The study sought to explore the schools' involvement of parents in their children's education. It adopted a qualitative case study design. Data were generated from 15 primary school teachers, who were purposively sampled from three primary schools (five teachers per school). The five teachers from each school formed three focus groups. The data were triangulated by interviewing each of the three school heads from schools where teachers were sampled. Major findings were that: participants understood the meaning of parental involvement; they were aware of the benefits accruing from such an involvement; in their respective schools they were making attempts to involve parents; a number of barriers limited the effective involvement of parents. The study concluded that while teachers were aware of the benefits of parental involvement, levels of parental involvement were low. Recommendations to enhance involvement include strengthening home-school ties; equipping schools with the necessary resources to enable them to involve parents in more meaningful ways; exploring other avenues of communicating with parents and sensitising parents on the need to be actively involved in the education of their children.

Background to the Study Organisation of the BookThis monograph consists of seven chapters. Chapter One focuses on the background to the study. In the chapter, the authors give a synopsis of the Land Question in Southern Africa, achievements and challenges in agrarian reforms. The authors also contextualise the research problem. The statement of the problem, research questions, objectives, justification, limitations and delimitations of the study are discussed. Key concepts are defined and a general overview of the methodology provided. In Chapter Two, the authors discuss the research method and design which informed the study. The literature review consists of four chapters, divided as follows: Chapter Three focuses on the political economy of Zimbabwe dating back to the pre-colonial era, culminating into the Lancaster House Agreement. The authors are of the view that the centrality of land is illuminated in the chapter. Chapter Four surveys Zimbabwe's agrarian reforms. Pre-Fast track and Fast Track are discussed. Precursors to the Fast Track Agrarian Reforms are also highlighted. Chapter Five discusses Gender and Land Politics in Zimbabwe. Emphasis is on trying to unravel gender relations in ownership and use of land in Zimbabwe from a historical perspective. Research findings, presentation, discussion and interpretation of findings are the focus of Chapter Six. In Chapter Seven, the authors summarise the study, draw conclusions, highlight study limitations and make recommendations.

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Recently, the academic profession has come under great pressure to transform in the way it does in business movingfrom the predominantly collegial to a managerialist model (Kogan and Teichler, 2007). With the advent of managerialism, universities have grown into large bureaucratic structures with professional managers (Kogan and Teichler, 2007).These changes tend to affect academics in certain ways, for example through growing internationalization, change in management style and the aspect of relevance (Kogan and Teichler, 2007).With relevance came a rise of industry oriented research (Altbach, 2005). In the views of Altbach (2005) Contribution/ OriginalityThis study is one of the very few studies carried out in Zimbabwe on the experiences of academics and the challenges they encounter in their research collaboration with international counterparts. It highlights for the first time previously unknown challenges local academic experience with externally funded research collaboration.

Background to the StudySince 1980, the current Zimbabwe administration made the goal of achieving access to college a central theme of its education policy as it relates to adult students across demographic groups. In the last two decades, The Zimbabwe Ministry of Education policy focused on what literature refers to as "more on college access and college completion" (Kelly, Schneider, & Carey, 2010, p. 32). The late Minister of Higher Education Dr. Stan Mudenge extended the content of the Zimbabwe Higher Education Policy to include college access by increasing the number of colleges, universities, and students who enroll for college education. Available data reveal that in some areas around Zimbabwe, due to previous education policies and uneven cultural tendencies "raising the college completion rates of poor students [may be] critical to achieving that goal" (Kelly et al., 2010, p. i). In general, experts in the field of higher education and open distance learning (ODL) in particular consistently agree that college education may best be achieved by improving the quality of education through effective instruction and allowing as many students as possible access to higher education levels (Brookfield, 2005;Kelly et al., 2010).For many years, there has been interest in the field of adult education in teacher quality, effective instruction, and the impact of these on learner success. The offices of adult education . . . in the . . . Department of Higher Education . . . play[ed] a leadership role in providing resources to enhance teacher quality and guide the improvement of adult education programs. (Center for Adult Language Acquisition Network, 2010, p. 1) 544291S GOXXX10.