This article discusses the impact of the Employment Equity Act, 1998 on the higher education sector of South Africa. An introduction to the background and development of affirmative action and employment equity is provided. The author then discusses the specialised constraints and challenges faced by higher education employers, separating them…

This article reports on a study of the career orientations of the academic staff complement of a tertiary education institution that underwent an intensive organisational transformation process. Career orientation profiles were obtained from a sample of academic staff at the beginning of the organisational change process and five tears later the…

This article traces the legal challenges and contestations embedded in five recent cases of higher education mergers in South Africa. I am aware that there are a number of forms of mergers. For the purposes of this article I use the term as one that is descriptive of a policy decision. Where necessary I make a brief distinction between a merger…

South African Academic Development (AD) emerged as a liberatory educational and social movement in the 1980s. AD (often called educational development) has burgeoned as an international phenomenon, but with a focus on quality rather than on liberation. South African AD now seems to be struggling to construct its post-apartheid identity, if one…

The purpose of this article is to identify factors that distinguish between Achievers and At Risk Students in Accounting 1A, and to explore how qualitative and quantitative research methods complement each other. Differences between the two groups were explored from both a quantitative and a qualitative perspective, focusing on study habits,…

The transformation from an industrial society to a postmodern knowledge society has given rise to a new set of values that are manifesting to varying degrees in modern organisations. Besides quality orientation, these include focus on teamwork and cooperation, democratisation of the workplace, fairness and equity in labour relations, and a respect…

Access to the textual world of academia requires that learners are familiar with the critical open-ended questioning stance demanded by textuality. Anecdotal evidence suggests that learners registered for the Bachelor of Education Honours degree are unable to generate appropriate questions to interrogate academic text, impacting on their ability…

This article presents the results of a recent investigation at the University of South Africa that attempted to identify the post-enrolment factors that lecturers and students see as having important influences on students' success in undergraduate Business Studies courses. Data were gathered from students enrolled in all years of the BCom degree…

After determining the perceptions of postgraduate students at a distance education institution of the guidance they had experienced, a research project was launched to determine "lecturers'" views on supervision at the same institution. Data collection methods included focus groups, individual interviews and document analysis. Findings indicated…

Universities and technikons have been struggling to meet the demands of growing numbers of students who enter higher education with limited skills. Higher Education literature abroad provides an exhaustive range of theory about the reasons for students leaving (cited in Strauss & Volkwein 2002), as well as proposals for positive intervention. It…

This article explores two ways of knowing about teacher demand within the context of HIV/AIDS. It argues that by privileging particular variables that one wants to conceptualise, interrogate and understand, projections on teacher demands may vary. Which variables then needs to be conceptualised and what projections on teacher demand are reasonable…

Lesotho and Turkey are two developing countries, both relatively deficient in educational resources--one in Southern Africa, and the other straddling the continents of Europe and Asia in the Middle East. This study reports and compares the priorities and responses of (a) 172 Turkish science teachers, lecturers and students, and (b) 171 Lesotho…

This article investigates sexual harassment issues by means of an in depth literature review and by analyzing and comparing the sexual harassment policies of selected universities in South Africa. Various alternatives that categorize sexual harassment are proposed in order to form a clear perspective on the different viewpoints that currently…

The relationship between educational theories, game design and game development are used to develop models for the creation of complex learning environments. The Game Object Model (GOM), that marries educational theory and game design, forms the basis for the development of the Persona Outlining Model (POM) and the Game Achievement Model (GAM).…

The School of Education, Training and Development at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg offers a Bachelor of Education (Honours) to practising teachers who already have a four year teaching diploma. The programme is delivered through interactive learning materials and Saturday tutorial sessions. However, interviews and a student survey seem…