The aim of this study was to investigate teachers' perceptions of the impact of Continuing Professional Development on promoting quality teaching and learning. This study adopted a mixed method approach using both quantitative and qualitative research designs. Closed-ended self-administered questionnaires and interview schedule were used to collect data. Two hundred teachers were sampled through simple random sampling procedure to complete the questionnaires, while ten teachers participated in face-to-face semi-structured interviews. The results show that teachers recognise the impact of professional development in broadening their pedagogical and content knowledge, teaching skills and strategies to improve student's learning. Results also show that teachers are undergoing professional development initiatives in order to gain financial rewards. The study concludes that teachers have positive perceptions of their professional development even though they are not being supported adequately by Department of Basic Education and their schools.The study recommends that adequate financial rewards be put in place to encourage and motivate teachers when furthering their studies as part of Continuing Professional Development. Further research into the factors influencing teachers furthering their studies as part of professional development in South Africa should be undertaken.

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Female teachers have historically been associated with teaching profession at the Foundation Phase (FP). It is a societal belief that female teachers provide motherly love and care and are naturally soft towards infants compared to their male counterparts. This article explores a new trend that is developing at a rural university where male student teachers are increasingly enrolling for a Bachelor of Education programme where they specialise in the foundation phase (FP) teaching. The article gathered male student teachers' views for choosing teaching in the foundation phase as a career at a rural university in Limpopo Province. This qualitative case study adopted a purposive sampling procedure to sample sixteen (16) male first year B.Ed. Foundation Phase student teachers to complete open-ended questions. Content analysed data reveal that even though male student teachers were intrinsically and altruistically motivated and positive about their FP career choice and hope to demystify FP teaching, a few of them admitted that FP was a default career choice. A longitudinal cohort study is recommended in order to decipher the motivations, experiences and career paths of male FP teachers.

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The expansion of higher education in South Africa resulted in large numbers of tudents gaining access to universities. Research has shown that a major challenge facing higher education institutions is to enable students to succeed in their studies. The higher failure rate in higher education is an indicative of the need for various universities to investigate factors that influence student success. The present study explored participants' perceptions of factors influencing academic achievement. A qualitative design was adopted and open-ended questions were utilised for data collection purposes.The ten respondents (5 males and 5 females) for the study were conveniently sampled from a rural university in South Africa. Data were analyzed through content analysis. The results indicate that students'academic achievements are influenced by various factors, such as self-motivation, self-discipline, peer support, and lecturers' teaching approaches.The study concludes that there are variety of factors that impact on students' academic performance.

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An enormous number of students from rural-based universities are drawn from provinces which are primarily regarded as rural provinces in South Africa, due to underdevelopment which is rhetorically blamed on the legacy of apartheid. Moreover, a vast number of these students are enrolled at universities as first generation and largely come from low-income families, characterised by elements of poverty. These students often experience literacy problems, mostly because of the type of high school they attended. Be that as it may, these students need to survive, hence, the need for this type of exploration, which sought to understand survival strategies of students from low -income families in a South African rural-based university. This study or article is solely rooted on Self-determination theory as the theoretical point of departure. Nevertheless, it also incorporates elements of Bandura’s Social cognitive theory as a supplementary theory. Following a qualitative research design, the population of the study comprised students from low-income families. Purposive and snowball sampling procedures were used to select students’ questionnaires with open-ended questions, whilst content analysis was used as a data analysis tool. The findings of the article exhibit several complexities and difficulties that students from low-income families endure such as lack of funds, materials and being exposed to crime. Students make use of financial aid schemes, peer support groups and university’s financial aid to survive. The article has implications for higher education institutions on how they can adopt a variety financial aid practices that could be tailored towards assisting on-campus and off-campus students from low-income families.