Abstract
D.Ed.
South African Education has been in a crisis, especially in the secondary schools where the majority of learners are blacks and where the academic performance of the grade 12 learners is poor. It is a challenge for all educational stakeholders to determine what contributed to the high failure rate in secondary schools where the majority of learners are blacks especially in grade 12. When learners fail grade 12 they experience many problems such as they may become negative about life and experience feelings of hopelessness, demotivation and guilt. It often seems as if nobody cares about these learners. However, educators, parents, learners, educational officials as well as the South African Government all blame each other for factors which contributed to the high failure rate of learners in grade 12.
The main aim of this research was to develop, implement and evaluate a psycho-educational programme to assist the parents and educators of the learners who failed grade 12. This was done so that parents and educators would be able to assist those learners who failed in order to accomplish the goal of becoming educationally well trained persons.
A qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, evaluative contextual study was done to develop a programme. Four steps were utilised to develop, implement and evaluate a psycho-educational programme to assist parents and educators of the learners who failed grade 12. The first step dealt with situation analysis. Phenomenological individual interviews were conducted with the learners who failed grade 12 and their parents and educators. The interviews were conducted in order to explore and describe the phenomenon. A literature control was utilised in order to support the findings that were obtained from the interviews.
The second step involved the development of the psycho-educational programme. The results from the interviews and the survey list of Dickoff, James and Wiedenbach (1968:423) were utilised in order to develop a conceptual framework of the psycho-educational programme to assist parents and educators of the learners who failed grade 12.
The third step involved the implementation of the psycho-educational programme to assist parents and educators. The fourth step involved a single case study to evaluate the psycho-educational programme to assist parents and educators of the learners who failed grade 12.
Through this programme parents and educators are empowered with the necessary knowledge, which will assist them to help learners who failed grade 12 change their behaviour, and to assist them to be positive about life and to accomplish their goal.