The Republic of Maldives faces distinct educational challenges arising from its extreme geographic dispersion and the imperative to ensure equitable, high-quality secondary education across its 186 islands. Despite sustained government investment and policy reforms, secondary school performance remains uneven, with persistent concerns regarding students’ academic outcomes and holistic development. Although international scholarship underscores the critical role of school leadership in shaping educational quality, empirical evidence from the Maldivian context remains limited, particularly regarding how leadership practices interact with teachers’ pedagogical skills to influence school performance. Addressing this gap, the present study examined the relationships among Strategic Leadership Practices, Distributed Leadership Practices, Teachers’ Pedagogical Skills, and School Performance in Maldivian secondary schools, with a specific focus on both direct effects and the mediating role of pedagogical skills. A quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive–correlational design was employed. Data were collected through a cross-sectional survey administered to a stratified random sample of 372 school leaders, including principals, deputy principals, and heads of departments, drawn from secondary schools across 20 atolls. The study utilized a validated questionnaire adapted from established instruments, and the proposed measurement and structural models were tested using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with AMOS software. The findings indicate that Strategic and Distributed Leadership Practices are implemented at moderate levels, while Teachers’ Pedagogical Skills and overall School Performance are perceived to be high. SEM results reveal that both leadership styles exert significant positive direct effects on school performance. Moreover, teachers’ pedagogical skills significantly mediate the relationships between both leadership practices and school performance. Notably, Distributed Leadership demonstrates a stronger influence on pedagogical skills than Strategic Leadership and yields a more substantial indirect effect on school performance. The study concludes that while strategic leadership provides essential direction, a distributed leadership approach that empowers teachers plays a more decisive role in strengthening pedagogical competence and enhancing school performance. These findings offer robust empirical implications for educational policymakers in the Maldives, emphasizing the need to prioritize professional development initiatives that foster collaborative leadership and pedagogical autonomy to sustain long-term school improvement.

Increasing numbers of school-going Malay teens are engaging in premarital sex despite strong opposition of both the Malay culture and religion (Islam) against sex outside marriage. The main purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of Malay female teens on the reasons for their involvement in premarital sex. The study also examined the experiences of the teens with religion, particularly their religious upbringing, their attitudes toward religion and the role of religion in their involvement with premarital sex. Using the case study qualitative research method, two occasions of in-depth interviews were conducted with five Malay female teens who have been pregnant while attending school as a result of their engagement in consensual premarital sex. Results showed that there were several interrelated reasons for the involvement of Malay female teens in premarital sex which are teens own attitudes and personal characteristics (seeking worldly enjoyment, curiosity, rebellious, and strong desire for sex), parenting style and family characteristics (harsh parenting, lack of parental warmth and affection, poor parent-child communication, and lack of parental supervision), peer influence, romantic relationship, romantic partner influence, pornography, and lack of religious conviction. Clearly seen in the teens? accounts of the reasons for their involvement in premarital sex are the combination factors of environmental and the teens? own attitudes and personal characteristics. The findings also revealed that the teens? parents laid high emphasis on religion in their homes, the participants received good religious education, and they possess reasonable religious knowledge particularly on the commands and the prohibitions of the religion. Nevertheless despite all these, the teens exhibited poor attitudes toward religion whereby they did not obey much of the religious teachings and rarely performed the obligatory prayer though stressed by their parents. Hence, as far as religion is concerned the study?s findings demonstrated that religion was not an integral part of the lives of the Malay female teens who had had involved in premarital sex whereby religious matters did not rule their lives significantly. Based on the findings of the study, Islamic measures in dealing with teens? premarital sex were proposed.

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study of the issue of talfiq (concoction) in Islamic banking contracts. Many people believe that Islamic banking is merely a replication of conventional banking and does not meet the spirit (maqasid) of shariah due to the similarities between Islamic finance products and conventional usurious products in their economic effects. The study is divided into five chapters, with the first chapter introducing the problem and the structure of the dissertation .The second chapter delves into the concepts of ijtihad, taq?ld, and ift??, clarifying the terms and conditions related to each concept. The third chapter provides a detailed explanation of the concept of talfiq and its types, as well as the difference between talfiq and other related terms in Islamic jurisprudence .The forth chapter discusses the emergence of Islamic banking and whether adopting an approach of h?lah in forming Islamic financial contracts is acceptable. It also explains why Islamic banks are forced to imitate conventional banking and the economic consequences of such imitation .The fifth chapter provides a critical analysis of the main Islamic financial contracts, including mur?baha, ig?rah muntahia bi’taml?k, and mush?rakah mutan?qisah. The study has adopted an inductive approach in gathering the related information. It also applied an analytic method to discuss the arguments and deduce its results. The study concludes that the main reason why Islamic banks are forced to imitate conventional ones is the banking system, where finance is connected with money creation. Therefore, adopting a different system that separates money creation from finance is necessary to provide authentic halal products.

The development of sports within the Malaysian sporting arena must be sustained in order to promote further growth and to achieve world-class status. In order to sustain the development in sports, there are various aspects that need to be taken into consideration besides introducing various mechanisms to improve the quality of performance of the athletes. At present the principal concern among the sporting community is that there are insufficient legal provisions providing for the protection of the rights of sportsperson. The Sports Development Act 1997 (Act 576) (referred as "SDA 1997") was passed in order to promote and facilitate the development and administration of sports in Malaysia. Development of sporting activities is dependant very much on the sportspersons themselves and if the welfare of the sportspersons is not taken care of, it may stultify development of sports in Malaysia. Thus, this dissertation seek to examine the problems faced by the sportspersons and to propose the necessary changes to improve the existing system in order to deliver better protection for the sporting community. The aims and objectives of this dissertation are to improve the existing legal measures promoting the protection of a sportspersons rights. Chapter one deals with the historical development of sports in Malaysia. Chapter two examines the contractual rights of a sportsperson and the shortcomings of the Malaysian system in providing the necessary protection for a sportsperson. Chapter three examines the extent of the tortious liability of a sports organisation in the event a sportsperson suffers injury in the course of representing the organisation in sporting events. Chapter Four examines the criminal liability of a sportsperson. Chapter Five examines the rights of a sportsperson guaranteed in the Federal Constitution. And chapter 6 is the concluding chapter where proposals for reforming the existing legislative measures are made.