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Agriculture vocational education programme and the promotion of job creation skills in the Free State technical vocational education and training college

  • Authors: Thwala, William Mandla
  • Date: 2019
  • Subjects: Vocational education Technical education
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Education)
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/16698 , vital:40762
  • Description: The aim of the study was to investigate agriculture educational programme and the promotion of job creation skills in the OFS FET College. The interpretivism paradigm and design approach were adopted in this qualitative research. The sample consisted of three final year students, three facilitators and one coordinator. The non-probability and purposive sampling techniques was used for the qualitative research. The qualitative data was descriptive, and thematically analysed. The study found that there is a big demand for agricultural professional in South Africa but very few are choosing this career. The quality of education in agricultural sector is not where it should be. The demand for skilled people in the sector is growing, while the number of students enrolling in agriculture-related training continues to decrease. Africa’s agricultural education is failing to produce a new wave of farmers. The study found that FET colleges did not train and provide enough skills to students to enhance development in agriculture sectors and therefore make students non-productive at labour market. The study also found that the FET colleges had left a trail of low skills, partially educated and jobless youth behind. The study also found that the curriculum tended to be outmoded, irrelevant to adequately address the challenges facing modern agriculture .The curriculum still focused on farm production rather than encompassing all segments of agricultural value chains, entrepreneurship, and agriculture business processing market. Agriculture forms the basic food security of every country .It contributes a large proportion of gross domestic product in many developing countries and is the source of income and subsistence for many of the poorest and most vulnerable individuals and households.
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  • Date Issued: 2019

Reflection and representation: modes of communicating Zimbabwean historical narratives through popular music

  • Authors: Gwindingwe, Gift
  • Date: 2019
  • Subjects: Communication Interpersonal communication
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/15804 , vital:40528
  • Description: Music, before and after independence in the former colonies, has been playing a central role of articulating national concerns. It became an alternative medium through which historical narratives were channeled out to the public. While many scholars have acknowledged the critical role of music’s attempt to whip the autocratic governments into line, and the attempts by the governments across the world to thwart the critical/activism role of music, little emphasis was put on the mechanism of circumventing censorship, the linguistic competence (or lack of it) of music in conscientising the public on national issues. This thesis aims to harness this seemingly entertainment tool (music) into serious academic discourse by looking at the way power relations and ideological contestations are symbolically reflected, represented and communicated in popular culture, in particular the Zimbabwean Sungura and Chimurenga music. It makes a critical analysis of the diction of music as it attempts (or fails to) reflect and represent the Zimbabwean historical narratives from the early 1990s to 2008. The study tries to (semiologically) fracture the musical lexicon and the ideological stance on which it is based to show the extent to which music communicates by way of reflecting and representing the Zimbabwean historical narratives. The thesis looks at how popular music has ‘become the most prominent signifier’ and at ‘the shifting meanings and the significance of … music’ (Nooshin 2005:231) in Zimbabwe. It utilises a qualitative research approach specifically an interpretive prism. Key research methods for the study include in-depth semi-structured interviews which were conducted with purposively selected informants such as university academics and two of the selected musicians. The selected academics were purposively sampled basing on the researcher’s knowledge of their inclination towards Cultural Studies, particularly popular culture. The study has managed to bring clarity to the research questions in a big way considering the application of the various theories that framed the thesis discussion. Research findings indicate that interpretive semiotics aids to unpack the philosophy of meaning making through song. Music as a medium has the reflective effect of a mirror and a photographic effect of a camera to enunciate the ideological innuendo in the leader-led dichotomy. The study shows that protest popular music rejects knowledge that affirms the status quo; it is counter hegemonic and seeks to regenerate selfhoods and self-liberation amongst the subaltern class.
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  • Date Issued: 2019

Universities and their role in the growth and development of cities in changing global context : a case study of East London and its higher education institutions, with special emphasis on the University of Fort Hare

  • Authors: Sibanda, Francis
  • Date: 2018
  • Subjects: Universities and colleges--South Africa--Eastern Cape Education, Higher--Social aspects--zSouth Africa--Eastern Cape Academic-industrial collaboration--Economic aspects
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Doctoral , Social Sciences
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/15509 , vital:40414
  • Description: This thesis uses the urban growth and development theory in analysing and applying place-based approaches in the growth and development of the city of East London. Globalisation despite its seeming elimination of distance has in fact made geographical locations more necessary as agglomeration acts as a comparative and competitive advantage for growth and development. It is the contention of this study that places and spaces can develop more rapidly if there exists factors that support innovation and clustering. In this case, HEIs in cities are described as catalysts for growth and development within cities. By their presence in cities and their contribution through knowledge creation, production, dissemination and sharing, they become anchors of development in post-industrial cities that no longer depend on heavy industries but are driven by knowledge, hence, the knowledge economy. There are several city development theories, those that advocate for the use of big projects; others for infrastructure development; and some, for industrialization as a way to revitalize and drive city economic growth and development. This study argues that these development strategies have previously been used in the East London case but with very little success. It seeks therefore to propose that in addition to these, an anchor strategy, whereby institutions such as universities and hospitals, can be used by cities for their growth and development.
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  • Date Issued: 2018

Phylogenetics and historical biogeography of the Teloganodidae (Ephemeroptera)

  • Authors: Pereira da Conceicoa, Lyndall Louise
  • Date: 2016
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64900 , vital:28629
  • Description: The Teloganodidae are a mayfly family endemic to the southwestern Cape (South Africa), with relatives in Madagascar and Asia. Like many other aquatic invertebrates in Africa, they have been considerably understudied. Research into biodiversity and biogeography allows an understanding of the earth’s biota, producing knowledge which can be used to develop strategies to preserve and monitor this biota. Mismanagement of water systems places biodiversity of river fauna under an ever-increasing extinction threat. This investigation explores rivers in under-collected areas to determine how well teloganodids have been represented in the literature, with four genera and five species described at the onset of this study. A lectotype for Lestagella penicillata Barnard (1940) has been elected and described in detail, setting “benchmark” characters for future descriptions. Standard DNA sequencing methods provide portions of three mitochondrial genes; cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI), small subunit ribosomal 16S RNA (16S), 12S ribosomal DNA (12S) and two nuclear genes, Histone 3 (H3) and 28S ribosomal DNA (28S) for up to 255 specimens. Fore and hind wings of 79 teloganodid adults were used to examine phylogenetic signal and evolutionary divergence using geometric morphometrics. A multi-faceted approach is used to investigate relationships between clades and the effects of deep-time climatic and landform changes which have influenced the diversity and distribution seen today. Tree (Bayesian Inference and Maximum Likelihood) and network (parsimony) phylogenies, ancestral reconstruction, historical biogeography and wingevolution of the Teloganodidae are investigated. Species tree analyses discovered 27 species and six genera. Distinct lineages are restricted to catchments, and strong phylogeographic structure was found within most genera. Southern African Teloganodidae are shown to have originated in the Cretaceous, with divergence and dispersal of lineages depended on their established locality at the time of tectonic events (uplift) and climatic changes (sea level regressions and transgressions). Geographic clines in wing-shape of Lestagella across its range imply evolutionary adaptations to specific catchment landscape and environment. A detailed analysis of biodiversity has many valuable contributions, from directing future research, understanding adaptive processes, fine-tuning phylogeographical and evolutionary hypotheses, to improving management and conservation decisions in order to preserve endemic biodiversity hotspots.
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  • Date Issued: 2016

Contending issues in South Africa's foreign policy : universalism versus economic national interest : the case of South Africa's arms sales to 'pariah states' 1994-1999

  • Authors: Othieno, Timothy
  • Date: 2005
  • Subjects: South Africa -- Foreign relations -- 1994- South Africa -- Politics and government -- 1994- South Africa -- Foreign economic relations Arms transfers -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
  • Identifier: vital:2868 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007712
  • Description: This study examines post-apartheid South African foreign policy under former President Nelson Mandela, and the apparent ambiguities that were its recurrent feature in the period from 1994 to 1999. Its focus is on the inherent irreconcilability of the economic national interests and the foreign policy principles which included the promotion of and respect for universalist principles and interests such as human rights, democracy, international peace and security. In examining South African foreign policy during this period, it would appear that the country was trapped between two competing priorities: the need to promote "universalist" principles and the need to satisfy its national economic interests. The main aim of the study is to explain how this "irreconcilability" between universalist principles and national economic interests would later create ambiguities and contradictions in South Africa's foreign policy, weaken respect for its foreign policy principles, and ultimately lead to ideological failure among politicians who employed 'short-term gain' policy decision-making in dealing with 'pariah states'. The study further demonstrates that "realist" national interests are frequently short-term, realizable and vital for a country, while universalist interests are long-term, idealistic and usually not easily realizable. It will be argued, therefore, that a country faced with making decisions about its vital national interests, will not make efforts to pursue long-term universalist interests if that choice would in any way endanger its fundamental national interests. In order to better assess this ambiguity, this thesis will provide a case study of Pretoria's arms sales to 'pariah states' during the period. The purpose of this study is not to attempt to explain all of the issues around post-apartheid foreign policymaking, or even to argue whether the sale of arms to 'pariah states' was 'politically incorrect', but to provide a 'piece of the puzzle' which might explain how the social and economic situation may have compelled Pretoria to sell arms when these actions disregarded universalist principles of foreign policy. The conclusion seems to confirm the realist view that universal values and principles can be regarded only when they are in harmony with a state's perceived self-interests.
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  • Date Issued: 2005

Morphological development in the interlanguage of English learners of Xhosa

  • Authors: Hobson, Carol Bonnin
  • Date: 2000
  • Subjects: Grammar, Comparative and general -- Morphology Xhosa language -- Foreign speakers Xhosa language -- Morphology
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
  • Identifier: vital:2348 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002630
  • Description: This study investigates the development of morphology in the interlanguage of English learners of Xhosa. A quasi-longitudinal research design is used to trace development in the oral interlanguage of six learners of Xhosa for a period of eight months. The elicitation tasks employed range from fairly unstructured conversation tasks to highly structured sentence-manipulation tasks. The learners have varying levels of competence at the beginning of the study and they are exposed to input mainly in formal contexts of learning. One of the aims of the study is to investigate whether the features of interlanguage identified in other studies appear in the learner language in this study. Most other studies discussed in the literature have investigated the features of the interlanguage produced by learners of analytic and inflectional languages. However, this study analyses the interlanguage of learners of an agglutinative language. Studies of other languages have concluded that learners do not use inflectional or agreement morphology at early stages of development and this conclusion is tested for learners of an agglutinative language in this study. Since agreement and inflectional morphology play a central role in conveying meaning in Xhosa, it is found that learners use morphology from the beginning of the learning process. Although forms may be used incorrectly and the functions of forms may be restricted, morphemes appear in the interlanguage of learners of this study earlier than other studies predict. One of the characteristics of early interlanguage and an early form of learner language called the Basic Variety (Klein & Perdue 1997) is the lack of morphology, but this feature proves to be inadequate as a measure of early development in the interlanguage of learners of a language such as Xhosa. This study concludes, therefore, that the presence of morphology in the interlanguage of learners of Xhosa cannot be an indicator of advanced language development.
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  • Date Issued: 2000

A pastoral theological examination of inner healing

Some problems of dialect lexicography with particular reference to the preparation of a draft of an illustrative, experientially categorised Dictionary of South African English

  • Authors: Branford, Jean
  • Date: 1976
  • Subjects: English language -- Provincialisms -- South Africa -- Dictionaries English language -- South Africa English language -- Lexicography -- South Africa
  • Language: English
  • Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
  • Identifier: vital:3626 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1009689
  • Description: This dissertation consists in essence of an experiment and a commentary upon it. The text which constitutes Part II is a lexicographical experiment incorporating some features and treatments not usual in lexicography, and Part I consists of a discussion of the problems encountered, principles applied and procedures followed. Neither the matter nor the manner of the experiment, however, lends itself in the present state of our knowledge to the fully impersonal objectivity that is often claimed for the experiments in the physical sciences. At the same time every effort has been made to establish an unbiased record of the data and to maintain a certain methodological consistency. The main experimental feature of Part II is that it is an attempt to combine an orthodox, alphabetical dictionary with an experiential categorisation of the vocabulary, without repeating the entire data for each type of treatment. This has been done by means of a series of numbered, classified word-lists with a limited subject index as a guide to their use. The entries themselves, instead of being repeated in the order of their classification, are numbered according to the category or categories to which the word defined belongs. It can then, by means of its number(s), be found in its own lexical or experiential set (or sets) in the categorised section. This part of the work might be better described as lexicology rather than lexicography but does, I think, prove itself to be a useful adjunct to the A - Z lexicon proper. Apart from the detailed categorisation system the text contains three features not normally included in dictionaries of small compass: illustrative quotations, etymologies and a number of tentative parallels between South African and other varieties of English by means of cross-references to items of similar or related meaning or form in the English of Australia, Canada, the U.S.A., Hong Kong, Anglo-India and other 'overseas' English speech communities. Introduction, p. 1.
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  • Date Issued: 1976
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