<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold><italic>Introduction:</italic></bold> South Africa is a member state of the “BRICS” bloc (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_atd-2018-0001_ref_007_w2aab3b7ab1b6b1ab1ab7Aa">BRICS2017.org, 2017</xref>) and the G20 group of the 20 nations/economic blocs, which between them account for the majority of the world’s trade and economic activity. It faces many developmental challenges which are mirrored in its higher education sector. In this article, the authors seek to provide an overview of the challenges that South African higher education faces in the achievement of the developmental goals of the country. The focus of this paper is a case study in WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) to improve context-specific responses that trains pharmacists on knowledge and skills.<bold><italic>Methods:</italic></bold> The study was performed as a combination of calculations and a literature review to obtain the background or current status of the higher education sector and developmental planning in South Africa. For this, data were extracted from the Statistics South Africa reports, relevant professional articles on South African higher education sector and results of postgraduate research. Workshop results which were obtained as a collaboration between a public and a private higher education institution and results of postgraduate research were used as the paradigm for transformation and decolonisation of the curriculum for a professional degree in South Africa.<bold><italic>Results and discussion:</italic></bold> Challenges exist in the South African tertiary education sector and the graduation rate currently stands at 65.1% of the target set by the National Development Plan. Around 58.1% of all students do not complete their university/post-secondary education, which could provide a partial explanation for the skills shortage in South Africa. Decolonisation and transformation of the tertiary education curriculum are major topics in the discourse on higher education in South Africa. The authors propose that one way to achieve this would be inclusion of research results and group activities in the area of water, sanitation and hygiene as a topic for possible and partial transformation of the Bachelor of Pharmacy curriculum.<bold><italic>Conclusions:</italic></bold> The current article summarises some of topics and challenges that drive the current discourse, developmental and curriculum debate in higher education in South Africa. Student access and through put at tertiary institutions need to be improved and the curriculum needs to be transformed.</abstract>

Rhodes University Biotechnology Innovation Centre

School of Disaster Management, Stenden South Africa

Challenges and Curriculum Transformation in the Higher Education Sector in South Africa: A Case Study in WASH to Improve the Training of Pharmacists

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold><italic>Introduction:</italic></bold> The search for solutions to the issue of leadership leads to hundreds of leadership studies, most of which are contradictory and inconclusive. The scientific literature on leadership in higher education is focused mainly on educational, academic, managerial or thought leadership. This literature provides the opinion that the intellectual leadership in higher education is directed towards building social and intellectual capital through a scholar’s involvement in decision-making and performance of leadership roles in ways that support the scholar’s collaborative decision-making and empowerment. Scholars see intellectual leadership as the scope of challenging processes, which incorporate ideas, values, understandings, solutions, beliefs, visions, knowledge, approaches, purpose and actions. These aspects must be accepted through collectively-shared understanding and generated contextually for organizational development in higher education. With growth in administrative demands, it becomes difficult for intellectual leaders to achieve an appropriate balance of leadership, teaching and research in higher education.<bold><italic>Purpose:</italic></bold> To explore and describe the conceptual contents of intellectual leadership and academic leadership by providing their similarities and differences.<bold><italic>Methods:</italic></bold> In the research, a descriptive literature review (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_atd-2018-0002_ref_036_w2aab3b7b1b1b6b1ab1ac36Aa">Yang &amp; Tate, 2012</xref>) was applied. The sample was mainly based on academic publications; the articles included are all refereed journal articles.<bold><italic>Conclusions</italic>:</bold> The literature review covered wide range of aspects, which reveal that intellectual leadership consists of roles that have several orientations, but the intellectual leadership is not related to the formal administrational or managerial positions. The roles of a scholar in relation to the concept of “intellectual leadership” maybe seen through the following activity spheres: mentor represents educational sphere, guardian – moral sphere, enabler – managerial and administrative spheres, and ambassador – political and communication sphere (<xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_atd-2018-0002_ref_038_w2aab3b7b1b1b6b1ab1ac38Aa">Zydziunaite, 2016</xref>). The importance of personal characteristics and academic achievements in the formation of intellectual leaders’ reputation is also highlighted in the article. Despite the limitations of definitions on intellectual leadership it is argued that this concept is related to the organic personality of an intellectual leader (scholar) who acts as organizer of ideas, carries responsibility for academic development and direction in higher education.</abstract>

Considerations on Intellectual and Academic Leadership of a Scholar in Higher Education: The Descriptive Literature Review

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold><italic>Introduction:</italic></bold> The paper’s introduction contains a set of notes concerning high-quality preparation of pupils and students and doing best to achieve adequate efficiency related to the educational process, where pupils’ or students’ personality development and activation together with their key-competence and self-cultivation development, as well as preparation for the labour market, successful versatility plays a role of great importance. The pupils’ or the students’ capability to work with information included in the natural language test is considered to be of a great importance for their further professional or private life. Therefore, any school is responsible for the quality of education and teachers should work with adequate and up-to-date, high quality teaching and learning aids.<bold><italic>Purpose:</italic></bold> The purpose of the study was to monitor and verify the didactic efficiency of the proposed chapters for the Economics textbook at a technical secondary school in Hlohovec, as well as to check the quality of the proposed textbook in relation to the outputs of the educational process.<bold><italic>Methods:</italic></bold> The following methods and techniques related to the investigation of a developed Economics textbook have been applied: natural pedagogic experiment; questionnaire; cloze test; didactic test and statistical methods for data processing.<bold><italic>Conclusions:</italic></bold> The research has shown that the created textbook for Economics is appropriate for students. We believe that introducing newly developed textbooks/teaching materials into the teaching process (despite modern types of media) may contribute to improving the quality and efficiency of the educational process.</abstract>

Efficiency of Teaching Based on the Comparison of Textbooks

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold><italic>Introduction:</italic></bold> With the intensive growth in the number of older people and prolonged life span in the contemporary postmodern society, it has become increasingly important to build positive intergenerational cooperation and promote education on aging and older people, especially between younger and older generations. That is why the authors, on the basis of empirical research and scientific literature, examined knowledge about aging among young people and the connection between knowledge about aging and the formation of negative attitudes towards older people.<bold><italic>Methods:</italic></bold> The study involved 609 secondary school students aged 15 to 19 years.<bold><italic>Results:</italic></bold> The survey results showed that only one-fifth of the young population has good knowledge about aging. The relationship between knowledge about aging and ageism is negative, which means that young people with less knowledge about aging often have a negative attitude towards older people.<bold><italic>Conclusions:</italic></bold> Based on the obtained results, the authors underline the importance of integrating gerontology content in all stages of education.</abstract>

The Role of Education and Knowledge about Aging in Creating Young People’s Attitudes to the Elderly

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold><italic>Introduction:</italic></bold> This paper focuses on the issue of teaching verb tenses in Slovak lower and upper secondary schools – in particular, on teaching three grammatical tenses (Present Simple, Present Continuous, and Simple Present Perfect) and the learner’s ability to use them. It also identifies the mistakes made by the learners in the research sample, causes of their mistakes, and suggests ways of eliminating these errors.<bold><italic>Methods:</italic></bold> The paper presents the research data collected using quantitative (questionnaire and achievement test) and qualitative (lesson observation and semi-structured interview) methods. The data are analysed, compared, and conclusions for school practice are drawn.<bold><italic>Results:</italic></bold> The main research findings show how the three tenses are taught, identify the impact of the ways they are taught on the ability of lower and upper secondary school learners to use them, and outline the errors they commit. The authors seek to explain the errors and suggest possible ways of eliminating them.<bold><italic>Discussion:</italic></bold> The current study is compared to research data presented by <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_atd-2018-0005_ref_009_w2aab3b7b4b1b6b1ab1ab9Aa">Gadušová and Harťanská (2002)</xref>, <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_atd-2018-0005_ref_016_w2aab3b7b4b1b6b1ab1ac16Aa">Hlava (2012)</xref> and <xref ref-type="bibr" rid="j_atd-2018-0005_ref_018_w2aab3b7b4b1b6b1ab1ac18Aa">Lojová (2016)</xref>. All of them consider the practical application of grammatical functions significant in spontaneous and meaningful communication.<bold><italic>Limitations:</italic></bold> Regarding the limitations of the research findings, the research sample of five interviewed teachers is too small either to make generalizations or to claim that the conducted research is fully reliable.<bold><italic>Conclusions:</italic></bold> The research findings demonstrate that teaching the verb tenses in lower and upper secondary schools lacks sufficient contextualised communicative activities for practising the discussed grammar items.</abstract>

Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra

Grammar as an “Art of Lettes” in Foreign Language Teaching (A Study of Teaching English Verb Tenses in Lower and Upper Secondary Schools)

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold><italic>Introduction:</italic></bold> This research study deals with the necessity of educating the members of the Police of the Czech Republic in the area of a social-pathological phenomenon, specifically domestic violence. In most cases, police officers are on the scene of an incident as the first ones. It is a socio-pathological phenomenon, which requires a very sensitive but at the same time a professional approach from the police officers.<bold><italic>Purpose:</italic></bold> The main objective of the research was to find out what the views of the coordinators at selected Regional Directorates of the Police of the Czech Republic dealing with the cases of domestic violence are.<bold><italic>Methods:</italic></bold> For the purposes of the research, the qualitative method of structured interviews with open questions was used. The respondents were the coordinators from five regions of the Czech Republic.<bold><italic>Conclusions:</italic></bold> It can be concluded that great attention has been paid to the issues of domestic violence in the Czech Republic since 1996, which has brought positive results in dealing with real cases by the members of the Police of the Czech Republic. However, each case with the features of domestic violence is different and for this reason it is not possible to describe the whole range of possibilities in the preparation. These problems are only a part of many different incidents the police have to deal with. This fact is taken into account in the proposal for the continuous education of police officers at the departments of the Police of the Czech Republic.</abstract>

Case Study as a Part of Education in the Field of Domestic Violence

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><bold><italic>Introduction:</italic></bold> The study deals with occurrence of aggressiveness of pupils from socially disadvantaged environment. It describes the socially disadvantaged environment and the level of aggression of pupils from such environments. The text describes the most important results of the research.<bold><italic>Methods:</italic></bold> Within the research, a survey was carried out, monitoring the level of aggression of the majority pupils compared to the pupils from socially disadvantaged environment. The survey was carried out personally based on a monitoring scheme of aggression of the pupils from socially disadvantaged environment. The research has been made by direct observation within 60 teaching hours at the level of 1st and 4th grade.<bold><italic>Results:</italic></bold> The findings, which we have acquired through observation, showed that the age and maturity of younger pupils’ organisms adapts to the model of social environment. Pupils from less stimulating social environments may become the victims of aggressive attacks in various forms more frequently. Types, forms and manifestations of aggression, equally subject to influence of the environment, in a school environment at the level of 10-year-old students are perceived as some form of entertainment. They join the attack on the victim for acceptance or they have the same preferences as the group. It often happens without consequences or attempts to eliminate these signs, because the seriousness of the attack is not ascribed.<bold><italic>Discussion:</italic></bold> We were interested in the differences of aggression level of the majority pupils compared to the pupils from socially disadvantaged environment in the first and the fourth year of a primary school.<bold><italic>Limitations:</italic></bold> The results apply only to students in the first level by using of the observation method.<bold><italic>Conclusions:</italic></bold> As substantial and significant for pedagogic experience, we consider implementing the research findings as well on the higher level of pupils’ education and to define further correlations between aggressive behaviour and socially disadvantaged environment.</abstract>

Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences

Influence of Socially Disadvantaged Environment on Aggressiveness of Pupils at Primary Schools

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Acta Educationis Generalis

 Acta Educationis Generalis is an international peer-reviewed interdisciplinary scientific open access journal published since 2011. Its primary objective is to fulfil the need for a thorough discussion of research results in disciplines relevant to pedagogical, psychological and technological aspects of education and to contribute towards the wide diffusion of scientifically sound contributions in this domain. In the Journal, original, high-quality research papers and literature reviews dealing with issues of international relevance are published. Acta Educationis Generalis addresses current topics in the field of education from a global perspective and provides an international and interdisciplinary forum for researchers, academic staff, university students, and other professionals. It is published three times a year both in print and online.  The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges.  Why subscribe and read   the journal brings the most current research results from the fields of pedagogy, psychology and technology of education.   Why submit   only high-quality papers are published in the journal  double blind peer reviewing process  good communication between the editorial board and the contributors  fast and efficient publication process   Rejection Rate   30%   Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 

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