Global Education Episode 16: Principal partnerships in South Africa (original) (raw)
Related papers
Do principal-educators have the ability to transform schools?: A South African perspective
Teaching and Teacher Education
Post-1994 South Africa adopted a new education system that would seemingly break with the past practices of the apartheid education system (Naicker, 1999) and produce citizens prepared for a democratic dispensation in South Africa. Accordingly, the new system of outcomes-based education was introduced in order to create the critical mass needed for the transformation of society. Thus, schools would become the sites where democratic practices for democratic citizenship would be fostered. Government duly promulgated the applicable policy documents (National Education Policy Act of 1996; South African Schools Act of 1996). Our contention is that, despite the fact that education legislation paved the way for thinking differently about education in South Africa, principal-educators are not necessarily imbued with the ideals/virtues of democratic practices needed to empower them to engage in reflective democratic practices within a school context. We argue that the virtues of democracy must be learned through practising democracy. Many principal-educators, who were principals and educators pre-1994, as well as others, who qualified thereafter, may not have acquired any knowledge of the virtues of democracy, or having done so, may not be practising them. The authorities seem to assume that principal-educators are naturally imbued with the knowledge of the virtues of democracy and are able to put these virtues into practice.
Strategies for Principal-Teacher Development: A South African Perspective
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 2014
The aim of this article is to highlight the strategies used by school principals in facilitating their development and their teachers in primary schools in Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces of South Africa. The Department of Education in these provinces expects school principals and teachers to bring change in their school performances. The problem is that in these schools principals and teachers' professional developments is a challenge. Interviews were conducted with fifteen school principals who were purposively selected and their teachers completed a questionnaire. Professional development in the sampled schools was done in the form of workshops, individually guided staff development observation/assessment and training.
Continuing professional development for principals: A South African perspective
South African Journal of Education, 2007
We explore the rationale for school managers in South Africa to enrol for a new practice-based qualification and determine the perceptions of principals on how the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) course influences their leadership style. The task of being a principal is demanding, requiring energy, drive, and many personal qualities and attributes. Principals, involved in the day-to-day management of their schools, need to take time to reflect on their personal growth as leaders and managers. The expectations of principals have moved from demands of management and control to the demands for an educational leader who can foster staff development, parent involvement, community support, and learner growth, and succeed with major changes and expectations. Developing principals and providing them with the necessary knowledge, skills, values and attitudes becomes increasingly important as the dynamic and changing educational culture becomes increasingly difficult. Using a qualitat...
Reflecting on a University Partnership Project in Underprivileged South African Schools
Bulgarian Comparative Education Society, 2018
Over many years, universities that offer teacher education programmes have been in partnerships of different kinds with schools. Not only are schools sites of research for faculty members, but student teachers get workplace experience during practicums. In the postmodern world, there is emphasis on amelioration at grassroots level, instead of only at systems level. The sentiment is that school-university partnerships should benefit schools as much as their higher education partners. In this paper, we reflect on the first seven years of a university-school partnership project. The purpose of the partnership was in part to improve the school results of potential students from underprivileged feeder areas towards access to higher education programmes. Looking back, some successes can be claimed, as the relative success of learners in the project schools has improved notably. Still, the project has to find ways to remain financially sustainable, and to expand the project to ECD and prim...
Koers - Bulletin for Christian Scholarship, 2018
Gauteng, the smallest province with the highest per capita income in South Africa, should not have any dysfunctional schools. As a province, Gauteng spends a large portion of their annual budget on education, thus the professional development of principals should be the centralfocus point of their education system. Principals should be equipped or have the necessary knowledge, skills and values with which to manage and lead an effective and efficient school. The aim of this paper is to determine what knowledge and skills newly-appointed high principals need to fulfil this function and if they have been a part of any induction programme designed to guide and equip successfully principals to manage their schools. The success of a high school principal is measured against a schools final Grade 12 results. Keywords: newly-appointed principals, professional development, skills, induction programme. Abstrak Gauteng, die kleinste provinsie met die hoogste per capita inkomste in Suid Afrika...
Public-Private Partnerships in South African Education: Risky Business or Good Governance?
Education as Change
This article discusses the globalised phenomenon of public-private partnerships, which involve the private and public sector collaborating to provide infrastructure and service delivery to public institutions. Within the education sector, the most commonly known public-private partnerships exist in the United States as charter schools and the United Kingdom as academies. Discussing this phenomenon in the South African context, this article draws on the Collaboration Schools Pilot Project as an example for understanding how the involvement of private partnerships within public schooling is being conceptualised by the Western Cape Education Department. Framed within the debate of public-private partnerships for the public good, the article provides a critical discussion on how these partnerships are enacted as a decentralisation of state involvement in the provision of public schooling by government. The article concludes by noting that the Collaboration Schools Pilot Project, which i...
In 1994, after the first democratic elections in South Africa, the new, African National Congress (ANC), government was faced with the challenge of rethinking and restructuring the education system of the previous era. Already in White Paper 1 on Education (DoE, 1995) the direction and the intensity of the change anticipated was outlined in the declaration that: South Africa has never had a truly national system of education and training and it does not have one yet. This policy document describes the process of transformation in education and training which will bring into being a system serving all our people, our new democracy, and our Reconstruction and Development Programme. Our message is that education and training must change. It cannot be business as usual in our schools, colleges , technikons and universities. The national project of reconstruction and development compels everyone in education and training to accept the challenge of creating a system which cultivates and liberates the talents of all our people without exception (White Paper, 1995). What followed was a comprehensive process aimed at changing existing education laws and policies to give effect to the proposed transformation outlined not only in the White Paper but also in subsequent legislation. Since 1995, a range of Acts and departmental policies – developed by the National Department of Education – were released, first for public comment, and then for implementation. These Acts and policies covered the whole spectrum of education, from the curriculum and governance structures of schools to the level of National Policy on Religion and Education in 2003. Abstract: Since 1994, when a new government came into power in South Africa, the country has seen the introduction of a vast number of new policies. Indications are that the government assumed a uniform interpretation and implementation of these policies. This article is written to report on the findings of a qualitative study aimed at determining to what extent this assumption was true with regard to a purposively selected sample of school principals' understanding of their role as mediators in the implementation of a religion-in-education policy. The school principals included in the sample were all part-time postgraduate students in Education Management and Leadership at the University of Pretoria and had been in education for at least ten years. Research data, collected through narrative inquiry, indicates that, because they had received no or insufficient training on policy implementation , these principals either ignored the policy and maintained the status quo or, when faced with religious interest conflict, partially subcontracted into the policy. The specific findings of this study are presented in this article.