how Ciskeian Standard 6 pupils perform in relation to a Geography text prescribed at that level. A test, designed to measure eight reading comprehension skills, was given to a sample of 250 children from four schools in Zwelitsha, Ciskei, to establish whether the subjects are able to: a) give the literal meaning of words; b) derive the appropriate meaning of an ambiguous word from the context in which it appears; c) find answers to questions by making direct reference to the text; d) identify the major points and details in a text; e) use the information in the text to predict what the writer is going to talk about next; f) find the referent for anaphoric terms; g) use discourse markers to predict information/meaning to come, and see the relationships between what they have just read and what they are about to read; h) activate and use the background knowledge and schemata that they have to understand the text topic.The results of this study indicate that these children are: a) unfamiliar with the structure of expository texts; b) linguistically bound to a text and that they fail to use linguistic and contextual clues even when they are explicit in the text. The study also shows that the ability to make inferences and predictions is determined to a large extent by the prior knowledge and background experience that a pupil brings with him to the text and by his ability to activate that background knowledge. The findings suggest that in the English classroom, in an English as a second language (L2) medium situation, the L2 teacher has a responsibility to prepare the child for the study, which includes reading, writing, listening and speaking, of all subjects across the curriculum through the second language, which is the medium of instruction
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