Creating Knowledge Networks

Working Partnerships in Higher Education, Industry and Innovation

Internationally and locally, there is growing emphasis on the importance of effective school management and leadership in contributing to good student achievement outcomes. Instructional leadership has become a key concept in the research literature, reflecting an attempt to better understand the relationship between school leadership, curriculum and instructional matters, and student achievement. Managing to learn is the first study of its kind in South Africa, considering these issues in a sample of 200 schools in two provinces. The research reported in this monograph provides an extensive review of the literature around the management of curriculum and instruction, a framework and methodology for the research, and the empirical findings from the study. Through a series of regression analyses, the study presents those management factors identified across a wide range of schools as most crucial to improved performance of students. It brings greater clarity to the somewhat undifferentiated view of school management currently, and a sharper focus on its importance in relation to how students learn.

A collection of papers presented at the Colloquium on Sciences and Evolution in 2001, this volume attempts to answer the moral and ethical, social, religious and educational questions about the teaching of evolutionary theory in schools.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) assesses mathematics and science knowledge of fourth and eighth grade learners around the world. South Africa has participated in six of the seven TIMSS cycles (1995–2019), at the eighth or ninth grade, providing a rich dataset spanning 24 years.

All countries, and South Africa is no exception, face acute dilemmas in modernising their systems of upper secondary and further education and training. Faced with pressures from the fast changing world of work, this education sector has become characterized by political slogans stressing skill development, improved access and participation, and the accountability of providers through some form of market. On the other hand, the phenomenon of academic drift reveals that students increasingly see their future as progressing to higher education. Policymakers attempt to resolve these competing demands by calling for transferable, portable outcomes and qualifications as the new currency of an increasingly market-type system.