A comparative analysis of environmental policies of South African universities
- Authors: Gyan, Cecilia Adwoa
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa , Sustainable development -- Study and teaching , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Environmental aspects , Environmental policy -- South Africa , Campus planning -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4773 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008067 , Environmental education -- South Africa , Sustainable development -- Study and teaching , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Environmental aspects , Environmental policy -- South Africa , Campus planning -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa
- Description: There has been ongoing global concern on environmental issues and which is supposed to have moved down into smaller institutions and areas through local agenda 2l. Environmental issues are associated not only with care for the environment but also sustainable development. Various universities are beginning to strive for sustainable development and care for the environment. Some universities are therefore integrating care for the environment in their curricula and in their daily operations on campus. The greening of higher educational institutions as models is important as they are the seat for research and training of undergraduates who will become future leaders and policymakers and caretakers of the environment. It is therefore important for undergraduates to be exposed to greening processes in operations, research and curricula whilst still on campus. This study examines the process of formulating a policy and applies that to forming an environmental policy. The study involved a comparative analysis of environmental policies of various tertiary educational institutions from different countries. The study focused on how many universities in South Africa have environmental policies and how the universities which have environmental policies went about their formulation process. The study further examines the duration of the formulation process and the constraints encountered by universities. The study then reviews strategies on how the environmental policy is being implemented and how effective the implementation process is practically and the constraints these institutions face. The findings of the study reveal that few universities ill South Africa have an environmental policy. The universities are making efforts in their implementation process however, not all the principles found in the policies are being implemented effectively as there are no environmental management systems in place and there are no measurable objectives and targets set for proper evaluation of the success or failure of the policy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Gyan, Cecilia Adwoa
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa , Sustainable development -- Study and teaching , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Environmental aspects , Environmental policy -- South Africa , Campus planning -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4773 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008067 , Environmental education -- South Africa , Sustainable development -- Study and teaching , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Environmental aspects , Environmental policy -- South Africa , Campus planning -- Environmental aspects -- South Africa
- Description: There has been ongoing global concern on environmental issues and which is supposed to have moved down into smaller institutions and areas through local agenda 2l. Environmental issues are associated not only with care for the environment but also sustainable development. Various universities are beginning to strive for sustainable development and care for the environment. Some universities are therefore integrating care for the environment in their curricula and in their daily operations on campus. The greening of higher educational institutions as models is important as they are the seat for research and training of undergraduates who will become future leaders and policymakers and caretakers of the environment. It is therefore important for undergraduates to be exposed to greening processes in operations, research and curricula whilst still on campus. This study examines the process of formulating a policy and applies that to forming an environmental policy. The study involved a comparative analysis of environmental policies of various tertiary educational institutions from different countries. The study focused on how many universities in South Africa have environmental policies and how the universities which have environmental policies went about their formulation process. The study further examines the duration of the formulation process and the constraints encountered by universities. The study then reviews strategies on how the environmental policy is being implemented and how effective the implementation process is practically and the constraints these institutions face. The findings of the study reveal that few universities ill South Africa have an environmental policy. The universities are making efforts in their implementation process however, not all the principles found in the policies are being implemented effectively as there are no environmental management systems in place and there are no measurable objectives and targets set for proper evaluation of the success or failure of the policy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
A model for the alignment of ICT education with business ICT skills requirements
- Authors: Calitz, André Paul
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Educational technology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Information technology -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Information technology -- Study and teaching
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DBA
- Identifier: vital:8662 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1418 , Educational technology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Information technology -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Information technology -- Study and teaching
- Description: The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills shortage is of national and international concern. Modern business practices require the implementation of new technologies supported by a workforce with current and diversified ICT skill-sets. Acquiring suitable ICT skills has become a difficult task and employers are seeing government intervention at all levels. The school system in South Africa is under increased pressure and is faced with continuously declining matriculation pass rates, specifically in subjects such as science and mathematics. Schools are experiencing a decline in the number of scholars (learners) enrolling for the Information Technology (IT) school curriculum. The IT curriculum at school level is being criticised; under-prepared teachers are blamed and lack of suitable facilities highlighted. Surveys conducted amongst grade 9 and grade 12 scholars in the Eastern Cape have shown that scholars are not considering careers in ICT. Teachers, career/guidance counsellors and parents contribute to scholars' career decisions and are not encouraging scholars to pursue careers in ICT. Tertiary institutions in South Africa and internationally, are experiencing a decline in student enrolments and in pass and throughput rates. Industry is holding tertiary institutions responsible for not providing the “correct” ICT graduate skill-sets and passing an insufficient number of quality ICT graduates desperately required by industry. The accreditation of computing degree programs, such as Computer Science (CS), Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT), collectively referred to as CIT, offered by tertiary institutions is becoming an international requirement. The ICT industry is constantly changing and new job requirements and new career opportunities are frequently introduced. Graduates entering the ICT industry should have acquired knowledge about ICT career tracks in order to specialise and choose a suitable career path. Tertiary CIT degree programs should further be linked to specific career tracks and provide a multi-disciplined education to graduates. ii ICT graduates working in industry utilise skills obtained in under-graduate and post-graduate CIT degree programs. The ICT graduates have also obtained valuable skills working in industry, including business skills and soft skills. ICT skill surveys have identified the graduate skills gap, indicating ICT skills industry requires from graduates completing tertiary level qualifications. ICT graduates working in industry, for example indicated that programming in some cases is over-emphasised at school and tertiary level and that soft skills are ignored by tertiary institutions. An ICT Graduate Skills Classifications Framework is developed to address the graduate ICT skills gap and highlight important business skills, soft skills, technical skills and programming skills required by industry. In this thesis, an Industry ICT Value Chain Model is further developed that suggests a holistic approach to the problems experienced at all levels of ICT skills development, including government, industry, tertiary education institutions and at school level. Results from a number of research surveys conducted along the proposed Industry ICT Skills Value Chain Model indicated that problems exist at all stages in the value chain and that the problems can only be addressed involving government, industry and tertiary institutions collectively. A number of interventions is required and the support from industry is essential in achieving overall success in addressing the ICT skills shortage in South Africa. A proposed Industry ICT Skills Value Chain Model that can be utilised to address the ICT skills shortage in South Africa is presented.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Calitz, André Paul
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Educational technology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Information technology -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Information technology -- Study and teaching
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DBA
- Identifier: vital:8662 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1418 , Educational technology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Information technology -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Information technology -- Study and teaching
- Description: The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) skills shortage is of national and international concern. Modern business practices require the implementation of new technologies supported by a workforce with current and diversified ICT skill-sets. Acquiring suitable ICT skills has become a difficult task and employers are seeing government intervention at all levels. The school system in South Africa is under increased pressure and is faced with continuously declining matriculation pass rates, specifically in subjects such as science and mathematics. Schools are experiencing a decline in the number of scholars (learners) enrolling for the Information Technology (IT) school curriculum. The IT curriculum at school level is being criticised; under-prepared teachers are blamed and lack of suitable facilities highlighted. Surveys conducted amongst grade 9 and grade 12 scholars in the Eastern Cape have shown that scholars are not considering careers in ICT. Teachers, career/guidance counsellors and parents contribute to scholars' career decisions and are not encouraging scholars to pursue careers in ICT. Tertiary institutions in South Africa and internationally, are experiencing a decline in student enrolments and in pass and throughput rates. Industry is holding tertiary institutions responsible for not providing the “correct” ICT graduate skill-sets and passing an insufficient number of quality ICT graduates desperately required by industry. The accreditation of computing degree programs, such as Computer Science (CS), Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT), collectively referred to as CIT, offered by tertiary institutions is becoming an international requirement. The ICT industry is constantly changing and new job requirements and new career opportunities are frequently introduced. Graduates entering the ICT industry should have acquired knowledge about ICT career tracks in order to specialise and choose a suitable career path. Tertiary CIT degree programs should further be linked to specific career tracks and provide a multi-disciplined education to graduates. ii ICT graduates working in industry utilise skills obtained in under-graduate and post-graduate CIT degree programs. The ICT graduates have also obtained valuable skills working in industry, including business skills and soft skills. ICT skill surveys have identified the graduate skills gap, indicating ICT skills industry requires from graduates completing tertiary level qualifications. ICT graduates working in industry, for example indicated that programming in some cases is over-emphasised at school and tertiary level and that soft skills are ignored by tertiary institutions. An ICT Graduate Skills Classifications Framework is developed to address the graduate ICT skills gap and highlight important business skills, soft skills, technical skills and programming skills required by industry. In this thesis, an Industry ICT Value Chain Model is further developed that suggests a holistic approach to the problems experienced at all levels of ICT skills development, including government, industry, tertiary education institutions and at school level. Results from a number of research surveys conducted along the proposed Industry ICT Skills Value Chain Model indicated that problems exist at all stages in the value chain and that the problems can only be addressed involving government, industry and tertiary institutions collectively. A number of interventions is required and the support from industry is essential in achieving overall success in addressing the ICT skills shortage in South Africa. A proposed Industry ICT Skills Value Chain Model that can be utilised to address the ICT skills shortage in South Africa is presented.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
A Ranking Framework for Higher Education Institutions in South Africa
- Authors: Kanyutu, Teresia Watiri
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DBA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/48246 , vital:40746
- Description: In the past 16 years, the use of League Tables and Rankings (LTRs) as a tool to rank or measure the performance of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has grown in popularity. As a global practice, LTR outcomes are influencing how policies are developed and implemented within the Higher Education (HE) sector. Studies indicate that based on individual information requirements, HE stakeholders are using LTRs to compare HEIs with each other and make informed comparisons and decisions. University directors use LTRs as a basis for institutional strategic planning, reputation building and policy making, while students use LTRs to compare HEIs and make university of choice decisions. Further studies confirm that governments use LTRs for national higher education policy making, university funding, foreign partnerships and resource allocation. Globally and at a national level, the higher education sector has witnessed policy and structural changes, many of which are due to the increase in the use of international rankings and league tables. Despite the opportunities presented by participating in the production of and using LTRs, the ranking practice is contentious. Amongst the issues disputed by the HE stakeholders are the methodologies and criteria used in the production and publication of LTRs. Higher education experts argue that LTRs tend to favour institutional research output and ignore the teaching and learning function of HEIs. As a result, the ranking criteria differ across the higher education ranking institutions and their publication outcomes, which causes skepticism across the HE sector. Research indicates that these ranking criteria are often discussed from the standpoint of governments, the higher education management and the ranking institutions producing these LTR publications. The opinions of the students on the suitable ranking criteria used by ranking institutions lack. This study aims to address that gap. This study investigates the applicable criteria for ranking HEIs in South Africa, from the perspective of students. Building on the existing ranking criteria for three global and popular ranking institutions namely, Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THEWUR) and Quacquarelli Symonds World University Ranking (QSWUR), the study poses the question; “What framework can be used to rank HEIs in South Africa, from a student’s perspective?” The study argues that although some HEIs in South Africa have in the past and most recently appeared in the global LTRs, the current choice of ranking criteria fails to consider the perspectives of the students, who are major consumers of LTRs and important stakeholders in the HE sector. A positivistic research method was used, based on a review of literature on the current ranking criteria for the selected global ranking institutions. An empirical study was conducted amongst students in a South African Comprehensive University. An online survey was distributed through convenient and snowball sampling, where the students were requested to participate in the survey and share the questionnaire link with others. Eight hundred and eighty six (886) responses were received and used for the data analyses of this study.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Kanyutu, Teresia Watiri
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DBA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/48246 , vital:40746
- Description: In the past 16 years, the use of League Tables and Rankings (LTRs) as a tool to rank or measure the performance of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has grown in popularity. As a global practice, LTR outcomes are influencing how policies are developed and implemented within the Higher Education (HE) sector. Studies indicate that based on individual information requirements, HE stakeholders are using LTRs to compare HEIs with each other and make informed comparisons and decisions. University directors use LTRs as a basis for institutional strategic planning, reputation building and policy making, while students use LTRs to compare HEIs and make university of choice decisions. Further studies confirm that governments use LTRs for national higher education policy making, university funding, foreign partnerships and resource allocation. Globally and at a national level, the higher education sector has witnessed policy and structural changes, many of which are due to the increase in the use of international rankings and league tables. Despite the opportunities presented by participating in the production of and using LTRs, the ranking practice is contentious. Amongst the issues disputed by the HE stakeholders are the methodologies and criteria used in the production and publication of LTRs. Higher education experts argue that LTRs tend to favour institutional research output and ignore the teaching and learning function of HEIs. As a result, the ranking criteria differ across the higher education ranking institutions and their publication outcomes, which causes skepticism across the HE sector. Research indicates that these ranking criteria are often discussed from the standpoint of governments, the higher education management and the ranking institutions producing these LTR publications. The opinions of the students on the suitable ranking criteria used by ranking institutions lack. This study aims to address that gap. This study investigates the applicable criteria for ranking HEIs in South Africa, from the perspective of students. Building on the existing ranking criteria for three global and popular ranking institutions namely, Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Times Higher Education World University Ranking (THEWUR) and Quacquarelli Symonds World University Ranking (QSWUR), the study poses the question; “What framework can be used to rank HEIs in South Africa, from a student’s perspective?” The study argues that although some HEIs in South Africa have in the past and most recently appeared in the global LTRs, the current choice of ranking criteria fails to consider the perspectives of the students, who are major consumers of LTRs and important stakeholders in the HE sector. A positivistic research method was used, based on a review of literature on the current ranking criteria for the selected global ranking institutions. An empirical study was conducted amongst students in a South African Comprehensive University. An online survey was distributed through convenient and snowball sampling, where the students were requested to participate in the survey and share the questionnaire link with others. Eight hundred and eighty six (886) responses were received and used for the data analyses of this study.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
A social realist account of constraints and enablements navigated by South African students during the four year professional accounting programme at Rhodes University, South Africa
- Authors: Myers, Lyndrianne Peta
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Students , Accounting -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Finance -- South Africa , Higher education and state -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/93800 , vital:30946
- Description: This dissertation is an analysis of the enablements and constraints navigated by 43 students from different academic years within the Department of Accounting, Rhodes University, in their pursuit of obtaining the postgraduate Diploma in Accounting (DipAcc) qualification. Passing this diploma year entitles students to become Trainee Accountants, which is one of the requirements for their ultimate goal of becoming a chartered accountant. In the course of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews conducted for this study, students from across the four years of the professional degree programme, shared what had helped or hindered them on their journeys to and through Rhodes University, and within the Department of Accounting at this university. Focus group discussions were then held with academics from the department, where the student participants’ experiences were shared. The responses of the members of the focus groups confirmed many of the student participants’ experiences as did interviews with representatives from the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). These representatives also spoke about students’ experiences at other campuses. To determine how localised the student participants’ experiences were, selected individuals from a number of other Departments or Schools of Accounting at SAICA-accredited institutions in South Africa were also interviewed. SAICA representatives also discussed the ‘pervasive skills’ which trainee accountants are expected to acquire. The perspectives from these different groups, have provided validation of the student research participants’ experiences. Critical Realism and Social Realism were used as theoretical underpinnings while Social Realism, Bernstein’s Pedagogic Device, Legitimation Code Theory and New Literacies Theory were used as explanatory theories. Using these theories, the participants’ experiences were analysed and could be understood in a different way. This dissertation reveals how this unequal privileging of individuals as a result of the existing structures is perpetuated at university level. It is the poorer students from under-resourced schools who generally struggle with the language and the practices and ways of being required for success at university. Student participants’ experiences of constraint and enablement arose primarily in the areas of the finances required for tuition and living expenses while at university; having English as a language of learning; and difficulties experienced with taking advantage of the learning opportunities within the department. Research participants also spoke about their experiences of transformation in terms of both student protests, and a mentoring programme which assisted them in gaining access to the practises and ways of being required for the discipline. In so doing they were inducted into the discipline’s community of practice. This dissertation has assisted in providing an understanding of what has helped and what has hindered students at Rhodes University, on their journeys towards obtaining the Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting qualification. It has also provided insight into the mechanisms which lie behind these experiences. This study will provide practitioners and policy-makers with the opportunity to be better informed about students’ struggles, to contemplate their interactions with students and to identify, remove or reduce unnecessarily burdensome hurdles. Equally and perhaps more importantly, this study and the work which emerges as a result of this research, will provide students with tools to assist them in their academic journeys, to manage essential hurdles, and to eliminate or avoid unnecessary hurdles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Myers, Lyndrianne Peta
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Students , Accounting -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Finance -- South Africa , Higher education and state -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/93800 , vital:30946
- Description: This dissertation is an analysis of the enablements and constraints navigated by 43 students from different academic years within the Department of Accounting, Rhodes University, in their pursuit of obtaining the postgraduate Diploma in Accounting (DipAcc) qualification. Passing this diploma year entitles students to become Trainee Accountants, which is one of the requirements for their ultimate goal of becoming a chartered accountant. In the course of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews conducted for this study, students from across the four years of the professional degree programme, shared what had helped or hindered them on their journeys to and through Rhodes University, and within the Department of Accounting at this university. Focus group discussions were then held with academics from the department, where the student participants’ experiences were shared. The responses of the members of the focus groups confirmed many of the student participants’ experiences as did interviews with representatives from the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). These representatives also spoke about students’ experiences at other campuses. To determine how localised the student participants’ experiences were, selected individuals from a number of other Departments or Schools of Accounting at SAICA-accredited institutions in South Africa were also interviewed. SAICA representatives also discussed the ‘pervasive skills’ which trainee accountants are expected to acquire. The perspectives from these different groups, have provided validation of the student research participants’ experiences. Critical Realism and Social Realism were used as theoretical underpinnings while Social Realism, Bernstein’s Pedagogic Device, Legitimation Code Theory and New Literacies Theory were used as explanatory theories. Using these theories, the participants’ experiences were analysed and could be understood in a different way. This dissertation reveals how this unequal privileging of individuals as a result of the existing structures is perpetuated at university level. It is the poorer students from under-resourced schools who generally struggle with the language and the practices and ways of being required for success at university. Student participants’ experiences of constraint and enablement arose primarily in the areas of the finances required for tuition and living expenses while at university; having English as a language of learning; and difficulties experienced with taking advantage of the learning opportunities within the department. Research participants also spoke about their experiences of transformation in terms of both student protests, and a mentoring programme which assisted them in gaining access to the practises and ways of being required for the discipline. In so doing they were inducted into the discipline’s community of practice. This dissertation has assisted in providing an understanding of what has helped and what has hindered students at Rhodes University, on their journeys towards obtaining the Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting qualification. It has also provided insight into the mechanisms which lie behind these experiences. This study will provide practitioners and policy-makers with the opportunity to be better informed about students’ struggles, to contemplate their interactions with students and to identify, remove or reduce unnecessarily burdensome hurdles. Equally and perhaps more importantly, this study and the work which emerges as a result of this research, will provide students with tools to assist them in their academic journeys, to manage essential hurdles, and to eliminate or avoid unnecessary hurdles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
A system review of higher education admissions testing practices in Israel: implications for South Africa
- Authors: Cronje, Johan Herman
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Admissions , Universities and colleges -- Israel -- Admissions , Universities and colleges -- Entrance requirements , Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa -- Validity , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Israel
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9910 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/937 , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Admissions , Universities and colleges -- Israel -- Admissions , Universities and colleges -- Entrance requirements , Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa -- Validity , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Israel
- Description: Internationally, the practice of admissions entry testing in Higher Education (HE) has gained momentum over the past few decades, sparking ongoing research on its effectiveness. On a national level, three factors have signalled a timeous evaluation of admissions practices at HE institutions. Firstly, changes in the school curriculum and the new format of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) have impacted on the admissions criteria of HE institutions. Secondly, with the merging of HE institutions an alignment in admissions practices between the institutions involved were necessitated. Thirdly, South Africa has embarked on the development of National Benchmark Tests (NBTs). The primary aim of this research study was to develop a set of recommendations to guide admissions testing practices in the South African HE context. These recommendations had to place special emphasis on the multicultural and multilingual context of this country. To achieve this aim a systematic review was conducted on HE admissions testing in Israel, as it was identified as a multicultural and multilingual country that had successfully implemented national HE admissions testing. More specifically, a retrospective systematic review was performed on research regarding the national HE admissions test, the Psychometric Entrance Test (PET), used in Israel. The systematic review also contained a narrative overview on the educational landscape in Israel and the specifications of the PET, from which themes were also extracted. Eight broad themes emerged through the systematic review and narrative overview as being of critical importance to an effective national HE admissions test. These were the components of the test, the implementation of the testing programme, the method in which the test results are used to make HE admission decisions, the reliability xi of the test, the validity of the test, bias inherent in the test, other psychometric aspects related to the admissions test, and the effect of coaching or specialized preparation on test results. These themes, together with their sub-components, were used to develop eight recommendations that can guide the development and implementation of the National Benchmark Test (NBTs) in South Africa. Both the themes that emerged during the systematic review and narrative overview as well as the recommendations that were made to guide the development and implementation of a national admission test, represent an important contribution to the field of admission testing and decision-making in South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Cronje, Johan Herman
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Admissions , Universities and colleges -- Israel -- Admissions , Universities and colleges -- Entrance requirements , Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa -- Validity , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Israel
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:9910 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/937 , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Admissions , Universities and colleges -- Israel -- Admissions , Universities and colleges -- Entrance requirements , Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa -- Validity , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Israel
- Description: Internationally, the practice of admissions entry testing in Higher Education (HE) has gained momentum over the past few decades, sparking ongoing research on its effectiveness. On a national level, three factors have signalled a timeous evaluation of admissions practices at HE institutions. Firstly, changes in the school curriculum and the new format of the National Senior Certificate (NSC) have impacted on the admissions criteria of HE institutions. Secondly, with the merging of HE institutions an alignment in admissions practices between the institutions involved were necessitated. Thirdly, South Africa has embarked on the development of National Benchmark Tests (NBTs). The primary aim of this research study was to develop a set of recommendations to guide admissions testing practices in the South African HE context. These recommendations had to place special emphasis on the multicultural and multilingual context of this country. To achieve this aim a systematic review was conducted on HE admissions testing in Israel, as it was identified as a multicultural and multilingual country that had successfully implemented national HE admissions testing. More specifically, a retrospective systematic review was performed on research regarding the national HE admissions test, the Psychometric Entrance Test (PET), used in Israel. The systematic review also contained a narrative overview on the educational landscape in Israel and the specifications of the PET, from which themes were also extracted. Eight broad themes emerged through the systematic review and narrative overview as being of critical importance to an effective national HE admissions test. These were the components of the test, the implementation of the testing programme, the method in which the test results are used to make HE admission decisions, the reliability xi of the test, the validity of the test, bias inherent in the test, other psychometric aspects related to the admissions test, and the effect of coaching or specialized preparation on test results. These themes, together with their sub-components, were used to develop eight recommendations that can guide the development and implementation of the National Benchmark Test (NBTs) in South Africa. Both the themes that emerged during the systematic review and narrative overview as well as the recommendations that were made to guide the development and implementation of a national admission test, represent an important contribution to the field of admission testing and decision-making in South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Accessing learner support services in a distance education context at UNISA Adult Basic Education Department
- Authors: Arko-Achemfuor, Akwasi
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Distance education -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa , Adult education -- South Africa , Educational innovations -- South Africa , Educational technology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , M Ed
- Identifier: vital:16199 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1013382 , Distance education -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa , Adult education -- South Africa , Educational innovations -- South Africa , Educational technology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Description: This study investigated the access to learner support services by Unisa‟s ABET students in the Department of Adult Education in one of the rural provinces in South Africa. Specifically, a survey using questionnaire and focus group interview was carried out to determine the access gaps in to the learner support services by Unisa‟s adult students. A literature study preceded the empirical study to fully comprehend the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of the role of learner support in bridging the transactional distance between students on the one hand and the institution on the other hand. In the empirical study phase, a questionnaire was administered to 150 ABET Students in one province in South Africa through the stratified sampling technique and one focus group interview comprising 10 students who access support services at one of the regional offices to assess the importance they attach to the support services that are offered at the regional centres and the extent to which they are able to access them. The focus group interview comprised questions on the students‟ understanding of learner support services and their experiences in accessing them. Moore‟s theory of transactional distance was used as the theoretical base for the study. Out of a total of the 150 questionnaires that were distributed, 117 were the usable representing 78.0% response rate. One of the conclusions drawn from this study is that, although Unisa has most of the learner support services in place but for various reasons, a lot of the students are not able to access the support services as expected as the needs gap for almost all the support services were high. The chi-square tests found significant differences (p is less than 0.05) between the students on the extent to which they are able to access the support services. An integrated learner support framework was suggested for Unisa and other distance providing institutions to address the access gaps adult students‟ encounter in their studies.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Arko-Achemfuor, Akwasi
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Distance education -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa , Adult education -- South Africa , Educational innovations -- South Africa , Educational technology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , M Ed
- Identifier: vital:16199 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1013382 , Distance education -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa , Adult education -- South Africa , Educational innovations -- South Africa , Educational technology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Description: This study investigated the access to learner support services by Unisa‟s ABET students in the Department of Adult Education in one of the rural provinces in South Africa. Specifically, a survey using questionnaire and focus group interview was carried out to determine the access gaps in to the learner support services by Unisa‟s adult students. A literature study preceded the empirical study to fully comprehend the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings of the role of learner support in bridging the transactional distance between students on the one hand and the institution on the other hand. In the empirical study phase, a questionnaire was administered to 150 ABET Students in one province in South Africa through the stratified sampling technique and one focus group interview comprising 10 students who access support services at one of the regional offices to assess the importance they attach to the support services that are offered at the regional centres and the extent to which they are able to access them. The focus group interview comprised questions on the students‟ understanding of learner support services and their experiences in accessing them. Moore‟s theory of transactional distance was used as the theoretical base for the study. Out of a total of the 150 questionnaires that were distributed, 117 were the usable representing 78.0% response rate. One of the conclusions drawn from this study is that, although Unisa has most of the learner support services in place but for various reasons, a lot of the students are not able to access the support services as expected as the needs gap for almost all the support services were high. The chi-square tests found significant differences (p is less than 0.05) between the students on the extent to which they are able to access the support services. An integrated learner support framework was suggested for Unisa and other distance providing institutions to address the access gaps adult students‟ encounter in their studies.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
An assessment of the implementation of peer academic support programmes at higher education institutions in South Africa: a case study of one university
- Authors: Tangwe, Magdaline Nji
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Peer teaching -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , M Ed
- Identifier: vital:16203 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1016084 , Peer teaching -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Description: The purpose of the study was to assess the implementation of peer academic support programmes which are Language and Writing Advancement and Supplemental Instruction programmes in one University in South Africa. The study adopted a qualitative approach that used face-to-face interviews, focus group interviews and document analysis to collect data. Purposive sampling was used to select those who participated in the study. The participants were two coordinators of the programmes, ten facilitators working in the programmes for in-depth interviews and ten students who have been receiving services from the programmes for two focus group discussions. The study revealed that there was a general trend whereby peer facilitators of the programmes were recruited and trained. However, it was found that some facilitators abandoned the position immediately after the training which made it difficult for coordinators and Human Resource Staff (HR) to start the process of recruitment and retraining. In this regard, Teaching and Learning Centre, (TLC) and HR simply appointed other untrained facilitators to replace those who had deserted the positions. Also, some facilitators were unable to attend some of the regular trainings because of clashes with their classes. All these have a negative impact on the implementation of the programmes. The results also reveal that some of the facilitators were frustrated with students’ poor attendance in the sessions, and even those who attended their sessions, did not participate much in the discussions. It was found that most lecturers and students did not know the differences between supplemental instruction (SI) and tutorials. Neither did lecturers encourage their students to seek help from the TLC services. Reviewing of assignments from different disciplines by TLC facilitators was another burning issue that came up. Some facilitators reviewed assignments from different disciplines, because the disciplines were not represented and this is because they want to claim for more hours, which affects the quality of the programmes. The findings also show that some students did not like to take their assignment to the TLC for review because facilitators make unnecessary and harsh comments. On the contrary, some students acknowledged that they were fine with the way facilitators review assignments because it involves one-on-one consultation, and they always pass the assignments reviewed by PASS facilitators. The study also revealed that the coordinators monitored and evaluated facilitators through observation and the checking of attendance registers. Coordinators ware also monitored by senior colleagues of the department such as the manager of the TLC. Furthermore TLC has instituted a mentorship programme whereby senior facilitators mentor newly recruited facilitators. However not every facilitator had a mentor. The study also exposed the fact that the TLC venue was usually closed during examination periods to allow facilitators to prepare for their examinations. The findings show that some departments were not represented by facilitators and to remedy this situation, it is recommended that all departments be represented and lecturers encourage the students to get help from TLC. Most facilitators were undergraduate students, but they needed to be replaced by post graduates who did not have course work that will clash with PASS activities. The strategies used by facilitators were fairly good but more should be done to encourage students to participate in sessions. Finally, the monitoring and support mechanisms put in place were very functional but the TLC should make sure every facilitator is being monitored especially concerning the review of assignments. The significance of the findings of this study cannot be overemphasised. The strengths and challenges regarding the implementation of these programmes at this particular university have been revealed. Through the recommendations, it is hoped that the institution and the TLC would effect some changes in the implementation of these peer academic support programmes in order to better serve the students so as to achieve satisfactory throughput and retention rates.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Tangwe, Magdaline Nji
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Peer teaching -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , M Ed
- Identifier: vital:16203 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1016084 , Peer teaching -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Description: The purpose of the study was to assess the implementation of peer academic support programmes which are Language and Writing Advancement and Supplemental Instruction programmes in one University in South Africa. The study adopted a qualitative approach that used face-to-face interviews, focus group interviews and document analysis to collect data. Purposive sampling was used to select those who participated in the study. The participants were two coordinators of the programmes, ten facilitators working in the programmes for in-depth interviews and ten students who have been receiving services from the programmes for two focus group discussions. The study revealed that there was a general trend whereby peer facilitators of the programmes were recruited and trained. However, it was found that some facilitators abandoned the position immediately after the training which made it difficult for coordinators and Human Resource Staff (HR) to start the process of recruitment and retraining. In this regard, Teaching and Learning Centre, (TLC) and HR simply appointed other untrained facilitators to replace those who had deserted the positions. Also, some facilitators were unable to attend some of the regular trainings because of clashes with their classes. All these have a negative impact on the implementation of the programmes. The results also reveal that some of the facilitators were frustrated with students’ poor attendance in the sessions, and even those who attended their sessions, did not participate much in the discussions. It was found that most lecturers and students did not know the differences between supplemental instruction (SI) and tutorials. Neither did lecturers encourage their students to seek help from the TLC services. Reviewing of assignments from different disciplines by TLC facilitators was another burning issue that came up. Some facilitators reviewed assignments from different disciplines, because the disciplines were not represented and this is because they want to claim for more hours, which affects the quality of the programmes. The findings also show that some students did not like to take their assignment to the TLC for review because facilitators make unnecessary and harsh comments. On the contrary, some students acknowledged that they were fine with the way facilitators review assignments because it involves one-on-one consultation, and they always pass the assignments reviewed by PASS facilitators. The study also revealed that the coordinators monitored and evaluated facilitators through observation and the checking of attendance registers. Coordinators ware also monitored by senior colleagues of the department such as the manager of the TLC. Furthermore TLC has instituted a mentorship programme whereby senior facilitators mentor newly recruited facilitators. However not every facilitator had a mentor. The study also exposed the fact that the TLC venue was usually closed during examination periods to allow facilitators to prepare for their examinations. The findings show that some departments were not represented by facilitators and to remedy this situation, it is recommended that all departments be represented and lecturers encourage the students to get help from TLC. Most facilitators were undergraduate students, but they needed to be replaced by post graduates who did not have course work that will clash with PASS activities. The strategies used by facilitators were fairly good but more should be done to encourage students to participate in sessions. Finally, the monitoring and support mechanisms put in place were very functional but the TLC should make sure every facilitator is being monitored especially concerning the review of assignments. The significance of the findings of this study cannot be overemphasised. The strengths and challenges regarding the implementation of these programmes at this particular university have been revealed. Through the recommendations, it is hoped that the institution and the TLC would effect some changes in the implementation of these peer academic support programmes in order to better serve the students so as to achieve satisfactory throughput and retention rates.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
An evaluation of the factors affecting student success at a South African higher education institution : implications for management
- Authors: Watkiss, Sheralyn Ann
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa , College dropout -- Prevention , Management -- Education (Higher) -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:8817 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1018826
- Description: The context of this study centres on Higher Education in South Africa, the role that this sector plays in terms of economic development and the implications that face Institutional management in retaining students in the Higher Education system. Central to this study is the notion that student development theory can be used as a basis towards understanding the customers of Higher Education, how to better serve the customers needs and finally, retain students in the system through more effective management practices. The education sector is growing at an increasingly rapid rate as a result of strategic goals of countries and organisations such as the United Nations promoting the notion of education for all people (Altbach, Reisberg & Rumbley, 2009). The aim of the strategic goals adopted by developing countries in particular is to enhance the human capital or skills and knowledge of its people since education is a known contributor towards economic, social and political development. Higher Education in particular is known to contribute towards the human capital and economic development of a country. The Higher Education sector in South Africa for instance contributes approximately 1.5 percent to the country‟s gross domestic product (GDP), significantly higher than other industry sectors (apart from gold and agriculture) in the country (van Heerden, Bohlmann, Giesecke, Makochekanwa, & Roos, 2007). Figure 1.1 provides a context of the relevant importance of the higher education sector towards economic growth.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Watkiss, Sheralyn Ann
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa , College dropout -- Prevention , Management -- Education (Higher) -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:8817 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1018826
- Description: The context of this study centres on Higher Education in South Africa, the role that this sector plays in terms of economic development and the implications that face Institutional management in retaining students in the Higher Education system. Central to this study is the notion that student development theory can be used as a basis towards understanding the customers of Higher Education, how to better serve the customers needs and finally, retain students in the system through more effective management practices. The education sector is growing at an increasingly rapid rate as a result of strategic goals of countries and organisations such as the United Nations promoting the notion of education for all people (Altbach, Reisberg & Rumbley, 2009). The aim of the strategic goals adopted by developing countries in particular is to enhance the human capital or skills and knowledge of its people since education is a known contributor towards economic, social and political development. Higher Education in particular is known to contribute towards the human capital and economic development of a country. The Higher Education sector in South Africa for instance contributes approximately 1.5 percent to the country‟s gross domestic product (GDP), significantly higher than other industry sectors (apart from gold and agriculture) in the country (van Heerden, Bohlmann, Giesecke, Makochekanwa, & Roos, 2007). Figure 1.1 provides a context of the relevant importance of the higher education sector towards economic growth.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
An investigation into the success of the extended programmes at Walter Sisulu University, with particular reference to throughput rate
- Authors: Solilo, Nikiwe Primrose
- Subjects: Walter Sisulu University for Technology & Science , College dropouts -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , College attendance -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Academic achievement -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:8893 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020871
- Description: The purpose of the study was to investigate the success of the Extended Programme at Walter Sisulu University, with particular reference to throughput rates. Programmes offered by the institution to students are intervention measures to assist in improving student retention. This research investigated the role of the university with regards to retaining engineering students at Buffalo City. Also discussed will be the impact of financial support or lack thereof to paying for academic education. Lastly, the discussion will focus on Extended Programme courses offered to students and their impact on retention of students. Through Tinto’s model, Koen discussed that institutions have a responsibility for integrating academic and social activities to create holistic competent students (2007:65). It was also discovered that the institution through the Centre for Learning and Teaching Development (CLTD), offers services that benefit both students and lecturers. Merriam found out that the key to understanding qualitative research is the idea that meaning is socially constructed by individuals in their interaction with the world, (2002:3). This study called for qualitative research to get meaning from each participant. The research was conducted using questionnaires to both students and lecturers. The investigation discovered that an education institution is not only about academic studies. Data was collected and analysed using qualitative methods which included coding and colouring of responses. Research deduced that lecturers and students conclusively complained about the poor infrastructure of the university. It has been found that students think about their educational development, their personal growth and development, their employability and their prospects for career preparation or change (Moxley 2001:39). When students have this kind of attitude it means they have the courage to get through the choice no matter what challenges they face (2004: 212). According to Moxley, members of staff who expand their roles into tutorials, independent studies and small group projects, could be a pivotal strategy of the institutional retention mission, (2001:39). This is supported by Coetzee who state that lecturers should provide students with feedback quickly, promote independent thinking, guide and motivate students (2001:31).
- Full Text:
- Authors: Solilo, Nikiwe Primrose
- Subjects: Walter Sisulu University for Technology & Science , College dropouts -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , College attendance -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Academic achievement -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:8893 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1020871
- Description: The purpose of the study was to investigate the success of the Extended Programme at Walter Sisulu University, with particular reference to throughput rates. Programmes offered by the institution to students are intervention measures to assist in improving student retention. This research investigated the role of the university with regards to retaining engineering students at Buffalo City. Also discussed will be the impact of financial support or lack thereof to paying for academic education. Lastly, the discussion will focus on Extended Programme courses offered to students and their impact on retention of students. Through Tinto’s model, Koen discussed that institutions have a responsibility for integrating academic and social activities to create holistic competent students (2007:65). It was also discovered that the institution through the Centre for Learning and Teaching Development (CLTD), offers services that benefit both students and lecturers. Merriam found out that the key to understanding qualitative research is the idea that meaning is socially constructed by individuals in their interaction with the world, (2002:3). This study called for qualitative research to get meaning from each participant. The research was conducted using questionnaires to both students and lecturers. The investigation discovered that an education institution is not only about academic studies. Data was collected and analysed using qualitative methods which included coding and colouring of responses. Research deduced that lecturers and students conclusively complained about the poor infrastructure of the university. It has been found that students think about their educational development, their personal growth and development, their employability and their prospects for career preparation or change (Moxley 2001:39). When students have this kind of attitude it means they have the courage to get through the choice no matter what challenges they face (2004: 212). According to Moxley, members of staff who expand their roles into tutorials, independent studies and small group projects, could be a pivotal strategy of the institutional retention mission, (2001:39). This is supported by Coetzee who state that lecturers should provide students with feedback quickly, promote independent thinking, guide and motivate students (2001:31).
- Full Text:
Conceptualisations of and responses to plagiarism in the South African higher education system
- Mphahlele, Martha Matee (Amanda)
- Authors: Mphahlele, Martha Matee (Amanda)
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Plagiarism , Plagiarism -- Prevention -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Moral and ethical aspects , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Cheating (Education) -- South Africa , College students -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa , College discipline -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/162642 , vital:40963
- Description: Violations of academic integrity are a cause for concern in universities around the world and plagiarism is one of the most significant examples of these academic integrity issues with which universities are grappling . The approach taken to managing plagiarism depends to a large extent on the understanding of the phenomenon within institutions. This study investigated how plagiarism is conceptualised and responded to in the South African Higher Education system and how this impacts on teaching and learning. Data was collected from 25 out of the 26 South African public universities; the missing university had just been established and did not yet have policies or processes in place. The data was primarily in the form of documents known in these institutions as ‘plagiarism policies’, along with a wealth of other related policies and reports. This was supplemented by interviews as a means of verifying the document analysis with seven plagiarism committee members from across the three institutional types in South Africa, namely: traditional universities, comprehensive universities, and universities of technology. Using Bhaskar’s (2008) critical realism as a metatheory and Archer’s (1995) social realism as both a substantive theory and analytical framework, the experiences and events of plagiarism management were critically examined. Critical realism consider s these experiences and events at the level of the e mpirical and the actual , in order to identify the mechanisms at the l evel of the r eal from which these emerge. Social realism argues that when undertaking such an analysis in the social world, this entails identifying the emergent properties of both the parts (structure and culture) and people (agents). Therefore, the data was analysed using Archer’s analytical dualism to identify structural, cultural and agential mechanisms shaping the understanding of plagiarism and the practices associated with managing the phenomenon. The study found that dominant in the sector was an un derstanding of plagiarism as always being an intentional act, with implications for teaching and learning practices, which then focused on identifying and punishing incidents of plagiarism in student writing. A legal discourse was found to permeate the universities’ plagiarism management systems, such that most procedures replicated the legal framework. This was seen to undermine the identity of universities as teaching and learning spaces and of students as novice members of the disciplinary fields. The study further highlighted that due to plagiarism being perceived as an intentional act, punishment in almost all universities is prioritised as the key means of attending to plagiarism in the se institutions. This emerged as a structural constraint to students’ acquisition of academic writing norms. Such understandings and approaches were seen to be complementary to the risk-aversion of many institutions in a globalised era of university rankings. As increased bureaucracy has been put in place to attend to incidents of plagiarism, including obligatory reporting thereof, an unintentional consequence emerged, where it was at times simpler for academics to ignore incidences of plagiarism than to act on them. Turnitin was frequently referred to across the data as the preferred text - matching tool, but Turnitin together with other text-matching tools , was often used in a way that complemented the understanding of plagiarism as always being an intentional act. The stu dy found that text - matching software was largely misunderstood to be plagiarism software, where the similarity index was perceived to be a measure of plagiarism. This led to an understanding that students needed to paraphrase texts in order to avoid detect ion by the program me, and this may inadvertently encourage plagiarism , as students are taught to write towards the software. The research found that in those instances where educational responses to plagiarism were in place, they often demonstrated a lack of understanding of academic literacies development and the extent to which norms of knowledge production are disciplinary specific. Most (but not all) of the data about educational responses focused on add-on workshops and the signing of a declaration form, indicating that the student has not plagiarised. The workshops were seen to emphasise technical skills, such as the punctuation norms of referencing, and were often offered in a generic format by people outside of the target disciplines. These workshops were found to ignore the connection between the technical skills of referencing and the norms of knowledge construction, with a potential deleterious effect on the development of authorial identity. Finally, the data showed a few instances where particular institutions acknowledged that plagiarism occurs along a continuum, where on one side is intentional plagiarism associated with cheating and requiring punishment, and on the other side is unintentional plagiarism, which is understood to require an educational response , and was seen to emerge from either a lack of understanding of academic literacy norms , or from negligence. Literacy development with regard to taking on the norms of knowledge-making in the academy was seen to be a complex and lengthy process that was fundamental to educational endeavours of facilitating epistemological access, while cases of negligence were seen to be mainly caused by technical oversight rather than a lack of access to the relevant knowledge production norms. The study concludes by arguing that cases of intentional plagiarism require quick and appropriate punishment, but that there also needs to be an institution-wide understanding that unintentional plagiarism often emerges from students failing to access the specific knowledge-making norms of the discipline. There is thus a need for academics to be aware of the complexities related to taking on literacy practices, and who also understand the role of feedback in this process. But it ought not to be assumed that academics would have such insights simply by virtue of their expertise in the discipline. These academics need to have carefully constructed staff development support, as they take on such pedagogical approaches. The study argues that the dominant conceptualisation of plagiarism in the domain of culture as an intentional act and the complementary policies and processes in the domain of structure as focusing on detecting and punishing incidents of plagiarism, fail to address plagiarism in appropriate educational ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Mphahlele, Martha Matee (Amanda)
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Plagiarism , Plagiarism -- Prevention -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Moral and ethical aspects , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Cheating (Education) -- South Africa , College students -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa , College discipline -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/162642 , vital:40963
- Description: Violations of academic integrity are a cause for concern in universities around the world and plagiarism is one of the most significant examples of these academic integrity issues with which universities are grappling . The approach taken to managing plagiarism depends to a large extent on the understanding of the phenomenon within institutions. This study investigated how plagiarism is conceptualised and responded to in the South African Higher Education system and how this impacts on teaching and learning. Data was collected from 25 out of the 26 South African public universities; the missing university had just been established and did not yet have policies or processes in place. The data was primarily in the form of documents known in these institutions as ‘plagiarism policies’, along with a wealth of other related policies and reports. This was supplemented by interviews as a means of verifying the document analysis with seven plagiarism committee members from across the three institutional types in South Africa, namely: traditional universities, comprehensive universities, and universities of technology. Using Bhaskar’s (2008) critical realism as a metatheory and Archer’s (1995) social realism as both a substantive theory and analytical framework, the experiences and events of plagiarism management were critically examined. Critical realism consider s these experiences and events at the level of the e mpirical and the actual , in order to identify the mechanisms at the l evel of the r eal from which these emerge. Social realism argues that when undertaking such an analysis in the social world, this entails identifying the emergent properties of both the parts (structure and culture) and people (agents). Therefore, the data was analysed using Archer’s analytical dualism to identify structural, cultural and agential mechanisms shaping the understanding of plagiarism and the practices associated with managing the phenomenon. The study found that dominant in the sector was an un derstanding of plagiarism as always being an intentional act, with implications for teaching and learning practices, which then focused on identifying and punishing incidents of plagiarism in student writing. A legal discourse was found to permeate the universities’ plagiarism management systems, such that most procedures replicated the legal framework. This was seen to undermine the identity of universities as teaching and learning spaces and of students as novice members of the disciplinary fields. The study further highlighted that due to plagiarism being perceived as an intentional act, punishment in almost all universities is prioritised as the key means of attending to plagiarism in the se institutions. This emerged as a structural constraint to students’ acquisition of academic writing norms. Such understandings and approaches were seen to be complementary to the risk-aversion of many institutions in a globalised era of university rankings. As increased bureaucracy has been put in place to attend to incidents of plagiarism, including obligatory reporting thereof, an unintentional consequence emerged, where it was at times simpler for academics to ignore incidences of plagiarism than to act on them. Turnitin was frequently referred to across the data as the preferred text - matching tool, but Turnitin together with other text-matching tools , was often used in a way that complemented the understanding of plagiarism as always being an intentional act. The stu dy found that text - matching software was largely misunderstood to be plagiarism software, where the similarity index was perceived to be a measure of plagiarism. This led to an understanding that students needed to paraphrase texts in order to avoid detect ion by the program me, and this may inadvertently encourage plagiarism , as students are taught to write towards the software. The research found that in those instances where educational responses to plagiarism were in place, they often demonstrated a lack of understanding of academic literacies development and the extent to which norms of knowledge production are disciplinary specific. Most (but not all) of the data about educational responses focused on add-on workshops and the signing of a declaration form, indicating that the student has not plagiarised. The workshops were seen to emphasise technical skills, such as the punctuation norms of referencing, and were often offered in a generic format by people outside of the target disciplines. These workshops were found to ignore the connection between the technical skills of referencing and the norms of knowledge construction, with a potential deleterious effect on the development of authorial identity. Finally, the data showed a few instances where particular institutions acknowledged that plagiarism occurs along a continuum, where on one side is intentional plagiarism associated with cheating and requiring punishment, and on the other side is unintentional plagiarism, which is understood to require an educational response , and was seen to emerge from either a lack of understanding of academic literacy norms , or from negligence. Literacy development with regard to taking on the norms of knowledge-making in the academy was seen to be a complex and lengthy process that was fundamental to educational endeavours of facilitating epistemological access, while cases of negligence were seen to be mainly caused by technical oversight rather than a lack of access to the relevant knowledge production norms. The study concludes by arguing that cases of intentional plagiarism require quick and appropriate punishment, but that there also needs to be an institution-wide understanding that unintentional plagiarism often emerges from students failing to access the specific knowledge-making norms of the discipline. There is thus a need for academics to be aware of the complexities related to taking on literacy practices, and who also understand the role of feedback in this process. But it ought not to be assumed that academics would have such insights simply by virtue of their expertise in the discipline. These academics need to have carefully constructed staff development support, as they take on such pedagogical approaches. The study argues that the dominant conceptualisation of plagiarism in the domain of culture as an intentional act and the complementary policies and processes in the domain of structure as focusing on detecting and punishing incidents of plagiarism, fail to address plagiarism in appropriate educational ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Conditions constraining and enabling research production in Historically Black Universities in South Africa
- Authors: Muthama, Evelyn
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Universities and colleges, Black -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Research -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- History , Black people -- Education -- South Africa -- History , Discrimination in higher education -- South Africa -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/131527 , vital:36591
- Description: The South African higher education system has a highly uneven landscape emerging from its apartheid past. Institutions remain categorised along racial lines within categories known as ‘Historically Black’ and ‘Historically White’ institutions, or alternatively ‘Historically Disadvantaged’ and ‘Historically Advantaged’ universities. Alongside such categorisations, universities fall within three types, which arose from the restructuring of the higher education landscape post-apartheid through a series of mergers: traditional universities, comprehensive universities, and universities of technology. This study which is part of a larger National Research Foundation-funded project looking at institutional differentiation in South Africa, sought to investigate the conditions enabling and constraining production of research in the Historically Black Universities (HBUs). By providing clarity as to the nature of truth and the concept of knowledge underpinning study, Critical Realism ensures that the study moves beyond the experiences and events captured in the data to the identification of causal mechanisms. Archer’s theory of Social Realism is used alongside Critical Realism, both as a meta-theory to provide an account of the social world and as a more substantive theory in the analysis of data. Social Realism entails understanding that the social world emerges in a complex interplay of powers in the domains of structure, culture and agency. Identifying the powers in each of these domains that enabled or constrained research development meant moving beyond suggesting simple causal relationships to ensure that I identified the complexities of the interplay of mechanisms. Data was collected from all seven institutions designated by the Department of Higher Education and Training as HBUs, by online survey, in depth interviews with academics and heads of research, and through the collection of a range of national and institutional documentation. Using analytical dualism, I endeavoured to identify some of the enablements and constraints at play. There were a number of areas of strength in research in the HBUs. There has also been a significant increase in research output over the last decade; however, the study also identified a number of mechanisms that constrained research productivity. The study found that while there were a number of mechanisms that appeared to have causal tendencies across all the institutions, there were a number of very specific institutional differences. There was very little consistency in understanding of the purpose of research as being key to what universities and academics do. The implication of this incoherence in the domain of culture (i.e. beliefs and discourses in Archer’s terms) is that various interventions in the structural domain intended to foster increased research output often had unintended consequences. Unless there are explicit discussions about how and why research is valuable to the institution and to the country there is unlikely to be sustained growth in output. In particular, the data analysis raises concerns about an instrumentalist understanding of research output in the domain of culture. This in part emerged from the lack of a historical culture of research and was found to be complimentary to managerialist discourses. Another key mechanism identified in the analysis was the use of direct incentives to drive research productivity. Such initiatives seemed to be complementary to a more instrumentalist understanding of the purpose of research and thereby to potentially constrain the likelihood of sustained research growth. While many of the participants were in favour of the use of research incentives, it was also evident that this was often problematic because it steered academics towards salami slicing, and other practices focused on quantity as opposed to quality research. Predatory publications, in particular, have emerged as a problem whereby the research does not get read or cited and so it fails to contribute to knowledge dissemination. Another constraint to research production was related to the increased casualisation of academic staff, which has exacerbated difficulties in attracting and retaining staff especially in rural areas. In South Africa, 56% of academics in universities are now hired on a contract basis which constrained the nurturing of an academic identity and the extent of commitment to the university and its particular academic project. In the HBUs, these employment conditions were exacerbated by increased teaching loads as a result of increased number of students (undergraduates and postgraduates) that have not been matched with similar increases in academic staff. There was a nascent discourse of social justice that focused on research as a core driver of knowledge production in some of the HBUs. This is potentially an area of strength for the HBUs especially emerging from their rural position as there was a complementary culture of social concerns. There was evidence that the nexus between research and community engagement could be a strong means of both strengthening institutional identity and increasing research productivity. But unless the nexus is clearly articulated, a systematic process of support is unlikely to emerge. Given the extent to which the rural positioning of HBUs has been acknowledged to constrain research engagement, this finding has a number of positive implications.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Muthama, Evelyn
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Universities and colleges, Black -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Research -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- History , Black people -- Education -- South Africa -- History , Discrimination in higher education -- South Africa -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/131527 , vital:36591
- Description: The South African higher education system has a highly uneven landscape emerging from its apartheid past. Institutions remain categorised along racial lines within categories known as ‘Historically Black’ and ‘Historically White’ institutions, or alternatively ‘Historically Disadvantaged’ and ‘Historically Advantaged’ universities. Alongside such categorisations, universities fall within three types, which arose from the restructuring of the higher education landscape post-apartheid through a series of mergers: traditional universities, comprehensive universities, and universities of technology. This study which is part of a larger National Research Foundation-funded project looking at institutional differentiation in South Africa, sought to investigate the conditions enabling and constraining production of research in the Historically Black Universities (HBUs). By providing clarity as to the nature of truth and the concept of knowledge underpinning study, Critical Realism ensures that the study moves beyond the experiences and events captured in the data to the identification of causal mechanisms. Archer’s theory of Social Realism is used alongside Critical Realism, both as a meta-theory to provide an account of the social world and as a more substantive theory in the analysis of data. Social Realism entails understanding that the social world emerges in a complex interplay of powers in the domains of structure, culture and agency. Identifying the powers in each of these domains that enabled or constrained research development meant moving beyond suggesting simple causal relationships to ensure that I identified the complexities of the interplay of mechanisms. Data was collected from all seven institutions designated by the Department of Higher Education and Training as HBUs, by online survey, in depth interviews with academics and heads of research, and through the collection of a range of national and institutional documentation. Using analytical dualism, I endeavoured to identify some of the enablements and constraints at play. There were a number of areas of strength in research in the HBUs. There has also been a significant increase in research output over the last decade; however, the study also identified a number of mechanisms that constrained research productivity. The study found that while there were a number of mechanisms that appeared to have causal tendencies across all the institutions, there were a number of very specific institutional differences. There was very little consistency in understanding of the purpose of research as being key to what universities and academics do. The implication of this incoherence in the domain of culture (i.e. beliefs and discourses in Archer’s terms) is that various interventions in the structural domain intended to foster increased research output often had unintended consequences. Unless there are explicit discussions about how and why research is valuable to the institution and to the country there is unlikely to be sustained growth in output. In particular, the data analysis raises concerns about an instrumentalist understanding of research output in the domain of culture. This in part emerged from the lack of a historical culture of research and was found to be complimentary to managerialist discourses. Another key mechanism identified in the analysis was the use of direct incentives to drive research productivity. Such initiatives seemed to be complementary to a more instrumentalist understanding of the purpose of research and thereby to potentially constrain the likelihood of sustained research growth. While many of the participants were in favour of the use of research incentives, it was also evident that this was often problematic because it steered academics towards salami slicing, and other practices focused on quantity as opposed to quality research. Predatory publications, in particular, have emerged as a problem whereby the research does not get read or cited and so it fails to contribute to knowledge dissemination. Another constraint to research production was related to the increased casualisation of academic staff, which has exacerbated difficulties in attracting and retaining staff especially in rural areas. In South Africa, 56% of academics in universities are now hired on a contract basis which constrained the nurturing of an academic identity and the extent of commitment to the university and its particular academic project. In the HBUs, these employment conditions were exacerbated by increased teaching loads as a result of increased number of students (undergraduates and postgraduates) that have not been matched with similar increases in academic staff. There was a nascent discourse of social justice that focused on research as a core driver of knowledge production in some of the HBUs. This is potentially an area of strength for the HBUs especially emerging from their rural position as there was a complementary culture of social concerns. There was evidence that the nexus between research and community engagement could be a strong means of both strengthening institutional identity and increasing research productivity. But unless the nexus is clearly articulated, a systematic process of support is unlikely to emerge. Given the extent to which the rural positioning of HBUs has been acknowledged to constrain research engagement, this finding has a number of positive implications.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Conditions enabling or constraining the exercise of agency among new academics in higher education, conducive to the social inclusion of students
- Authors: Behari-Leak, Kasturi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social integration -- South Africa , Students -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Educational change -- South Africa , College teachers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism , Agent (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1333 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020295
- Description: This study, which is part of a National Research Foundation project on Social Inclusion in Higher Education (HE), focuses on the exercise of agency among new academics, conducive to the social inclusion of students. Transitioning from varied entry points into higher education, new academics face numerous challenges as they embed themselves in disciplinary and institutional contexts. Given the complexity and contested nature of the current higher education landscape, new academics are especially vulnerable. Using Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism as meta-theoretical framing and Margaret Archer’s social realist theory, with its methodological focus on analytical dualism and morphogenesis, this study offers a social realist account of how new academics engage with enabling and constraining conditions at institutional, faculty, departmental and classroom levels. Through an analysis of six individual narratives of mediation, this study explicates and exemplifies the range of agential choices exercised by new academics to mediate their contested spaces. A nuanced social and critical account of the material, ideational and agential conditions in HE shows that the courses of action taken by these new academics are driven through their concerns, commitments and projects in higher education. Yet, despite the university’s espousal of embracing change, the current induction and transition of new academics is inadequate to the task of transformation in higher education. Systemic conditions in HE, conducive to critical agency and social justice, are not enabling. Bhaskar’s Seven Scalar Being, used as an analytical frame and heuristic, guides the cross-case analysis of the six narratives across seven levels of ontology. The findings highlight that, despite difficult contextual influences, the positive exercise of agency is a marked feature of new participants in HE in this study. This has immediate implications for ways in which professional and academic development, and disciplinary and departmental programmes, could create and sustain conducive conditions for the professionalisation of new academics through more sensitised practices. Using alternative research methods such as photovoice to generate its data, this doctoral study proposes that new research methodologies, located in the third space, are needed now more than ever in HE sociological research, to recognise the researcher and the research participants as independent, autonomous and causally efficacious beings. To this end, this study includes a Chapter Zero, which captures the narrative of the doctoral scholar as researcher, who, shaped and influenced by established doctoral practices and traditions in the field, exercises her own doctoral agency in particular ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Behari-Leak, Kasturi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Social integration -- South Africa , Students -- South Africa -- Social conditions , Educational change -- South Africa , College teachers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Critical realism , Social realism , Agent (Philosophy)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1333 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020295
- Description: This study, which is part of a National Research Foundation project on Social Inclusion in Higher Education (HE), focuses on the exercise of agency among new academics, conducive to the social inclusion of students. Transitioning from varied entry points into higher education, new academics face numerous challenges as they embed themselves in disciplinary and institutional contexts. Given the complexity and contested nature of the current higher education landscape, new academics are especially vulnerable. Using Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism as meta-theoretical framing and Margaret Archer’s social realist theory, with its methodological focus on analytical dualism and morphogenesis, this study offers a social realist account of how new academics engage with enabling and constraining conditions at institutional, faculty, departmental and classroom levels. Through an analysis of six individual narratives of mediation, this study explicates and exemplifies the range of agential choices exercised by new academics to mediate their contested spaces. A nuanced social and critical account of the material, ideational and agential conditions in HE shows that the courses of action taken by these new academics are driven through their concerns, commitments and projects in higher education. Yet, despite the university’s espousal of embracing change, the current induction and transition of new academics is inadequate to the task of transformation in higher education. Systemic conditions in HE, conducive to critical agency and social justice, are not enabling. Bhaskar’s Seven Scalar Being, used as an analytical frame and heuristic, guides the cross-case analysis of the six narratives across seven levels of ontology. The findings highlight that, despite difficult contextual influences, the positive exercise of agency is a marked feature of new participants in HE in this study. This has immediate implications for ways in which professional and academic development, and disciplinary and departmental programmes, could create and sustain conducive conditions for the professionalisation of new academics through more sensitised practices. Using alternative research methods such as photovoice to generate its data, this doctoral study proposes that new research methodologies, located in the third space, are needed now more than ever in HE sociological research, to recognise the researcher and the research participants as independent, autonomous and causally efficacious beings. To this end, this study includes a Chapter Zero, which captures the narrative of the doctoral scholar as researcher, who, shaped and influenced by established doctoral practices and traditions in the field, exercises her own doctoral agency in particular ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Discourses surrounding 'race', equity, disadvantage and transformation in times of rapid social change : higher education in post-apartheid South Africa
- Authors: Robus, Donovan
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Rhodes University , University of Fort Hare , Universities and colleges -- Mergers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education and state -- South Africa , Apartheid -- South Africa , Discourse analysis -- Methodology , Discrimination in education -- South Africa , Educational change -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:3142 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007196 , Rhodes University , University of Fort Hare , Universities and colleges -- Mergers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education and state -- South Africa , Apartheid -- South Africa , Discourse analysis -- Methodology , Discrimination in education -- South Africa , Educational change -- South Africa
- Description: Since the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa in 1994, the South African socio-political and economic landscape has been characterised by rapid change. In the ten years since the 'new' democratic South Africa emerged, transformation has become a dominant discourse that has driven much action and practice in a variety of public areas. One of the areas of focus for transformation has been Higher Education whereby the Department of Education aimed to do away with disparity caused by Apartheid segregation by reducing the number of Higher Education institutions from 36 to 21. This research draws on Foucauldian theory and post-colonial theories (in particular Edward Said and Frantz Fanon), and the concept of racialisation in an analysis of the incorporation of Rhodes University's East London campus into the University of Fort Hare. Ian Parker's discourse analytic approach which suggests that discourses support institutions, reproduce power relations and have ideological effects, was utilised to analyse the talk of students and staff at the three sites affected by the incorporation (viz. Rhodes, Grahamstown, Rhodes, East London and Fort Hare) as well as newspaper articles and public statements made by the two institutions. What emerged was that in post-Apartheid South Africa, institutional and geographic space is still racialised with virtually no reference to the historical and contextual foundations from which this emerged being made. In positioning space and institutions in this racialised manner a discourse of 'white' excellence and 'black' failure emerges with the notion of competence gaining legitimacy through an appeal to academic standards. In addition to this, transformation emerges as a signifier of shifting boundaries in a post-Apartheid society where racialised institutional, spatial and social boundaries evidently still exist discursively.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Robus, Donovan
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Rhodes University , University of Fort Hare , Universities and colleges -- Mergers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education and state -- South Africa , Apartheid -- South Africa , Discourse analysis -- Methodology , Discrimination in education -- South Africa , Educational change -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:3142 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007196 , Rhodes University , University of Fort Hare , Universities and colleges -- Mergers -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education and state -- South Africa , Apartheid -- South Africa , Discourse analysis -- Methodology , Discrimination in education -- South Africa , Educational change -- South Africa
- Description: Since the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa in 1994, the South African socio-political and economic landscape has been characterised by rapid change. In the ten years since the 'new' democratic South Africa emerged, transformation has become a dominant discourse that has driven much action and practice in a variety of public areas. One of the areas of focus for transformation has been Higher Education whereby the Department of Education aimed to do away with disparity caused by Apartheid segregation by reducing the number of Higher Education institutions from 36 to 21. This research draws on Foucauldian theory and post-colonial theories (in particular Edward Said and Frantz Fanon), and the concept of racialisation in an analysis of the incorporation of Rhodes University's East London campus into the University of Fort Hare. Ian Parker's discourse analytic approach which suggests that discourses support institutions, reproduce power relations and have ideological effects, was utilised to analyse the talk of students and staff at the three sites affected by the incorporation (viz. Rhodes, Grahamstown, Rhodes, East London and Fort Hare) as well as newspaper articles and public statements made by the two institutions. What emerged was that in post-Apartheid South Africa, institutional and geographic space is still racialised with virtually no reference to the historical and contextual foundations from which this emerged being made. In positioning space and institutions in this racialised manner a discourse of 'white' excellence and 'black' failure emerges with the notion of competence gaining legitimacy through an appeal to academic standards. In addition to this, transformation emerges as a signifier of shifting boundaries in a post-Apartheid society where racialised institutional, spatial and social boundaries evidently still exist discursively.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Factors influencing employee perceptions of a post-merger working environment
- Authors: Morrison, Selwyn Hilary
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Universities and colleges -- Mergers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Educational change -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Universities and colleges -- Administration , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Employee morale -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Employees -- Attitudes -- Evaluation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:8582 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1604 , Universities and colleges -- Mergers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Educational change -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Universities and colleges -- Administration , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Employee morale -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Employees -- Attitudes -- Evaluation
- Description: Higher Education in the late 1990’s experienced significant problems with capacity due to many black students applying to enter previously white institutions (Jansen, 2002:159). The main concern of the new ANC government was the status of historically black institutions. They were unstable due to the migration away from black to white universities and technikons. This reduced their financial status and viability. In addition, the anticipated huge increase in black enrolments in higher education had not materialised (Finweek Survey, February 2009). In order to overcome both of these problems, the then Minister of Education decided to press ahead with a merger programme aimed at reducing the number of higher education institutions from 36 to 21 (Jansen, 2002:6). The primary objective of this research is to investigate the factors that influence employee perceptions of a post-merger Working Environment and Organisational Commitment: a case study of the administration staff in the Finance Department at Walter Sisulu University. There seems to be a lack of efficiently and effectiveness in the he operations of the Finance Department of Walter Sisulu University which this research will investigate through finding solutions to factors of improving the relationship between employee perceptions of their post-merger Working Environment and their Organisational Commitment. This exploratory study collected primary data through the distribution of questionnaires to 59 employees from the Finance Department at the Walter Susulu University, with a 69.12% response rate. The survey included closed questions that were analysed using statistical techniques. The findings revealed overall low scores of 31% for employee perception of their post – merger Working Environment and 50.21% for Organisational Commitment, together with its sub-dimension Affective, Continuance and normative. These scores are disturbing and need to be urgently addressed by the management of the Institution. The implication of the Finance staff’s low perception of their post – merger Working Environment and organisation Commitment is that the institution’s goals will be difficult to be fulfilled due to the low morale of the staff and the non-conducive working conditions. The Institution’s Management should be more transparent, more trustworthy, and more supportive towards staff members and have a good overall communication strategy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Morrison, Selwyn Hilary
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Universities and colleges -- Mergers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Educational change -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Universities and colleges -- Administration , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Employee morale -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Employees -- Attitudes -- Evaluation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: vital:8582 , http://hdl.handle.net/10948/1604 , Universities and colleges -- Mergers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Educational change -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Universities and colleges -- Administration , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Employee morale -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Employees -- Attitudes -- Evaluation
- Description: Higher Education in the late 1990’s experienced significant problems with capacity due to many black students applying to enter previously white institutions (Jansen, 2002:159). The main concern of the new ANC government was the status of historically black institutions. They were unstable due to the migration away from black to white universities and technikons. This reduced their financial status and viability. In addition, the anticipated huge increase in black enrolments in higher education had not materialised (Finweek Survey, February 2009). In order to overcome both of these problems, the then Minister of Education decided to press ahead with a merger programme aimed at reducing the number of higher education institutions from 36 to 21 (Jansen, 2002:6). The primary objective of this research is to investigate the factors that influence employee perceptions of a post-merger Working Environment and Organisational Commitment: a case study of the administration staff in the Finance Department at Walter Sisulu University. There seems to be a lack of efficiently and effectiveness in the he operations of the Finance Department of Walter Sisulu University which this research will investigate through finding solutions to factors of improving the relationship between employee perceptions of their post-merger Working Environment and their Organisational Commitment. This exploratory study collected primary data through the distribution of questionnaires to 59 employees from the Finance Department at the Walter Susulu University, with a 69.12% response rate. The survey included closed questions that were analysed using statistical techniques. The findings revealed overall low scores of 31% for employee perception of their post – merger Working Environment and 50.21% for Organisational Commitment, together with its sub-dimension Affective, Continuance and normative. These scores are disturbing and need to be urgently addressed by the management of the Institution. The implication of the Finance staff’s low perception of their post – merger Working Environment and organisation Commitment is that the institution’s goals will be difficult to be fulfilled due to the low morale of the staff and the non-conducive working conditions. The Institution’s Management should be more transparent, more trustworthy, and more supportive towards staff members and have a good overall communication strategy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Factors that influence the throughput of engineering students at Nelson Mandela University
- Authors: Joubert, Petrus Jacobus
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Academic achievement -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/30496 , vital:30953
- Description: The current throughput rate of engineering students is an enormous concern, especially in light of the current financial pressure on universities and the goal for the education sector in the National Development Plan 2030, which is to increase annual enrolment levels at universities from 950 000 in 2010 to 1,6 million by 2030 (National Planning Commission, 2011). The low throughput rate of engineering students makes engineering qualifications unsustainable. In a scarce skills list, which highlights the importance of the problem that South Africa is facing, five engineering disciplines are in the top 10 scarce skills in South Africa (Scarce skills, 2016) and, therefore, this study only focuses on engineering students’ throughput rate. Regarding the future enrolment goal for 2030, it is important for universities to understand the factors that influence the throughput rate of engineering students, which the universities have control over. This will put the universities in a position to implement interventions to change negative influences on the throughput rate of engineering students into positive ones. This study consists of a literature review, firstly focusing on the factors influencing the student throughput rate internationally. The literature review then focuses on South African factors and lastly discusses three main categories, namely student engagement, the use of technology and the academic environment. The eight variables that are under study are grouped into these three main categories. The primary data, which were collected through the use of a questionnaire in order to have a good understanding of the factors influencing the throughput rate, were reported and analysed. The results of this study revealed the factors that influenced the throughput rate most positively and negatively.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Joubert, Petrus Jacobus
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Academic achievement -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MBA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/30496 , vital:30953
- Description: The current throughput rate of engineering students is an enormous concern, especially in light of the current financial pressure on universities and the goal for the education sector in the National Development Plan 2030, which is to increase annual enrolment levels at universities from 950 000 in 2010 to 1,6 million by 2030 (National Planning Commission, 2011). The low throughput rate of engineering students makes engineering qualifications unsustainable. In a scarce skills list, which highlights the importance of the problem that South Africa is facing, five engineering disciplines are in the top 10 scarce skills in South Africa (Scarce skills, 2016) and, therefore, this study only focuses on engineering students’ throughput rate. Regarding the future enrolment goal for 2030, it is important for universities to understand the factors that influence the throughput rate of engineering students, which the universities have control over. This will put the universities in a position to implement interventions to change negative influences on the throughput rate of engineering students into positive ones. This study consists of a literature review, firstly focusing on the factors influencing the student throughput rate internationally. The literature review then focuses on South African factors and lastly discusses three main categories, namely student engagement, the use of technology and the academic environment. The eight variables that are under study are grouped into these three main categories. The primary data, which were collected through the use of a questionnaire in order to have a good understanding of the factors influencing the throughput rate, were reported and analysed. The results of this study revealed the factors that influenced the throughput rate most positively and negatively.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Funding higher education and training in South Africa: a comparative study of tax incentive measures, in conjunction with a dedicated tax
- Authors: Holm, Darryn
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- Finance , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Tax incentives -- Law and legislation -- South Africa , Student aid -- South Africa , Universities and Colleges -- Taxation -- Law and legislation -- South Africa , South Africa. Income Tax Act, 1962
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59445 , vital:27606
- Description: Higher education and training in South Africa in the post-Apartheid era has never been more volatile than it is currently, some two decades into democracy. Despite the many advances and achievements of higher education, the student protests of 2015 and 2016 have given expression to underlying fault-lines, including increasing student expectations and frustrations with regard to access and funding. This research was undertaken to document the underlying historical issues and models pertaining to funding within the higher education and training sector as well as the existing higher education and training taxation policies and incentives enacted in South Africa and selected international jurisdictions. This was done with a view to providing a framework for higher education and training tax policy formation in South Africa to assist in meeting its higher education and training “access and affordability” targets as set out in the National Plan on Higher Education and the Higher Education White Paper, while at the same time not hindering economic growth. A doctrinal research methodology was adopted in this study as it mainly analysed and interpreted legislation and policy documents and therefore the approach was qualitative in nature. An extensive literature survey was done in order to document the various internationally selected legislated higher education and training tax policies and incentives. The literature indicated that there are widespread funding perspectives and initiates, and that international tax policies enacted with the aim of ensuring that higher education and training is more accessible and affordable to the public, is stable and effective in certain jurisdictions. It is submitted that while a higher education dedicated tax may not be sufficiently effective in South Africa, a combination of broad-based tax incentives will help to promote the change to a more affordable and stable higher education funding system, whilst not preventing growth through sustainable development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Holm, Darryn
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Education, Higher -- Finance , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Tax incentives -- Law and legislation -- South Africa , Student aid -- South Africa , Universities and Colleges -- Taxation -- Law and legislation -- South Africa , South Africa. Income Tax Act, 1962
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59445 , vital:27606
- Description: Higher education and training in South Africa in the post-Apartheid era has never been more volatile than it is currently, some two decades into democracy. Despite the many advances and achievements of higher education, the student protests of 2015 and 2016 have given expression to underlying fault-lines, including increasing student expectations and frustrations with regard to access and funding. This research was undertaken to document the underlying historical issues and models pertaining to funding within the higher education and training sector as well as the existing higher education and training taxation policies and incentives enacted in South Africa and selected international jurisdictions. This was done with a view to providing a framework for higher education and training tax policy formation in South Africa to assist in meeting its higher education and training “access and affordability” targets as set out in the National Plan on Higher Education and the Higher Education White Paper, while at the same time not hindering economic growth. A doctrinal research methodology was adopted in this study as it mainly analysed and interpreted legislation and policy documents and therefore the approach was qualitative in nature. An extensive literature survey was done in order to document the various internationally selected legislated higher education and training tax policies and incentives. The literature indicated that there are widespread funding perspectives and initiates, and that international tax policies enacted with the aim of ensuring that higher education and training is more accessible and affordable to the public, is stable and effective in certain jurisdictions. It is submitted that while a higher education dedicated tax may not be sufficiently effective in South Africa, a combination of broad-based tax incentives will help to promote the change to a more affordable and stable higher education funding system, whilst not preventing growth through sustainable development.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Implementation of multilingualism in South African higher education : exploring the use of isiXhosa in teaching and learning at Rhodes University
- Authors: Gambushe, Wanga
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Language and education -- South Africa , Multilingual education -- South Africa , Native language and education -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Language policy -- South Africa , Cytology -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Xhosa (African people) -- Education (Higher)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3649 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017890
- Description: This study explores the implementation of multilingualism at Rhodes University (RU), by examining the teaching and learning practices of lecturers, demonstrators and students within the Cell Biology module, offered by the Biological Sciences and Botany departments at RU. This examination is in line with RU’s Language Policy (2005/2014), which recognises multilingualism and the development of isiXhosa as an academic/scientific language. The study and the choice for the location of the study within RU was motivated by what seemed to be a pattern of under achievement of LOTE speaking students studying Cell Biology. This pattern necessitated a further inquiry into the language aspect of the teaching and learning of Cell Biology. The goals of this research were to investigate spaces where LOTE students use their home languages and the motivations behind their usage of those languages. Due to the varying proficiencies of LOTE students in their mother tongue, this study sought to investigate the language capabilities of LOTE students in their home languages. The perceptions of the main role players in the Cell Biology module were sought, in order to get an idea of what students, lecturers and demonstrators thought about multilingualism in teaching and learning practices in the Cell Biology module. This study has discovered that there is a disparity in achievement between LOTE and English speaking students, with English students outperforming LOTE students consistently in the period investigated. On the language capabilities of LOTE students in their mother tongue, it was discovered that they have enough linguistic capital for a mother tongue intervention to succeed. There were mixed views about the use of LOTE in HE, but students were mostly in favour of the use of LOTE. A number of recommendations are made as to how multilingualism can be implemented in Cell Biology. In this study I argue that there is a need to use the mother tongue of LOTE students in order to support learning, the mother tongue intervention is supported by scholars such as Paxton (2007, 2009; Madiba 2011, 2012, 2014). The use of the mother tongue to support learning should be a short-term measure while the process of the development of African languages is underway, because languages develop as they are used, and form follows function (Madiba 2008). Ultimately, African languages should be developed and use as academic languages in HE not only in order to fulfil the legislative imperatives such as the Constitution and the Language Policy Higher Education but also to increase access and success among LOTE students.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Gambushe, Wanga
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Language and education -- South Africa , Multilingual education -- South Africa , Native language and education -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Language policy -- South Africa , Cytology -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Xhosa (African people) -- Education (Higher)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3649 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017890
- Description: This study explores the implementation of multilingualism at Rhodes University (RU), by examining the teaching and learning practices of lecturers, demonstrators and students within the Cell Biology module, offered by the Biological Sciences and Botany departments at RU. This examination is in line with RU’s Language Policy (2005/2014), which recognises multilingualism and the development of isiXhosa as an academic/scientific language. The study and the choice for the location of the study within RU was motivated by what seemed to be a pattern of under achievement of LOTE speaking students studying Cell Biology. This pattern necessitated a further inquiry into the language aspect of the teaching and learning of Cell Biology. The goals of this research were to investigate spaces where LOTE students use their home languages and the motivations behind their usage of those languages. Due to the varying proficiencies of LOTE students in their mother tongue, this study sought to investigate the language capabilities of LOTE students in their home languages. The perceptions of the main role players in the Cell Biology module were sought, in order to get an idea of what students, lecturers and demonstrators thought about multilingualism in teaching and learning practices in the Cell Biology module. This study has discovered that there is a disparity in achievement between LOTE and English speaking students, with English students outperforming LOTE students consistently in the period investigated. On the language capabilities of LOTE students in their mother tongue, it was discovered that they have enough linguistic capital for a mother tongue intervention to succeed. There were mixed views about the use of LOTE in HE, but students were mostly in favour of the use of LOTE. A number of recommendations are made as to how multilingualism can be implemented in Cell Biology. In this study I argue that there is a need to use the mother tongue of LOTE students in order to support learning, the mother tongue intervention is supported by scholars such as Paxton (2007, 2009; Madiba 2011, 2012, 2014). The use of the mother tongue to support learning should be a short-term measure while the process of the development of African languages is underway, because languages develop as they are used, and form follows function (Madiba 2008). Ultimately, African languages should be developed and use as academic languages in HE not only in order to fulfil the legislative imperatives such as the Constitution and the Language Policy Higher Education but also to increase access and success among LOTE students.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
In marketing, it’s either you have it or you don’t : a study of knowledge and knowers legitimated in the marketing diploma curriculum in South Africa
- Authors: Ncube, Kevin
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Marketing -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Curricula , Marketing -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Vocational qualifications -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/172230 , vital:42178 , 10.21504/10962/172230
- Description: This study was undertaken in the South African higher education system in which the differentiation of institutions still reflects racial inequalities from the country’s history of colonial apartheid. As an educator in an institutional type referred to as Universities of Technology, I had become increasingly concerned about who succeeds, how they succeed, who fails, and who drops out. The South Africa education system broadly suffers from low student retention and high drop out with lower success rates mostly affecting Black students. By the end of apartheid in 1994, Black students had been entering Technikons en masse and were the dominant student group in these institutions which changed designation to Universities of Technology in 2005. Technikons offered programmes with a stronger technological and vocational orientation focusing on qualifications directly linked to the job market. They did not offer postgraduate programmes and today, Universities of Technology still produce little research. These institutions also battle with a far lower throughput rate than Traditional Universities and a higher graduate unemployment rate. This has led to a call for better theorised accounts of applied knowledge to replace unhelpful common-sense understandings. There was thus a call in the literature for studies, such as this one, that focused on the nature of knowledge in a diploma curriculum. Furthermore, the field of Marketing is under-researched. The field of Marketing has been characterised as having a weak theoretical foundation and as appropriating knowledge from other fields without growth of the field per se. In Marketing, importance is placed on the possession of a broad spectrum of general knowledge, rather than specialised accounts of the field. The study sought to examine the following research questions: 1) What kind of knowledge is privileged in the Marketing diploma? 2) How does the positioning of actors in the field of Marketing education impact on the choice and structure of knowledge privileged in the curriculum? The study was undertaken mainly through the use of interviews to explore academics’ perspectives on what is valued in the Marketing curriculum. Thirty-one academics from 11 institutions participated in the study. I also analysed course guides and other documentation related to the curriculum. The study analysed the organising of knowledge in the Marketing curriculum. To do this, the study drew on Legitimation Code Theory and in particular the tools of Specialisation and Semantics. These tools allowed the analysis of data to establish the basis on which it is specialised from other fields and the extent to which the field is contextually or conceptually coherent. The data demonstrated that academics who lecture in Marketing entered Marketing education from a diverse range of disciplines. The data also confirmed, in line with the literature, that the field of Marketing draws from multiple disciplines and fields for the purposes of serving the world of work. In Bernsteinian terms the nature of the Marketing curriculum is identified as a ‘region’. However, the data also demonstrated that the field of Marketing serves a heterogenous world of work characterised by constant changes which do not seem to allow a stable development of the field. The field of Marketing was thus portrayed as a region tending towards a generic, raising questions about the reliability of its knowledge base. The nature of generics often leads to an openness which is associated with instability, a weaker autonomy, and an inability to differentiate the field from others with further implications that knowledge in the curriculum is likely to be unsettled. One of the key findings was that while there was significant focus on knowledge, this was not the main basis on which success is achieved. Despite the ample evidence of knowledge in the Marketing curriculum, there was little agreement as to what constituted that knowledge, the actual nature of that knowledge was not settled, broadly agreed upon, nor particularly complex, drawing as it did on ‘everyday’ understandings of the world. The data revealed that there was little evidence that the knowledge was particularly specialised nor that it allowed for cumulative acquisition of ‘powerful knowledge’. Rather, the knowledges in the field of Marketing were characterised by a horizontal knowledge structure consisting of a set of languages acquired separately. The knowledges were based on different and sometimes even contradictory assumptions and thus presented few opportunities to integrate previous theories to build a more powerful knowledge structure. The knowledges tended to be context specific as opposed to being abstract or conceptual. There are social justice implications for fields in which the acquirer is only afforded context specific knowledges and as such has to acquire an endless series of low-level knowledges. They are not given access to powerful knowledge characterised by induction into a system of meaning which enables a more meaningful engagement with the complex world and thinking the not yet thought. In such instances, the education arguably does not provide access to the kind of specialised knowledge which allows for powerful meaning making in the world. The study calls for a strengthening of the epistemic spine of the Marketing diploma to provide access to more abstract, principled knowledge. A major finding was that most of the lecturers’ responses focused on the need for being a particular kind of knower to be successful in Marketing. The kind of person valued in Marketing was portrayed as possessing a particular personality and natural talent which were rarely seen as dependent on the knowledge acquired during the diploma, but rather on the dispositions that students brought. The respondents also mostly raised concerns that most of the students enrolled in Marketing did not to have the requisite ‘Marketing personalities’. Students were expected to be from a particular social class intimated through reference to their backgrounds, the schools they went to, their access to technologies, and the geographical regions they came from. They were expected to bring a particular language competency. Social class and language were arguably also used as coded reference to racial category, and this was more explicitly indicated by some respondents. The dominance of the knower in the data revealed that in Marketing, “you either have it or you don’t” indicating a strong view that Marketers are born with the necessary inherent characteristics of “confidence and people-skills” or belong to the social group that develops them. The implications were that if you do not have it, there is nothing one can do to get . This particular finding raises serious social justice issues on access and success in Marketing. If there is nothing that can be done to develop these characteristics, allowing such people into Marketing is setting them up for failure. On the other hand, denying access based on birth and social grouping raises concerns of the justice in the societies we live in. The study calls for an explicit engagement with the assumptions about the knower’s dispositions. While it was consistently evident that such dispositions were key to the specialisation of the field, the assumption that students either had these dispositions or lacked them is a social injustice and raises a number of unanswerable and painful questions given the racially differentiated success rates. The study concludes by calling for academics to explicitly curriculate for the target dispositions so that students are exposed to the value of these dispositions and given opportunities to engage with them.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
- Authors: Ncube, Kevin
- Date: 2021
- Subjects: Marketing -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Curricula , Marketing -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Vocational qualifications -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/172230 , vital:42178 , 10.21504/10962/172230
- Description: This study was undertaken in the South African higher education system in which the differentiation of institutions still reflects racial inequalities from the country’s history of colonial apartheid. As an educator in an institutional type referred to as Universities of Technology, I had become increasingly concerned about who succeeds, how they succeed, who fails, and who drops out. The South Africa education system broadly suffers from low student retention and high drop out with lower success rates mostly affecting Black students. By the end of apartheid in 1994, Black students had been entering Technikons en masse and were the dominant student group in these institutions which changed designation to Universities of Technology in 2005. Technikons offered programmes with a stronger technological and vocational orientation focusing on qualifications directly linked to the job market. They did not offer postgraduate programmes and today, Universities of Technology still produce little research. These institutions also battle with a far lower throughput rate than Traditional Universities and a higher graduate unemployment rate. This has led to a call for better theorised accounts of applied knowledge to replace unhelpful common-sense understandings. There was thus a call in the literature for studies, such as this one, that focused on the nature of knowledge in a diploma curriculum. Furthermore, the field of Marketing is under-researched. The field of Marketing has been characterised as having a weak theoretical foundation and as appropriating knowledge from other fields without growth of the field per se. In Marketing, importance is placed on the possession of a broad spectrum of general knowledge, rather than specialised accounts of the field. The study sought to examine the following research questions: 1) What kind of knowledge is privileged in the Marketing diploma? 2) How does the positioning of actors in the field of Marketing education impact on the choice and structure of knowledge privileged in the curriculum? The study was undertaken mainly through the use of interviews to explore academics’ perspectives on what is valued in the Marketing curriculum. Thirty-one academics from 11 institutions participated in the study. I also analysed course guides and other documentation related to the curriculum. The study analysed the organising of knowledge in the Marketing curriculum. To do this, the study drew on Legitimation Code Theory and in particular the tools of Specialisation and Semantics. These tools allowed the analysis of data to establish the basis on which it is specialised from other fields and the extent to which the field is contextually or conceptually coherent. The data demonstrated that academics who lecture in Marketing entered Marketing education from a diverse range of disciplines. The data also confirmed, in line with the literature, that the field of Marketing draws from multiple disciplines and fields for the purposes of serving the world of work. In Bernsteinian terms the nature of the Marketing curriculum is identified as a ‘region’. However, the data also demonstrated that the field of Marketing serves a heterogenous world of work characterised by constant changes which do not seem to allow a stable development of the field. The field of Marketing was thus portrayed as a region tending towards a generic, raising questions about the reliability of its knowledge base. The nature of generics often leads to an openness which is associated with instability, a weaker autonomy, and an inability to differentiate the field from others with further implications that knowledge in the curriculum is likely to be unsettled. One of the key findings was that while there was significant focus on knowledge, this was not the main basis on which success is achieved. Despite the ample evidence of knowledge in the Marketing curriculum, there was little agreement as to what constituted that knowledge, the actual nature of that knowledge was not settled, broadly agreed upon, nor particularly complex, drawing as it did on ‘everyday’ understandings of the world. The data revealed that there was little evidence that the knowledge was particularly specialised nor that it allowed for cumulative acquisition of ‘powerful knowledge’. Rather, the knowledges in the field of Marketing were characterised by a horizontal knowledge structure consisting of a set of languages acquired separately. The knowledges were based on different and sometimes even contradictory assumptions and thus presented few opportunities to integrate previous theories to build a more powerful knowledge structure. The knowledges tended to be context specific as opposed to being abstract or conceptual. There are social justice implications for fields in which the acquirer is only afforded context specific knowledges and as such has to acquire an endless series of low-level knowledges. They are not given access to powerful knowledge characterised by induction into a system of meaning which enables a more meaningful engagement with the complex world and thinking the not yet thought. In such instances, the education arguably does not provide access to the kind of specialised knowledge which allows for powerful meaning making in the world. The study calls for a strengthening of the epistemic spine of the Marketing diploma to provide access to more abstract, principled knowledge. A major finding was that most of the lecturers’ responses focused on the need for being a particular kind of knower to be successful in Marketing. The kind of person valued in Marketing was portrayed as possessing a particular personality and natural talent which were rarely seen as dependent on the knowledge acquired during the diploma, but rather on the dispositions that students brought. The respondents also mostly raised concerns that most of the students enrolled in Marketing did not to have the requisite ‘Marketing personalities’. Students were expected to be from a particular social class intimated through reference to their backgrounds, the schools they went to, their access to technologies, and the geographical regions they came from. They were expected to bring a particular language competency. Social class and language were arguably also used as coded reference to racial category, and this was more explicitly indicated by some respondents. The dominance of the knower in the data revealed that in Marketing, “you either have it or you don’t” indicating a strong view that Marketers are born with the necessary inherent characteristics of “confidence and people-skills” or belong to the social group that develops them. The implications were that if you do not have it, there is nothing one can do to get . This particular finding raises serious social justice issues on access and success in Marketing. If there is nothing that can be done to develop these characteristics, allowing such people into Marketing is setting them up for failure. On the other hand, denying access based on birth and social grouping raises concerns of the justice in the societies we live in. The study calls for an explicit engagement with the assumptions about the knower’s dispositions. While it was consistently evident that such dispositions were key to the specialisation of the field, the assumption that students either had these dispositions or lacked them is a social injustice and raises a number of unanswerable and painful questions given the racially differentiated success rates. The study concludes by calling for academics to explicitly curriculate for the target dispositions so that students are exposed to the value of these dispositions and given opportunities to engage with them.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021
Knowledge and knowers in Educational Leadership and Management (ELM) Master’s Programmes in South Africa
- Authors: Kajee, Farhana Amod
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- South Africa , Teachers -- Training of -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Master of education degree -- South Africa , Knowledge, Theory of , Educational sociology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Aims and objectives -- South Africa , Legitimation Code Theory (LCT)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60698 , vital:27819
- Description: This dissertation examines the knowledge and knower practices in the Master’s in Educational Leadership and Management (ELM) coursework programmes at South African public universities. This study was prompted by my growing awareness of problems and tensions in the field of ELM generally, and at the level of programme design of the M Ed degree in particular. Many of these had been identified by a national audit of coursework M Eds in ELM (CHE, 2010), and this study sought to find a way of theorising these with a view to improving both course design and teaching. To this end I employed Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) which enables critical engagement with knowledge and knowers in programmes, how they are positioned, and how this positioning may be problematic. Hence my first research question sought to discover and critique what counted as knowledge in these programmes and why, while the second asked how knowers were positioned, and why this had come to be the case. LCT has its roots in the work of Bernstein and Maton, whose preoccupation with curriculum was/is driven by a sense of social justice: if we can understand how and why the curriculum is organised and presented in a particular way, it becomes possible to re-imagine teaching and learning, making it accessible to a broader, more inclusive body of learners. The study also drew on critical realism as an underlabourer. This philosophy provided a nuanced understanding of ontology, encouraging and enabling me, as researcher, to unearth causal mechanisms driving the status quo. Only seven South African universities currently offer the coursework option of a Master’s degree in ELM, compared to thirteen when the audit was conducted in 2010. Six of the universities agreed to take part in the study. Data was gathered through content analysis of the six course outlines and interviews with individual co-ordinators or academics centrally involved in the programmes. Through the development of a translation device I was able to establishing that a knower code was dominant in the programmes. Using this point as my departure, I interrogated the knowledge practices and found that different types of knowledge were being privileged across the programmes, with some having a practical/professional leaning and others a more academic/theoretical orientation. The resultant tension does, I argue, restrict knowledge building and helps to account for the fact that the field is generally considered to be under-theorised. The fact all of these programme are registered with the same national qualifications authority, ostensibly following the same national guidelines for Master’s degrees is worrying. The study attempts to find underlying, historically significant reasons for this unevenness. An analysis of the programmes revealed a leaning towards supportive pedagogical approaches. While all programmes promote a cultivated gaze their purposes are not always the same. While a hegemonic practices potential for opening counts as knowledge, cultivated gaze can enable transformation, it can also encourage that can impede real change and empowerment. The study has the up much needed debate on what is meant by a Master’s in ELM, what and what kinds of knower are envisaged.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Kajee, Farhana Amod
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- South Africa , Teachers -- Training of -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Master of education degree -- South Africa , Knowledge, Theory of , Educational sociology -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Aims and objectives -- South Africa , Legitimation Code Theory (LCT)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60698 , vital:27819
- Description: This dissertation examines the knowledge and knower practices in the Master’s in Educational Leadership and Management (ELM) coursework programmes at South African public universities. This study was prompted by my growing awareness of problems and tensions in the field of ELM generally, and at the level of programme design of the M Ed degree in particular. Many of these had been identified by a national audit of coursework M Eds in ELM (CHE, 2010), and this study sought to find a way of theorising these with a view to improving both course design and teaching. To this end I employed Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) which enables critical engagement with knowledge and knowers in programmes, how they are positioned, and how this positioning may be problematic. Hence my first research question sought to discover and critique what counted as knowledge in these programmes and why, while the second asked how knowers were positioned, and why this had come to be the case. LCT has its roots in the work of Bernstein and Maton, whose preoccupation with curriculum was/is driven by a sense of social justice: if we can understand how and why the curriculum is organised and presented in a particular way, it becomes possible to re-imagine teaching and learning, making it accessible to a broader, more inclusive body of learners. The study also drew on critical realism as an underlabourer. This philosophy provided a nuanced understanding of ontology, encouraging and enabling me, as researcher, to unearth causal mechanisms driving the status quo. Only seven South African universities currently offer the coursework option of a Master’s degree in ELM, compared to thirteen when the audit was conducted in 2010. Six of the universities agreed to take part in the study. Data was gathered through content analysis of the six course outlines and interviews with individual co-ordinators or academics centrally involved in the programmes. Through the development of a translation device I was able to establishing that a knower code was dominant in the programmes. Using this point as my departure, I interrogated the knowledge practices and found that different types of knowledge were being privileged across the programmes, with some having a practical/professional leaning and others a more academic/theoretical orientation. The resultant tension does, I argue, restrict knowledge building and helps to account for the fact that the field is generally considered to be under-theorised. The fact all of these programme are registered with the same national qualifications authority, ostensibly following the same national guidelines for Master’s degrees is worrying. The study attempts to find underlying, historically significant reasons for this unevenness. An analysis of the programmes revealed a leaning towards supportive pedagogical approaches. While all programmes promote a cultivated gaze their purposes are not always the same. While a hegemonic practices potential for opening counts as knowledge, cultivated gaze can enable transformation, it can also encourage that can impede real change and empowerment. The study has the up much needed debate on what is meant by a Master’s in ELM, what and what kinds of knower are envisaged.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Knowledge and knowing in the public management and public administration programmes at a comprehensive university
- Authors: Lück, Jacqueline Catherine
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Knowledge and learning , Public administration -- Study and teaching (Higher) , Knowledge, Sociology of , Learning, Psychology of , Knowledge, Theory of , Educational equalization -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Literacy -- South Africa , Technical institutes -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1326 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013166
- Description: Knowledge is often tacit and under researched in educational fields. In order for student access to knowledge and its related academic discourses to be facilitated, a deep understanding needs to be gained of the form that this knowledge takes. This study interrogates the ways in which knowledge is constituted in the first year of a Public Management Diploma and a Public Administration Degree at a comprehensive university in South Africa. The study takes a social realist approach that understands reality as fact but sees our knowledge thereof as a social phenomenon. The study was concerned with knowledge structures and knower structures as it argues that these have not been adequately accounted for in the sociology of education research. But this study comes to this concern from a strongly ideological view of student reading and writing. This study calls on a social practices approach that sees literacy as embedded within specific academic discourses, which vary from context to context. It uses this ideological understanding of literacy as the orienting framework for the study of knowledge. The study takes place in a Higher Education mileu that has begun to transform from its divisive past. The transformation brought about new institutional formations such as the comprehensive university, with its mix of vocational, professional and formative programmes and varied emphasis on contextual and conceptual curriculum coherence. Increasingly, the transformation agenda also shifts concern from simply providing physical access to a previously disenfranchised majority to ensuring full participation in the context of high attrition rates in first year and low retention rates. The data was analysed using the Specialisation Codes of Legitimation Code Theory to see what was being specialised in the Diploma and Degree curricula of the Public Management and Administration fields. These fields are characterised in the literature by ongoing tensions about focus, and perceptions of there being a theoretical vacuum and an inability to deal adequately with challenges in the South African public sector. Analysis of lecturer interviews and first-year curriculum documentation showed that both the Public Management Diploma and Public Administration Degree have stronger epistemic relations (ER), with an emphasis on claims to knowledge of the world. The data showed relatively weak social relations (SR), in that there was not the valuing of a particular lens on the world or a specific disposition required for legitimation within this field. The combination of ER+ and SR- indicates that these curricula are Knowledge Codes, where legitimation is through the acquisition of a set of skills and procedures. The programmes were characterised by fairly low-level procedural knowledge, which may point to a workplace-oriented direction that is dominant in the comprehensive university. In keeping with concerns raised in the literature about this field, there was little evidence of theoretical or propositional knowledge in the Public Management Diploma and while the Public Administration Degree had some evidence of this, it was arguably not to the extent expected of a degree as described in the National Qualifications Framework. This study was limited to the first-year of the Diploma and Degree and subsequent years could present different findings. Lecturers showed awareness of student challenges with literacy practices and made concerned attempts through various interventions to address this but they were found to value the surface features of writing practices over personal engagement with the knowledge. Though the expectations of student literacy practices in tests and assignments were aligned to the ways in which knowledge was constructed in the curriculum, there was little evidence of student induction into disciplinary discourses of the field as knowledge was presented as being neutral and student writing primarily took the form of retelling objective facts. The implications of these findings could include student exclusion from higher-level academic discourse, more powerful knowledge in the workplace and, finally, constrain them from becoming producers of knowledge.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Lück, Jacqueline Catherine
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Knowledge and learning , Public administration -- Study and teaching (Higher) , Knowledge, Sociology of , Learning, Psychology of , Knowledge, Theory of , Educational equalization -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Literacy -- South Africa , Technical institutes -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1326 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013166
- Description: Knowledge is often tacit and under researched in educational fields. In order for student access to knowledge and its related academic discourses to be facilitated, a deep understanding needs to be gained of the form that this knowledge takes. This study interrogates the ways in which knowledge is constituted in the first year of a Public Management Diploma and a Public Administration Degree at a comprehensive university in South Africa. The study takes a social realist approach that understands reality as fact but sees our knowledge thereof as a social phenomenon. The study was concerned with knowledge structures and knower structures as it argues that these have not been adequately accounted for in the sociology of education research. But this study comes to this concern from a strongly ideological view of student reading and writing. This study calls on a social practices approach that sees literacy as embedded within specific academic discourses, which vary from context to context. It uses this ideological understanding of literacy as the orienting framework for the study of knowledge. The study takes place in a Higher Education mileu that has begun to transform from its divisive past. The transformation brought about new institutional formations such as the comprehensive university, with its mix of vocational, professional and formative programmes and varied emphasis on contextual and conceptual curriculum coherence. Increasingly, the transformation agenda also shifts concern from simply providing physical access to a previously disenfranchised majority to ensuring full participation in the context of high attrition rates in first year and low retention rates. The data was analysed using the Specialisation Codes of Legitimation Code Theory to see what was being specialised in the Diploma and Degree curricula of the Public Management and Administration fields. These fields are characterised in the literature by ongoing tensions about focus, and perceptions of there being a theoretical vacuum and an inability to deal adequately with challenges in the South African public sector. Analysis of lecturer interviews and first-year curriculum documentation showed that both the Public Management Diploma and Public Administration Degree have stronger epistemic relations (ER), with an emphasis on claims to knowledge of the world. The data showed relatively weak social relations (SR), in that there was not the valuing of a particular lens on the world or a specific disposition required for legitimation within this field. The combination of ER+ and SR- indicates that these curricula are Knowledge Codes, where legitimation is through the acquisition of a set of skills and procedures. The programmes were characterised by fairly low-level procedural knowledge, which may point to a workplace-oriented direction that is dominant in the comprehensive university. In keeping with concerns raised in the literature about this field, there was little evidence of theoretical or propositional knowledge in the Public Management Diploma and while the Public Administration Degree had some evidence of this, it was arguably not to the extent expected of a degree as described in the National Qualifications Framework. This study was limited to the first-year of the Diploma and Degree and subsequent years could present different findings. Lecturers showed awareness of student challenges with literacy practices and made concerned attempts through various interventions to address this but they were found to value the surface features of writing practices over personal engagement with the knowledge. Though the expectations of student literacy practices in tests and assignments were aligned to the ways in which knowledge was constructed in the curriculum, there was little evidence of student induction into disciplinary discourses of the field as knowledge was presented as being neutral and student writing primarily took the form of retelling objective facts. The implications of these findings could include student exclusion from higher-level academic discourse, more powerful knowledge in the workplace and, finally, constrain them from becoming producers of knowledge.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014