EDUCATION MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA 12 th International Conference

1. 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

2. 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?

3. 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.

4. 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)

5. 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).

6. 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). .

7. 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)

8. 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)

9. 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),

10. 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),

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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 semi-structured 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.

14. 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?

15. 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 culturewhere 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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 in terms of teaching.

20. 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.

21. 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%. Since then the school results have been improving...

22. 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.