Educator involvement in decision making in secondary schools
Date
1999
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Abstract
The South African School Act No. 84 of 1996, the White Paper on Education and Training of 1995 and many other policy documents on Education and Training in and after 1994, proposed greater involvement of major stakeholders, in particular, the educators, in the process of decision-making in educational institutions. This opened a chapter of a major transformational shift from the apartheid and bureaucratic governance to integration and democratic system of education.
In this study, a small sample of educators in the Upper South Coast area of Durban South Region in Umbumbulu district has been chosen to investigate their responses to the issue of educator involvement in decision-making in schools. The questionnaire was used as the research instrument for this study.
The major findings that emerged from the survey were as follows: The educators in the Upper South Coast area of Durban South Region regard the decisions made about the management of the school as directly affecting them. They believe that they have a major role to play in the management of the school and should therefore be not limited to the classroom. They support the participation in the planning, development and general management of the school but believe that they are not being trained by the Department to meet the challenges of a new democratic system. In particular, they (educators) believe that they lack skills in managing the school because they were not adequately prepared during their teacher training and no relevant in-service programs are currently organised for such developments.
As recommendations to the above major findings, educator development holistic approach should be adopted to provide educators with basic managerial skills. The Department, Universities and Colleges must work jointly in organising short-term accredited courses for educators.
The Department of Education must involve educators in the planning of in-service programs for educators. In order to create a favorable climate for educator development, it must be integrated with whole school development through, for example, school focussed in-service training.
Description
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education (Educational Management and Planning) in the Department of Educational Planning & Administration University of Zululand, 1999.
Keywords
Decision making--educational institutions, School management and organization--South Africa--KwaZulu-Natal.