Transcript No Slide Title

EDUCATION MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
OF
SOUTH AFRICA
12th International Conference
11, 12, 13 March 2011
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Cape Town
Politics in Decision Making in Schools.
Principals’ Strategies
by
Sibusiso Bayeni
University of KwaZulu-Natal
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In South Africa especially in education sector, decision
making has been decentralised to schools.
Decentralisation aims to empower schools to initiate and
institutionalise their school based reform.
When decentralisation takes place some degree of autonomy
is granted.
It is important to remember that autonomy does not mean
that a school can do whatever it wants. A school's
autonomy is a matter of degree because an individual
school must operate within the context of other external
powers. Related to school autonomy are the issues of
power and control. That is, who has the power to make
what types of decisions using which laws?
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The issue is that schools are political organisations peopled
with stakeholders dominated by different interests. In one
school for example, staff do not have the same priority in
what should be done and in the way it should be done.
Therefore decision making in schools is highly contested
and bargained.
It is viewed that policy making is a route to go to control
educators’ practice.
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Policy making is a highly contested affair (Bowe & Ball,
1992, p.24).
.
The contestation is caused by the differing perspectives of
implementers and the pre-existing practices and
experiences that implementers found working over a long
time and did not want to change them.
The fact that policy is contested, policy implementation at
local level is unpredictable and uneasy’ (Skille, 2008)
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Even in the midst of policy contestation and disputes,
principals bear the brunt by being made accountable for
non-implementation of policy.
The conversion of policy into practice is
characterised by bargaining and negotiation
(Hamann & Lane, 2004; McLaughlin, 1987).
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It is argued that in the policy implementation arena,
education policy is filtered so that those parts of policy
that fit with the interests of those in power are selected
and implemented while those that are in conflict with
their interests, agendas and goals are rejected and
intentionally ignored or modified so that they do fit
(Smit, 2005; Spillane, Reiser and Reimer, 2002).
Schools are not neutral but loaded with community values
and contextual conditions which may promote or impede
policy implementation).
.
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School values are not necessarily homogenous but dominated by
hierarchical levels to which the members of the schools belong
(Placier, Hall, McKendall, and Cockrell, 2002).
Those constructed levels depict power. Implementation of policy
depends largely on the power exercised by the incumbents who
are placed on these different levels.
Some theorists make reference to a concept of coercive
power:
Individuals get others to do things which they would not
otherwise do, through the threat or use of physical
sanctions or inducements – punishment or reward (Weber,
1978); Dahl 1957; Bachrach and Baratz, 1962; Haugaard
2003)
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Barnes’ theory suggests that ‘Power is an outcome of the
creation of social order’ p.89
Barnes’ theory of power argues that power presupposes
circles of validating knowledge. What makes principal the
leader of a school is not simply the principal’s belief but the
fact that others constitute a validating ring of reference for
that belief.
The principal’s belief ‘is an act of structuration whereas the
validating ring of reference are those who are willing to
‘confirm-structure’ the principal’s act of structuration’
(Haugaard 2003, p.87)
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Will and capacity
Policy implementation cannot be decoupled from will and
capacity which feature strongly in the implementation
arena.
Will denotes that policies that gel with local agendas
and interests are more likely to be implemented.
Firestone (1989) describes will as commitment to a
decision to respond to a policy.
Capacity, pertains to the knowledge skills (Fullan,
1998a; McLaughlin, 1990). It concerns the ability of
enactors to carry out a decision to respond to a state
policy (Fullan, 1991),
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Policy making models
There are two models of understanding policy
implementation:
1. Bureaucratic model
Bureaucratic model maintains that state policy formulated at
the top level can be ignored (Watanabe, 2007) or remade
(Weatherly & Lipsky, 1977) by educators at the
implementation site.
2. Bargaining and conflict model.
Policy implementation is a negotiated settlement which is
non-linear. Contrary to the bureaucratic model, this model
accepts ‘resistance to policy message as rational and policy
implementation as mediation between competing interests
(Dyer, 1999, p.47),
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Participating schools
To investigate the principals’ influence on educators’
implementation of policy, two principals were purposively
chosen, The schools (Marble Secondary School and Mfume
Secondary School (the names are pseudonyms) headed by
two principals had a record of consistent learner
achievement at matric level over a period of 10 years.
An assumption was made that these principals had influence
on educators which resulted into high learner achievement.
In other words, it was assumed that principals exercised
strong influence on educators to get things done in the ‘right
way’ which culminates into good results as opposed to the
schools with lower learner achievement where it is assumed
that principals’ influence is minimal.
Good results’ in this study refers to a pass rate between 90%
and 100% in the grade 12 which is externally examined as a
means of quality assurance
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What was found common in the two participants is that they
headed:
i) Schools that were located in a semi-urban area on the outskirt of
the city of Durban.
ii) Schools that served African learners of low socio-economic
status with parents experienced high levels of unemployment.
iii) Schools that had good matriculation results achieved despite
the poor socio-economic conditions. Learners lived in shacks
without amenities such as electricity, sanitation and running
water. This made it difficult for learners to study in their homes.
Marble has 1500 learners while Mfume has 1603 learners. Other
neighbouring schools about one km away, had learners between
300 and 650 learners. This shows that the Marble and Mfume
attracted a great number of learners from the community as
opposed to their counterparts, possibly because of the good
matriculation results
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Methodology and Method
This is a qualitative case study suited to the in-depth analysis of
complex issues (Peshkin, 1993; Spillane 1999).
Using an interview schedule, I conducted the face to face semistructured interviews with each principal to gain insight into how
the principals influenced educators regarding education policy.
The focus of interview questions was on the strategies principals
used to influence educators to follow their instructions. Principals,
as the most senior managers, are under pressure to meet the set
standards at a time of increased pressure for school
improvement. They did this by influencing educators to conform
to their instructions. However, principals’ influence on educators
cannot be measured and is unique and personal. It became
extremely pertinent to find out from them (principals), what they
were doing to achieve their goals.
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Findings
The fact that principals were expected to take responsibility
for getting educators to implement the school decisions, it
was found that principals engaged in ‘creative maneuvering
to circumvent the resistance from educators’
The findings presented here answer the question:
How do these principals influence educators to carry out
their tasks with commitment?
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It was found that the two principals used different strategies
to influence educators to carry out activities in the way that
suit them.
e.g. the principal of Marble Secondary created a compliance
culture where educators had to take her instructions even
if they disagreed. This culture entails a ‘work control
system’, a term the principals used. This tool is very closely
associated with surveillance mechanism and was used to
monitor the educators’ activities and performance.
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1.Management control system’
The principal of Marble designed this tool. In this tool,
evidence of educators’ activities such as attendance of
workshops, school management team meetings, and
educators’ meetings in the different grades were
documented. It included a portfolio of evidence submitted
by educators to the principal. With this tool, the principal
was able to know and monitor the educators’ progress.
2.Educators monitoring tool
The second strategy that the principal used is what she
referred to as educators’ monitoring tool for monitoring
educators’ accountability.
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3.Correctional and warning system
She used a correctional and warning system that kept all records
related to the misconduct and disciplinary action taken against
educators in the schools.
4. Learning areas (subject) meeting:
The principal used the learning areas meetings. Educators who
taught the same subjects would meet every Friday to discuss
learners’ tests performance, learners’ activities and tasks to be
given to the learners in the following week. Problems and
challenges were also discussed.
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5.Learners’ work monitoring tool:
The fifth strategy that principal used was the learners’ work
monitoring tool which aimed to monitor and document the
learners’ work under the management of respective subject
educators. Here, the marking of learners’ tasks and
assignments, the amount of work and its quality was
monitored by this tool.
6.The school cabinet:
Through the leadership of the principal the school had formed
a structure called the school cabinet, which resembled, to
some degree, the government cabinet in its composition.
The school cabinet had ‘ministers’ and a ‘cabinet speaker’.
It was composed of different stakeholders like learners,
educators and parents. Different ‘ministers’ (in fact
learners) with portfolios worked closely with educators 18
Principal of Mfume
When the principal was asked about how he influenced
educators to carry out their responsibilities, he responded
by saying:
In one sentence, all activities are learner centred…that is, all
things in the school are done to benefit learners’
Principal and SMT teaching classes in grade 12
the principal in this school made a ruling that he and all
school management team (henceforth SMT) members,
deputy principals and heads of subject departments had to
teach at least one subject in the externally examined
classes. This made members of the SMT compare learners’
results in their subjects with the results of learners taught by
other educators. The principal had this to say:
I make sure that I teach a grade 12, an external class which
is the right class in measuring one’s performance especially
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in terms of teaching.
To influence educators to be committed to the learner
achievement as identified, the principal commented:
At the end the day, as a head [principal] I can’t produce poor
results, I can’t put down poor results at the end year and
expect educators to put good results. I have been showing
teachers in my subject, accounting, how learners have
[highly] performed.
Parental involvement
Parents of learners, in each term, were invited to discuss
their children’s academic progress with the educators who
taught the learners. Educators in different subjects would
address parents on their children’s progress.
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School competing against its record
The school is competing against its own external examination
results record’. The principal argues that using other schools as a
standard could lower their school performance. The principal had
this to say:
For example, in one year, the other schools’ achievement may be
lower, and Mfume school’s achievement becomes slightly higher
than other schools’ performance but lower than the school
previous year’s achievement.
The principal made this comment
We produced 92.34% pass rate in 1998 and we never produced
anything less than that from 1998. We have been to 100% but
once, but we are competing against our record. We don’t care
about what other schools are doing and obtaining; ours is to say
we have achieved this [result this year] obviously next year we
need to improve. The lowest [pass rate] since 1998 was 92,34%.
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Since then the school results have been improving...
Conclusion
Responses from both principals showed that they had influenced
educators to implement policies in the way they thought was
appropriate. However, neither of them had used overt coercive
mechanism in influencing educators to follow their instructions.
Instead, other tactics with subtle elements of coercion are used,
such as involvement of teacher unions to discipline their
members.
They both mentioned that they appealed to the educators’ sense of
professional obligations so that they commit themselves to their
responsibilities. But this was not purely so with the Marble
principals’ strategies.
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