This study investigated management development as a task of school managers by focusing on: • the need for a new education management development approach in South African schools; • the nature and scope of management development; • the international and national perspectives on the education management development practice; • current education management development activities in Gauteng schools; and • an education management development model for Gauteng schools. The literature study exposed the need for a new education management development approach in South African schools, the nature, scope and major aspects of management development. Furthermore, management development approaches, techniques and methods as well as guidelines for a new holistic approach are described. The investigation into the education management development practice for school managers exposed advanced levels in this regard in the UK and USA. Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Namibia are engaged in customising effective programmes for school managers. South Africa is focusing on a holistic approach, with a significant step taken being, the establishment of the National Institute for Education Management Development. The empirical study consisted of a structured questionnaire distributed to a sample population of I 08 school principals, 80 deputy principals and 210 heads of departments to investigate their management development needs, experiences and activities. Main findings revealed a lack of training for school management, uncoordinated education management development programmes, with existing ones being reactions to crisis situations, and ill-defined management roles for school managers. School principals seem solely responsible for school management, thus exposing a need for a school-based management development approach. The management development model developed for Gauteng schools focuses on whole-school development, recognises the participatory management vision of the new education system, includes stakeholder involvement in education management development and provides school managers with a model that employs the ODE Quality Assurance Framework. The major recommendations flowing from this study include customising education management linguistics for South Africa, defining job descriptions for school managers, preparing and inducing school managers, setting education management qualifications for education management posts and institutionalising the National Institute for Education Management Development. / Thesis (PhD)--PU for CHE, 1999

This study investigated management development as a task of school managers by focusing on: • the need for a new education management development approach in South African schools; • the nature and scope of management development; • the international and national perspectives on the education management development practice; • current education management development activities in Gauteng schools; and • an education management development model for Gauteng schools. The literature study exposed the need for a new education management development approach in South African schools, the nature, scope and major aspects of management development. Furthermore, management development approaches, techniques and methods as well as guidelines for a new holistic approach are described. The investigation into the education management development practice for school managers exposed advanced levels in this regard in the UK and USA. Malaysia, Zimbabwe and Namibia are engaged in customising effective programmes for school managers. South Africa is focusing on a holistic approach, with a significant step taken being, the establishment of the National Institute for Education Management Development. The empirical study consisted of a structured questionnaire distributed to a sample population of I 08 school principals, 80 deputy principals and 210 heads of departments to investigate their management development needs, experiences and activities. Main findings revealed a lack of training for school management, uncoordinated education management development programmes, with existing ones being reactions to crisis situations, and ill-defined management roles for school managers. School principals seem solely responsible for school management, thus exposing a need for a school-based management development approach. The management development model developed for Gauteng schools focuses on whole-school development, recognises the participatory management vision of the new education system, includes stakeholder involvement in education management development and provides school managers with a model that employs the ODE Quality Assurance Framework. The major recommendations flowing from this study include customising education management linguistics for South Africa, defining job descriptions for school managers, preparing and inducing school managers, setting education management qualifications for education management posts and institutionalising the National Institute for Education Management Development. / Thesis (PhD)--PU for CHE, 1999

The purpose of this study is to explore school principals’ perceptions of the possible effects and benefits of formal university-based education management development programmes (EMDPs) on their practical work in schools. It also aims to inquire into the kinds of challenges that principals in South Africa, specifically in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), are faced with in the post-apartheid era and their perceptions of the extent to which these EMDPs meet or fail to meet their needs and those of their schools. In this study I move from the basic premise that professional development is critical for all principals and that given the new conditions that exist in SA post-1994, more than ever, the ideal situation would be for all principals to be trained so as to enable them to deal effectively with the changed and constantly changing conditions that prevail in schools. The study is guided by the following general research question: What are the perceptions of school principals of the benefits of formal EMDPs on their practices in school? The following related questions are also addressed, namely i) What are the links between formal EMDPs and the needs of school principals? ii) What kinds of challenges do principals in KZN face in the post-apartheid era and what are their perceptions of the extent to which EMDPs have met or failed to meet their needs and those of their schools? Working in an interpretivist research paradigm within a qualitative research design, the inquiry used document analysis, content analysis of research literature and semi-structured interview methods. Data were analysed using a grounded theory approach in an effort to make sense of the meanings that the participants, mainly the school principals, in this study give to their experiences of EMDPs. One of the main findings of this study is that some principals demonstrated the ability to reflect on their professional development programmes and to make connections between theory and research and some of the challenges that they encounter. The other main insights of the study include the following: a) Regarding their content and context, and according to the participants, EMDPs in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) have major shortcomings in relation to needs assessment and analysis, programmatic aims and objectives, recruitment and selection of candidates, and field-based learning experiences. However, EMDPs are perceived to have been successful in areas such as understanding the environments for which principals need to be developed, the application of leadership and management development content to organisational settings, and in their modes of delivery. b) Although a majority of principals recognised the need to change and work within the new democratic environment ushered in by the new socio-political dispensation in SA, a few principals expressed their challenges with engaging in shared leadership and shared decision making in schools. c) Pertaining to the perceptions of school principals regarding the value of EMDPs in KZN, the majority of principals felt that although they were still struggling with a number of post-1994 challenges, EMDPs had equipped them, for the most part — albeit inadequately — to deal with the challenges that they face in schools. d) School principals highlighted what they saw as two significant aspects (emerging themes) in the professional development of principals: i. Though very critical of training workshops in their current form, school principals in this study saw training workshops as important vehicles for assisting principals to keep abreast of the developments in the leadership and management of their school, as a means for providing opportunities to share and learn from the experiences of others, and as an avenue for collaborative problem solving; ii. A majority of school principals emphasised what they regarded as the important role played by experiences beyond the formal education management development programmes, in the effective running of schools. Apart from presenting “thick descriptions” of the voices of school principals regarding the effects of the post-1994 changes on their practices and the extent to which EMDPs are perceived to have met principals and school needs, the significance of this study lies in plugging the gap of previous impact analysis studies by, amongst other things, not only focusing on the perceptions of the recipients of the EMDPs, but also focusing on the views of the EMDP providers and the policy makers. This study therefore presents critical insights which may be invaluable in the future development of EMDPs and in the improvement or modification of existing ones. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

South Africa has witnessed radical policy reforms since the advent of the new democratic dispensation in 1994. As provincial, district and local practitioners developed responses to those new national education policies, implementation issues were revealed in all their complexity. Policy implementation became one of the most difficult challenges South Africa had to contend with. It necessitated the development of the capacity of the state and its people to implement policy. The complexities of the people development environment in South Africa create a range of challenges for development. The lack of multi-level empirical data on training effects continues to exacerbate this state of affairs. This context requires that comprehensive assessment mechanisms be put in place for training programmes aimed at the realisation of policy goals. The broad purpose of this inquiry, therefore, is to determine the impact of an education management development training intervention as it passes through different levels of the education system in South Africa - national, provincial, district and local. The following key questions guided this investigation. Firstly, how do stakeholder understandings of “education management development” transfer from one level to another in a cascade model of training? And secondly, what is the operational impact of an education management development-training programme at the different levels (i.e., province, district and school) of the education system? Questionnaires, free attitude interviews and observations were used as key data collection instruments. Data was analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative strategies for making sense of the training information. Data was interpreted against the backdrop of the literature on the “transfer of training”, and these findings are represented in the last three chapters of this thesis. This research generated four major findings, with a variety of subsidiary findings, which deepen our insights into policy implementation as it relates to education management development in South Africa. Some of the major findings of this study are that: a) The organisers did not in the first place conduct the baseline study on training needs and secondly, they did not take into consideration the organisational requirements of the anticipated training. This anomaly could ultimately compromise the outcomes of this intervention. b) The policy deployment processes of the North West Department of Education (of ensuring that the governmental policies for quality, cost and service delivery are understood from the highest to the lowest level of the organisation) are fraught with problems that undermined basic understandings of the Education Management Development training programme which was conducted between 1998 – 2000. c) Successful policy implementation depends crucially on resource allocation and, in the case of the Education Management Development Training Programme, the nature and magnitude of allocated resources e.g., transport provision could not guarantee positive training results; and d) The overly rationalistic view adopted by the trainers of the Education Management development-training programme did not take into account the complex contexts within which change unfolds. Resultantly, the changing of the roles of facilitators could not be planned-for in advance. The significance of this study is that it identifies the barriers to learning in training events, and sheds new light on the transfer of training problem that continues to undermine organisational change and human resource development. Some of the unique findings of the study can be found in the fact that the Expert Trainers could only recall a few intentions of the EMD modular training. The District Facilitators displayed limited knowledge of the disciplinary procedures in their areas of operation and there was limited conceptualisation of the EMD by the principals of schools. / Thesis (PhD (Education Policy Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Although the Task Team on leadership and development (DoE, 1996) has introduced the notion of shared (collaborative) leadership as embodied among others in school management teams, considerable doubt remains about its practical implementation (DoE, 1996). It seems that there may be widespread failure to implement the idea of collaborative (shared) leadership (DoE, 1996). The problem this research explores is whether, in the opinion of school management team members, the traditional approach to leadership has changed (DoE, 1996). According to Grant (2006 in Grant&Singh, 2009), despite an enabling democratic policy framework the leadership at many South African schools seems to remain firmly entrenched within the formal, hierarchical management structure. During the period of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa government legislation perpetuated a society of inequality based on race, class and gender (Grant 2006 in Grant & Singh, 2009). To control and maintain this inequality, government policies promoted centralised, authoritarian control of education at all levels within the system (Grant 2006 in Grant&Singh, 2009). Today, within a democratic South Africa, the South African Schools Act (1996), the Government Gazette of the Norms and Standards for Educators (2000) and the Task Team Report on Education Management Development (DoE, 1996) challenge schools to review their management policies, which have traditionally been top-down, and create a whole new approach to managing schools where management is seen as an activity in which all members of education engage and should not be seen as the task of a few (DoE, 1996:27). According to Moloi (2002 in Grant&Singh, 2009), although our education policies call for new ways of managing schools, many remain unresponsive and retain their rigid structures because educators are unable to make a shift away from patriarchal ways of thinking. It is against this backdrop that I explore whether leadership has indeed shifted to become more participatory and inclusive. One form of leadership that would reflect this shift is termed collaborative leadership (Grant&Singh, 2009). This form of leadership is based on the premise that leadership should be shared throughout an organisation such as a school (Grant&Singh, 2009). This alternate form of leadership allows for the emergence of teachers as one of the multiple sources of guidance and direction (Grant&Singh, 2009). According to Grant and Singh (2009), collaborative leadership offers a radical departure from the traditional understanding of leadership because it deconstructs the notion of leadership in relation to position in the school. It constructs leadership as a process which involves working with all stakeholders in a collegial and creative way to seek out the untapped leadership potential of people and develop this potential in a supportive environment for the betterment of the school (Grant&Singh, 2009). The general aim of this research is to investigate school management teams’ understanding of the implementation of collaborative leadership in primary schools in Gauteng District 4 in Pretoria. In this research I discuss important issues relating to collaborative leadership. My findings reveal that schools management teams indeed understand and implement collaborative leadership in their schools but also that collaborative leadership is much more than just working together as a team. My argument is that there must be a radical reconceptualisation of the concept of collaborative leadership as well as an attempt to move towards more dispersed and democratic forms of it. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted