The Impact of Section 12J Venture Capital Companies' Regime on Small and Medium Enterprises in South Africa

This study sought to examine whether the use of tax incentives to boost investment into the SME sector is an effective policy for economic development. More specifically, the study focused on the Section 12J tax incentive of the Income Tax Act of South Africa, which underpins the current venture capital companies' (VCC) regime for this country. This VCC regime is aimed at addressing the challenge of lack of access to finance by SMEs, and it does so by incentivising venture capital investors to provide equity capital to qualifying SMEs. These SMEs are, in turn, expected to grow and help reduce the economic challenges of poverty and unemployment in South Africa. A mixed methods research approach was adopted for this study. It was also inductive in nature, based on primary data collected from a survey of various stakeholders of the VCC regime using a convenience sampling method. The data variables of the study were based on factors relating to the impact that the VCC regime has had on SMEs in terms of financial performance and creation of decent employment. The study concludes that the VCC regime has had a positive impact on the South African SME sector in terms of financial performance and creation of decent employment. As a result, the VCC regime has shown to be an effective tool for addressing various economic challenges, such as: lack of access to finance faced by SMEs, high failure rate of SME businesses, and poverty alleviation through provision of decent employment by SMEs. Thus, the resultant recommendation submitted in the study is that the VCC regime should as such be extended beyond its current sunset date in order to ensure the South African economy continues to enjoy the benefits that the regime has to offer

Analysis and Development of an Online Knowledge Management Support System for a Community of Practice

The purpose of this study was to investigate how particular business practices, focusing on those occurring in multi-site non-governmental organization (NGOs), could be enhanced by use of a knowledge management system (KMS). The main objective of this KMS is to enhance business processes and save costs for a multi-site NGO through streamlining the organizational practices of knowledge creation, storage, sharing and application. The methodology uses a multiple perspective approach, which covers exploration of the problem space and solution space. Under exploration of problem space, interviews with employees of the NGO are done to identify core problem that the organization faced. Still under exploration of problem space, organization’s knowledge management maturity was assessed through an online questionnaire. The methodology then moved on to exploration of problem space. During the exploration of problem space, the requirements gathering and definition process was done through a combination of interviews with company employees and by completing a systematic literature review of best practices. The requirements were used to design system architecture and use-case models. The prototype for a Community of Practice (COP) support website was developed and investigated in test cases. The tests showed that the prototype system was able to facilitate asynchronous communication through the creation and management of events, creation and management of collaboration groups, creation of discussion topics and creation of basic pages. Furthermore, security capabilities were tested in terms of login functionality. Lastly page load times were tested for eight different scenarios. The system performance was found to be satisfactory because the scenarios covering crucial system requirements aspects had a response time of below 11 seconds. An exception was the landing page, which after login took 26 seconds to load. It is believed that creation of a platform that enables, and records, user interaction, easy of online discussions, managing groups, topics and events, are all major contributors to a successful knowledge management approach

A Design and Short-term Outcome Evaluation of the Commerce Faculty’s First Year Experience Mentoring Programme

This dissertation reports on a design and outcome evaluation of the Commerce First Year Experience (FYEM) programme. The FYEM programme is implemented by the Centre of Higher Education Department at the University of Cape Town. The FYEM programme is an academic and social supportive cooperation between universities faculties, departments, mentors and facilities for first year Commerce students. The collective efforts intend to: i) provide the first year students with a sense of belonging, ii) help students to adapt to university, and iii) offer academic and emotional to the students. A three repeated measure was used for this study. The measures were conducted in May, June and July. The first set of evaluation questions were based on the design of the programme: i) should mentoring be compulsory for first year students? ii) what is the effective duration for tertiary mentoring, iii) what is the most effective way of assigning mentors to mentees? and iv) what is the most effective medium for mentoring relationships? The second set of questions was based on the intended short-term outcomes of the programme: v) did the mentoring programme improve the psychosocial and academic attributes of students at observation time one to observation time two? vi) were these effects sustainable, meaning did the students continue to improve even after the end of the programme between observation time two and observation time three? and vii) was a difference between mentored and non-mentored students over time? The theory design results illustrated that selecting appropriate mentors requires setting up criteria based on certain characteristics. The duration of mentoring should be one year to allow the full transition of first-year students to the university. Another result showed that mentoring should be compulsory for the first year students provided that there is an opt-out option. Mentors and mentees should be given the opportunity to select their preferred individuals to work with and not be randomly assigned. Additionally, the most effective medium for mentoring was group sessions instead of one on one. The short-term outcome results for the mentoring programme were statistically insignificant due to the small sample size. There was, however, a small improvement in the means of the psychosocial and academic outcomes. After three months of the programme, there were no significant differences between the mentored and non-mentored students. The sample size may have contributed to the lack of effect as well as lack of qualitative data. In conclusion, it is evident that FYEM programme results were statistically insignificant. However, positive increases were observed for the mentored students’ sense of belonging, peer interaction, academic adjustment and engagement. The limitations of this study must be addressed so that more reliable and valid data can be gathered. The results from the design evaluation component can be used to improve the programmes’ implementation in 2017

A Call for More Literature and Deeper Data. A Response to The Cultural Contours of Democracy: Indigenous Epistemologies Informing South African Citizenship

This review provides a critical appraisal of Kubow and Min\u27s paper. It teases out their conception of liberalism and argues that the classical notion of liberalism as a political theory that advocates individual liberty based on assumptions of the unencumbered autonomous individual has lost currency. This is because over the years liberalism has mutated into a multiplicity of new forms, and there is no single view that can be said to define what it means to be a liberal. The paper raises methodological questions with respect to the use of focus group interviews. It implores researchers to first ask themselves whether they can tell what a person really believes on the basis of a few questions put to him in an interview

In Between Hope and Hopelessness in Contemporary Spaces: A Case of E.S Segoete’s Novel, Monono ke Mohodi ke Mouwane (Riches are Short-lived)

Published ArticleThe aim of this paper is to explore the dynamics of hope and hopelessness in Segoete’s novel, Monono ke mohodi ke mouwane (Riches are short-lived). The researcher employs the interface of theories of space, hope and hopelessness to demonstrate how the psychic make-up of literary character is shaped in his struggle for survival within the well-defined space. The findings of the paper reveal that in disheartened moments, on one hand, hope inspires the main character to keep on going through unpleasant times with expectations that better days will come. On the other hand, hopelessness interacts with painful episodes and gives rise to the occurrence of negative events in the lives of a character. It is therefore, concluded that if a character cannot meet the needs of the changing society, hope in life diminishes because daily problems, coupled with feelings of being a burden to others, and hopelessness increase. Seeing no value in living accelerates his desire to die

Reflection of violence, threats and aggression in a political space : a case of the post-apartheid novel Sehlekehleke Sa Deidro by V. Masima

Published ArticleThe article is set to examine violence, threats and aggression in a political space, using TV Masina’s novel, Sehlekehleke sa Deidro (“An Island of Deidro”). The author of this article attempts to demonstrate how elements of folktales are incorporated into the works of modern writers. The article also aims to show how a character is in need of a living space, and how he/she responds to it according to socio-cultural norms; prescribed by the space. The theoretical aspects of violence, threats and aggression are discussed, followed by the definition of political space. Theory of space dominates the discussions, as it underpins the violent, threatening and aggressive behaviour of characters in the development of the novel. The findings reveal that the outer space (dangerous), as opposed to the inner space (safe), shows how characters depict the present state of affairs in the Southern African region today; where human life could be exterminated within a wink of an eye. The article argues in conclusion that corruption and mal-administration of resources by political leaders in the Southern African countries have corroded the moral fibre of communities, where evil has become the norm

Imitation is a consciously intertextual practice. A case of Thomas Mofolo's Moeti wa Botjhabela

Published ArticleThe paper seeks to demonstrate that Mofolo borrowed from previous texts written before Moeti wa Botjhabela so as to provide layers of meaning in his novel. Mofolo was a reader of different texts before he became the creator of Moeti wa Botjhabela, and therefore, his work of art is unavoidably shot through with references, quotations, and influences of every kind of text he read, and this finds expression in the manner in which history, folktales and Bible have been distributed consistently in his work of art

The reduction of information overload in hypermedia environments

Computers are increasingly used worldwide in teaching and learning. The education system in South Africa also calls for the use of technology in teaching and learning as one of the critical cross-field outcomes of outcomes based education (OBE). In order to achieve this goal, the hypermedia-based learning environment, including Web-based learning, needs to be explored, especially since not many studies locally have focused on this topic. Although many schools already provide education in Information Technology, not all learners are adept at navigating the Web. This study focused on information overload and disorientation on the Web. The purpose of the study was to explore Web-based learning and to develop strategies to enable learners to overcome impeding factors while constructing and representing knowledge in a hypermedia-based learning environment. This, being a new approach to and method of learning interaction that employs hypermediabased learning strategies, encapsulates the integration of technology in education at secondary school level. The literature study was based on the design experiment method, which embraced a qualitative research approach, both descriptive and explorative, and was found to be appropriate for the purposes of this study. The data gathering methods relevant to establishing how e-literacy can assist in reducing information overload in a hypermedia environment were individual interviews, focus group interviews, observation and open-ended questions. The participants were grade 10 learners from a secondary school in the North West Province and their Information Technology teacher. A conceptual framework of the learning programme was created in order to integrate the guiding principles for the design process. The framework outlines how the design process was carried out based on teaching and learning theories, and using a constructivist approach in an attempt to reduce information overload and disorientation while using ICT tools. xvi The content of the learning programme focused on the Cricket World Cup 2003, in the learning area of Life Orientation. Learners were to learn navigation strategies for effective and meaningful learning on the Web, with the help of guided interactive tasks in order to avoid information overload and learner disorientation in hyperspace. The effectiveness of the strategies was also evaluated. The learners’ experiences and feelings about, and perspectives on participating in the hypermedia-based learning programme were investigated. The results indicated that the learning programme – aimed at providing learners with adequate knowledge and skills for navigating in the Web – promoted motivation and enabled learners to successfully construct and represent knowledge in the hypermedia-learning environment. It enhanced not only experiential and independent learning, but also individual, collaborative and cognitive situated learning. The principles of constructivism and OBE facilitated teaching and learning as the guiding factor in both educator and learner instances. However, it became clear that a lack of skills and awareness in using ICT tools to construct meaningful knowledge, as well as being inexperienced in the constructivist approach, could easily give rise to information overload and disorientation. It was concluded that the onus is on educators, instructional designers and developers of learning programmes to equip themselves with the necessary eliteracy skills in order to guide and prepare learners increasingly in the field of Information Technology in education. This is essential, because there is a great need for e-literacy in open distance learning, and as a prerequisite for tertiary education and lifelong learning in South Africa.Prof. D. van der Westhuizen Prof. M.H. Trϋmpelman

The perceptions of counselling staff on the effectiveness of the victim empowerment programme for victims

M.A. (Social Work)After more than twelve years that the Victim Empowerment Programme has been in existence in South Africa, victims have finally been recognized, as have their rights that are to be upheld at all times. This is a programme of the National Crime Prevention Strategy under pillar one and programme number nine. Since its existence there has not been much research on either the programme, or the topic. The Victim Empowerment Programme aims to ensure that services to the victims of crime, violence and abuse are rendered in an effective and coordinated manner, and it emphasizes that a victim-centered approach is key. The research topic of this study is the Counselling staff’s perception of the effectiveness of the victim empowerment programme for victims-’. The goal of the study is to understand how staff perceives the effectiveness of the Victim Empowerment Programme (VEP) for victims within the KOSH Crisis Centre. The research questions are attached as an annexure. The objectives were as follows: • To develop a theoretical framework on Victim Empowerment from a restorative justice perspective • To explore staff experiences of the VEP when working with victims • To make recommendations based on outcome of staff perceptions of the effectiveness of a VEP. The literature on the study was gathered through text and information searched at the library and on websites. In this study the researcher realised how staff perceive this programme, especially when working with victims, and that, it is a complex and demanding undertaking for them. One of the factors that complicate working with victims who are repeatedly abused is that they are very different from the adult counsellors who work with them. Victims are not survivors; they have a different world view -different ways of communicating, different status and power, and different rights. The research methods that were applied to this research were interviews and focus groups that were used as data collection methods which concentrated on staff perceptions of the effectiveness of VEP in interventions with victims who suffered abuse. The researcher interviewed trained personnel who specifically offer therapeutic programmes to victims. The data collection from participants was collected, with their permission, through the use of field notes, interviews and tape recordings. The critical finding of the study was that all professionals dealing with victims, including the role players, must receive uniform training, on the Victim Empowerment Programme. This strengthens referrals, the type of services, and the roles of stakeholders. Additionally, legislation for this programme must be fast-tracked to facilitate its effectiveness and to ensure that the implementation process becomes paramount to all key stakeholders who carry the programme’s mandate