Masters Degrees (Education Policy Studies)

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Browsing Masters Degrees (Education Policy Studies) by browse.metadata.advisor "Berkhout, S. J."

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    Die fasiliterende rol van die skoolbestuur in verband met die toetrede van immigrante kinders tot skole
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2005-12) Hermanis, Piet J.; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
    This investigation form part of an international about the facilitative role of school management regarding the emergence of immigrant children at schools The purpose of this study is to determine how selected school communities respond to their role with regards to the management and facilitation of immigrant learners in schools. In order to accomplish this, both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used. Descriptive survey techniques were applied on the basis of their flexibility. Questionaires, informal discourse, formal interviews and the case study were utilised to establish the opinions, attitudes, preferences and perceptions of communities regarding the immigration of learners. This was done against the backdrop of an extensive and comprehensive literature review. Throughout the study an attempt was made to remain as faithful as possible to the facts through empirical research, and to minimise prejudice, stereotyping and preferences through using rational thinking. Internal testing was used to ensure validity and reliability. According to the current research, the responses regarding migration by learners are very diverse. The responses are realised within the following contexts: accessibility or inaccessibility of schools, culture, politics, ideology, ethnicity, religion, language and even racial classification. Although geographical location is not a significant factor, social stratification patterns as well as the status play a role in this regard. The researcher concludes that the targeted school communities still lack the expertise, experience and ability to handle, facilitate and settle issues relating to multi-cultural diversity. Research findings show that this state of affairs is largely due to a lack of undestanding of transformation in the school context as well as regarding the implementation and execution of this transformation.
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    'n Gevallestudie van die effek van die herverdeling van mag op vroue wat op skoolbeheerliggame dien DIEN
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2007-03) Petersen, Melanie; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
    Policy is generally established to provide for specific needs. In South Africa, for example, the South African Schools Act of 1996 was introduced, among other reasons, to promote democratic transformation in society, to protect the rights of all learners, parents and educators and to facilitate their acceptance of responsibility for the organisation, control and financing of schools in partnership with the state (RSA, 1996b). The SA Schools Act, in accordance with which school governing bodies are constituted, endeavours to effect greater devolution of power from the state to local communities to offer these communities greater participation in the control and management of their schools. Analysis of national and international literature, however, indicates that democratic government policy does not always deliver the desired results in practice (MacLean, 2003). Policy intention and implementation are frequently far removed from the practical reality within which they should be effecting change. Policy implementation is frequently aimed at promoting democracy and equality but, in reality, results in the maintenance and even the strengthening of existing inequalities between élite and marginalised groups. It is not always in touch with the cultural, political and economic obstacles that women in particular have to overcome to be allowed to participate at the same level as men in decision-making processes and in the exercise of power. This study endeavours to determine the real effect of such decentralisation on women as one of the most marginalised groups. During the study, personal interviews were conducted with two selected women and followed up with a questionnaire, which brought to light another dimension to the concept of empowerment: that of the women each attaching her own meaning to the concept of power, which emanates from their different backgrounds in respect of, for example, culture, education and language. Decentralisation can therefore result in different effects, depending on the meaning attached to the concept in a specific context. Women do not see power simply as the making of decisions on issues such as the formulation of policy; they see the right to power and the meaning that they themselves give to power as empowering. It can therefore be said that decentralisation as a policy involves certain textual intentions (which the policy stipulates as text) but that it also involves a contextual intention, which is influenced by different backgrounds. The very fact that women are accorded a voice in forums such as school governing bodies can in itself be experienced as empowering due to the women's own conceptualisation of it. The differences in the interpretation of and meaning attached to the concept indicate a need for research that delves deeper than simply a focus on the number of women participating in local politics. More research is necessary to investigate the circumstances and policy implications of the participation of women. Such research could investigate aspects such as different contexts and people's different interpretations and conceptualisations, which could ultimately be anticipated in policy frameworks. Due cognisance of women’s expectations in respect of the decentralisation or the redistribution of school governing powers and the position of women in such spheres could well result in a greater contribution to the empowerment of women.
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    Die impak van die uitkomsgebaseerde onderwys-assesseringsbeleid op die werkslading van onderwysers
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2005-12) Arnold, Alvin Mark; Berkhout, S. J.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
    The aim of this paper is to obtain an indication of the impact of an outcomes-based assessment policy on the workload of six teachers of a secondary school. Since the implementation of Outcomes Based Education (OBE) there are great expectations to implement new approaches in relation to planning, instruction and assessment guidelines that teachers should follow. Despite these guidelines assessment remains a problem area because teachers are still grappling with the assessment principles of OBE. The new outcomes-based approach to assessment encourages teachers to integrate their instruction with classroom-based assessment. Teachers however do not appear to be integrating their instruction with their assessment. Teachers are blaming the lack of integration to a lack of time. This research is an attempt to assess the time teachers spend on instruction, assessment and extra mural activities. Although this is a qualitative research, it offers a quantifiable reality that is relative to the context of six selected teachers and the context in which the teachers and school is situated. Policy is not static and thus it should be continuously tested to determine whether the aim of the particular policy is practicable. Thus I am of the opinion that research of this nature can be an important mechanism for policy enactment because indicators inform policy makers about the policy. The findings of this research proposes to "put in numbers" what teachers have to say, in other words, to reflect the quantified realities of the workload of teachers.
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    Implementing the new technology curriculum statement in the context of the knowledge economy
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010-12) Arendse, Franklin Eugene; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Education Policy Studies.; Berkhout, S. J.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The new Technology curriculum was included in the National Curriculum Statement (Department of Education, 2005) as part of the broader intention of serving as the vehicle for reconstructing our society and our orientation towards education for the 21st century. In this narrative I will start by exploring the congruence between the technology curriculum, globalisation and the knowledge economy, the related discourses and the expectations these create for technology education in the Further Education and Training and General Education and Training bands in secondary education in South African schools. I will continue by critically engaging with the discourses and school-based patterns of engagement that shape the technology curriculum as well as teaching and learning practices in a secondary school. By locating my arguments within Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of habitus, field and strategies, as elaborated on by Lingard and Christie (2003), as well as Foucault’s theory of power, this narrative will engage with the perceived gap in the policy implementation process. This gap consists of a myriad of contextually interrelated factors that interact with the achievement of the prescribed outcomes and ultimately the intention of shaping learners for meaningful participation in the knowledge economy.
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    A leadership and management perspective to merging of South African technical colleges
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2004-03) Papier, Graham Richard; Berkhout, S. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research profiles some of the South African Technical College Chief Executive Officer's job responsibilities to be effective and efficient in the merging of state and state-aided technical colleges. The principal's experience gained during the apartheid era and its applicable legislation is characterised by the sector development, which was influenced by the economic, political, and higher education roles respectively. The question of whether the principal's past experience is adequate or inadequate for merging is of crucial importance. The research therefore explores policy renewal challenges in conjunction with firstly leadership and change management trends and secondly, with international merging experiences as a basis for the South African merger of past separate technical colleges.
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    Die spanning tussen performatiwiteit en meelewing binne die onderwys : 'n outo-etnografiese reis
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013-12) Van der Merwe, Marietjie; Berkhout, S. J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Education Policy Studies
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research is about my story as a learning-support teacher and includes the identity growth that I experienced between the period from January 2001 until December 2012. My approach of acceptance and compassion, within the atmosphere of performativity, leads to my writing process and becomes my auto-ethnographic journey. The writing process brings about change, to experience the performative as an action of ‘doing’ (in Giroux 2000:135) and a way of being within day-to-day situations (in Denzin 2004:273). By recording my experiences within changing spaces, I hope to make a contribution to academic literature, by drawing the reader into my experiences of the forming of my identity and the explication of the writing process as a journey. Writing my introduction to this research at the end of this process, I realise that this research has not only changed my story, but also myself as a person. I struggled to bring the story to a close. This is because I have realised that my story is still changing every day. I am becoming a performative ethonographer (Denzin 2004:262) and I see concrete situations and engage in a conversation with them. And through this writing experience I have registered an enrichment in my experience. My research does not make use of questionnaires or interviews. It is action-research, experienced in everyday things. My story with remembrances was already there before the research, though never told. Ball (1996) refers to this process as identification. This is the process through which I have gone to be seen, as well as the process through which one goes to see oneself, to a specific identity (quoted by Thompson 2004:45). My story begins with questions and reflections about my being different as a white woman, within my context of the two so-called ‘Coloured Schools’. Am I carrying a white scar? (Cixous 1998). I have experienced the writing process as a way of coming into knowledge. My research leads to questions, though not necessarily to answers. The writing process leads to my looking through a different lens of gaining a better understanding. Peace. And hope. I am learning – have learnt – that hope is an ontological necessity. There is a necessity to dream, to change, and to better the lives of others (Freire 1998:8 in Denzin 2003:263). My research develops rhizomatically (Honan: 2006; Richardson & Pierre 2005, quoted in Richards 2012:3). It is written in fragments of daily action. It is written in the knowledge of the impossibility of relaying experience as it is or was. As a teller of a story, I emphasise that I do not posit my characters as objects. Rather, they are presented in this research in a relationship of trust, existing between myself and them for a period stretching beyond twelve years. Meaning cannot always be relayed in words. Suggestions of meaning can lie in the relationship between texts (Parsons 2002:32 in Le Roux 2012:xi4).