Efficacy in the Provisioning of Educational Needs for Learners in Schools in the Amathole East Education District

Purpose – The purpose of this article was to investigate the extent of efficacy on the part of departmental officials in the provisioning of resources for teaching and learning to schools in the Amathole East Education District (AEED). The idea was to establish the extent to which the Department of Education, in the context of this Education District, lives up to the expectations of schools in so far as the provisioning of educational needs of the learners in schools is concerned. The focus on AEED, however, does not preclude the context in which the District operates, which is the Provincial Department of Education and National.  Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative Research Method was used in this study. The approach to data collection was exploratory. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the aim of drawing experiences from the members of the National Association of School Governing Bodies (NASGBs), Teacher Unions, School Principals and Teachers, as well as Literature Review. The researcher in this study adopted the approach of focus group discussions. A group of school principals, for instance, was invited to converge under one roof. Executive Members of Teacher Unions at Regional Level were also asked to converge under one roof for the purpose of group discussions. Then the researcher initiated a discussion with the focus group by throwing questions that were responded to spontaneously within the group. From time to time, in the course of the discussions, the researcher would ask follow-up questions. The questions were aimed at ensuring that the discussions are focussed on the issue at hand. They were also asked to ensure that the researcher obtained more clarity on issues ventilated on.  From the focus group discussions that ensued, the researcher was able to transcribe, code the ideas that came up, develop themes out of the ideas, make meaning of the themes and subsequently develop a principle. This is the procedure that the researcher applied across the focus groups that were interviewed, the members of the NASGB and the teachers in the case of this study. The Interpretive Phenomenological Theory (IPA) has been used as the basis for data analysis in this study. Findings – the view that resonated across participants in this study is that the provisioning of educational needs for learners in schools by the Department of Education in the Eastern Cape is in a terrible state. The recommendation is that the Minister should subject departmental officials to extensive capacitation programs on resource management. In addition to that the Minister should revise the policy on National Norms and Standards for School Funding (NNSSF) to cause it to speak to the educational needs of the learners on the ground.  Research limitations/implications – Participants in the study might be unwilling to say things that would make the Department of Basic Education to appear in a bad light in the eyes of the public. Participants would do this for fear of making the Department of Education for which most of them work, as being brought into disrepute. This is a factor that has a potential to place restrictions on the methodologies and conclusions of the researcher in this study. It’s a factor that is not within the control of the researcher, despite him having made a concerted effort to allay fears on the part of participants. Practical implications - The findings and recommendations from this study will speak to the conscience of those in charge of creating an enabling environment for schools to allocate resources to schools as expected of them. The service delivery protests by school communities and labour unions against the officials of the department will either be greatly minimised or put to an end completely. The findings can also have an effect of influencing the budget allocation for the Department of Basic Education by the Minister of Finance. Many of the adverse findings in the study are attributable to the underfunding of schools by the State. Originality/value – The study zooms into issues besetting the functionality of schools in the Amathole East Education District as a result of lack of support from the District, as well as National and Provincial Head Offices.  The study provides a theoretical and empirical contribution to the existing literature on the critical issue of the quality of education in schools as provided for by education departments. There are practical recommendations that are made in the article to assist National and Provincial Departments to understand the impact and gravity of inadequate funding of schools by the State, as well as the need for accredited capacity building programmes for departmental officials

The role of South African Democratic Teachers' Union in the implementation of teacher redeployment policy in schools

The purpose of this study was to understand what the role of SADTU (South African Democratic Teachers’ Union) is in the implementation of the Teacher Redeployment Policy in schools. The Approach to data collection was that of qualitative research. The methods used to collect data were interviews and literature review. The study used the interpretive paradigm. The theory applied is the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) theory. IPA aims to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world. The approach to data analysis was that of a qualitative research. Qualitative data were organised and arranged categorically into themes and patterns emanating from the responses of participants. The data were analysed using descriptive explanations, based on the frequencies and similarities of the responses. The approach was primarily exploratory, just as would be expected of a qualitative research design. A combination of purposive, quota and snowball sampling was used in this research. The main finding in this research is that the role of SADTU in the implementation of teacher redeployment is not limited to observation as the policy prescribes. SADTU members go beyond that role and assume the role of active participation and decision making in the process. The main recommendation was that the policy should be amended to allow SADTU to participate actively in discussions and decision making. This will avert the unnecessary conflicts and instability in schools caused by the suppression of the union to participate actively. When the Teacher Redeployment Policy was conceived, the purpose was to achieve equity in teacher distribution by moving teachers from the historically advantaged White schools to the historically disadvantaged Black schools. The implementation of Teacher Redeployment Policy is causing more harm than good in so far as effective teaching and learning in schools is concerned. For most of the time, teachers are pre-occupied with worrying about how the process of teacher redeployment is going to affect them instead of focussing on delivering quality teaching in schools. Teachers who are most fitting to be the ones identified in excess in some cases enjoy the benefit of escaping redeployment for the simple reason that they are members of SADTU. At the same time, candidates who do not qualify to be placed in specific posts are placed into those posts at the expense of the best suitable candidates because of the biases. The role of the union is not to implement policy, but also to make sure that the policy is implemented in the spirit and letter in which it was formulated. The status of the teacher union in the implementation of policy is that of an observer who only surfaces when an observation is made whether there is unfairness and biases in the manner the Teacher Redeployment Policy is implemented.Educational Management and LeadershipM. Ed. (Educational Leadership and Management

Estimating group properties in online social networks with a classifier

We consider the problem of obtaining unbiased estimates of group properties in social networks when using a classifier for node labels. Inference for this problem is complicated by two factors: the network is not known and must be crawled, and even high-performance classifiers provide biased estimates of group proportions. We propose and evaluate AdjustedWalk for addressing this problem. This is a three step procedure which entails: 1) walking the graph starting from an arbitrary node; 2) learning a classifier on the nodes in the walk; and 3) applying a post-hoc adjustment to classification labels. The walk step provides the information necessary to make inferences over the nodes and edges, while the adjustment step corrects for classifier bias in estimating group proportions. This process provides de-biased estimates at the cost of additional variance. We evaluate AdjustedWalk on four tasks: the proportion of nodes belonging to a minority group, the proportion of the minority group among high degree nodes, the proportion of within-group edges, and Coleman's homophily index. Simulated and empirical graphs show that this procedure performs well compared to optimal baselines in a variety of circumstances, while indicating that variance increases can be large for low-recall classifiers.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl

Classification in high dimensional data using sparse techniques

Thesis (MCom)--Stellenbosch University, 2019.ENGLISH SUMMARY : Traditional classification techniques fail in the analysis of high-dimensional data. In response, new classification techniques and accompanying theory have recently emerged. These techniques are natural extensions of linear discriminant analysis. The aim is to solve the statistical challenges that arise with high-dimensional data by utilising the sparse coding (Johnstone and Titterington, 2009). In this project, our focus is on the following techniques: penalized LDA-FL, penalized LDA-FL, sparse discriminant analysis, sparse mixture discriminant analysis and sparse partial least squares. We evaluated the performance of these techniques in simulation studies and on two microarray gene expression datasets by comparing the test error rates and the number of features selected. In the simulation studies, we found that performance vary depending on the simulation set-up and on the classification technique used. The two microarray gene expression datasets are considered for practical implementation of these techniques. The results from the microarray gene expression datasets showed that these classification techniques achieve satisfactory accuracy.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING : Geen opsomming beskikbaar

Music of my people (II): dances in Barotseland

Barotse are a nation. Everyone living in Barotseland calls himself a Mulozi although he may belong to one of very many tribes of Barotseland. Each of these tribes has its own peculiar language and customs, with Lozi only as a lingua franca. Writing on music or dances of such a heterogeneous people one must needs consider all the major and influential tribal groups. There are many dances in Barotseland, most of which are established only in one locality according to the predominant tribe. Thus we find Siyemboka and Sipelu are the main dances in Central Barotseland (i.e. Mongu and Senanga districts), while Kayowe is more popular in Kalabo district. In Mankoya district, where there are two main tribal groups, there are, accordingly, two main dances - Chilunga and Luhwa. These five dances are the main dances corresponding to the five main tribal groups - Lozi, Mbunda, Nkoya, Lubale and the Nyengo-Makoma. Keep these tribal groups in mind as you read on

The music of my people: an introduction to music Barotseland

Music in Barotseland (the country covering most of the Zambezi Valley northwest of the Victoria Falls) penetrates and indeed completes most of our daily activities. Girls sing as they dig, pound and, above all, as they go on their several errands fetching wood, water and others. Village men, on returning from the fields, usually gather under a big tree listening to one of them playing piece after piece of music on one of our several musical instruments, while the rest work at the various crafts. The tunes on “Kangombyo” or “Kalimba” punctuate the continuous low conversational tones of the old men as they talk over many state affairs or matters of general interest

The investigation of a potential value of a project management information modelling system for building and construction projects in Australia

The intention of this research is to investigate and identify deficiencies in today’s use Information Modelling (IM) systems in construction projects in Australia and ascertain whether there is a possibility for the development, adoption, and implementation of a broader-based project management information modelling system (PMIMS) to provide better project outcomes. The study focuses on Information Modelling (IM) systems currently used within project management aspects of construction projects in Australia. The research then provides recommendations on the issues to be considered to improve the viability of such a PMIMS for building and construction projects in Australia. A PMIMS may have the potential to provide enhanced project management in the building and construction sector in Australia across many aspects of projects. The building and construction sector are faced with a myriad of challenges concerning project management, including those challenges associated with the adoption of general information modelling systems used in the project management fraternity, such as inefficiencies, conflict, inaccuracies in documentation, never-ending changes to scope, poor documentation, inappropriate project outcomes, and financial and economic losses across the entire life span of projects. Project management practitioners interviewed in this study indicate that the formulation and adoption of a PMIMS may be key contributors towards better project outcomes in the construction and building sector in Australia. Probability sampling technique, where an equal opportunity exists for all the members in a population to be chosen and be agent of the complete population was employed for this research project. This research project adopts a qualitative approach to explore this potential for the expanded use of IM systems on project management practices. The findings of this research study highlight the potential development and application of a PMIMS structure tailor-made for Australian construction firms, as well as the adoption of a PMIMS by Australian project managers. Overall, the value of study is its contribution for project management in relation to the use of information modelling systems, and identification of and guidelines for the possible development of such a PMIMS for the Australian construction sector

A sociological study investigating the interface between the governance of democracy and traditional leadership in rural development : a case study of Emaqadini tribal authority.

Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2004.The study focuses on the interface between the democratic governance and traditional leadership in rural development at EmaQadini Tribal Authority. The study tries to explore whether this institutions can or are suitable enough to function collaborate in developing rural communities. A combination of sociological classical theories has been used since they are interrelated. The data from the two communities forming this tribal authority (ward 3 and ward 59) was collected by means of questionnaires and an interview schedule was administered to the two councilors of the wards. The results and findings that, is there any development in these communities at the hands of these institutions are also presented. The main conclusion of the study relates to whether is there any role of traditional leadership in rural development in the new democratic dispensation. The recommendations of the study focus on the connection between the government and traditional leaders in rural development