Thesis (MTech. degree in Education.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2009. / School governing bodies were established in almost every school in the Limpopo Province. The establishment of school governing bodies brings democracy closer to the people. This study confines itself to the effectiveness of school governing bodies in secondary schools in the Mudaswali Circuit, Vhembe District.

D.Ed. / Limpopo Province, in line with other provinces in South Africa, adopted democratic school governance in public secondary schools. Since the inception of this system in 1997 hopes ran high that eventually the culture of teaching and learning in secondary schools will be improved and subsequently schools will be transformed. Contrarily, there has been a mismatch in terms of the provincial education objectives with what is currently happening in secondary schools in the province. Conditions of school governance in secondary schools as regards the physical, social, moral, economic, and academic problems are deplorable albeit democratic school governing bodies are in place. The 1998: 35.2%; the 1999: 37.5%; the 2000: 51.5%; and the 2001: 59.5% matriculation pass rates could partially be attributed to ineffective school governance. Consequently, communities are concerned about SGB's who are not accomplishing their role and functions as mandated by the SASA of 1996. The focus of this research is on democratic school governance in the Vuwani district in the Limpopo Province. The objective of this research was to probe perceptions of the different members of the SGB's regarding diverse aspects of school governance as mandated by the SASA of 1996.

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies

M.Ed. (Educational Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Education has been identified as a priority area by the South African government, in particular by the African National Congress as the ruling party. To this end, huge amounts of money are being spent on education as a service that has been approved by the legislators. Rules and regulations have been promulgated, and among others, the South African Schools Act, Act No. 84 of 1996, has been enacted. Rich research has also been funded with the sole intention of providing quality education to the people. Education of unacceptably poor quality has, however, been the result, as postulated by Peterson and Hassel (1998:55). The above are attested to by the findings that the political tensions emanating from the conduct of the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union and the Professional Educators’ Union, leading to class disruptions and general instability, erode the ethos of accountability on the part of educators and therefore impact negatively on service delivery. Furthermore, the Limpopo Department of Education is not immune to the challenges ranging from the elements of corrupt activities that often surface, teacher attrition which in the main is caused by lack of discipline. Winkler, Modise and Dawber (1998) indicate that teaching has never been easy, and many teachers are leaving their jobs because of the many problems with children in classrooms. Some of the problems cited are children who do not want to learn and learning that is becoming too difficult for the students because they do not want to listen. This study adopted sequential mixed methods namely, quantitative and qualitative research methods which are viewed as complementary rather than opposing approaches. Information was amassed from the subjects through interviews, observation, documentary survey and observation and the information has since been triangulated to validate the facts. All the methodologies employed proved to be useful in this study. The study sought to test the hypothesis “Good governance is informed by strong accountability and future-oriented organisation, continuously steering it towards its mission and vision, and thereby ensuring that the day-to-day management and administration are always linked with the organisation’s values and goals and thus eventually bringing about effectual and accelerated service delivery” to the South African populace without compromise. After empirically testing the hypothesis, showing mixed reaction informed by the findings of the study, five recommendations were made, based on the conclusions arrived at.

MEDEM / Department of Curriculum Studies and Educational Management

MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies / See the attached abstract below

MEd (Educational Management) / Department of Educational Management / The aim of the study was to investigate the capacity-building of School Governing Bodies (SGBs) in the area of policy interpretation and implementation. The research was carried out in schools under Klein Letaba Circuit in the Mopani Education District, in the Limpopo Province. This was a qualitative study where the researcher used purposive sampling to select schools and participants and interviews and document analysis to collect requisite data. In analysing data collected, content analysis was used. On the basis of data analysed and interpreted, the research findings revealed that SGBs do not have the necessary capacity to interpret and implement policies in schools. This is as a result of the inadequate training that they receive during their term of office, high level of illiteracy among them and lack of monitoring and support by the Department of Basic Education (DBE). The study therefore recommends that SGBs be adequately trained in their home languages and encouraged to form cluster committees to share experiences to develop their capacity. The DBE should continuously monitor and support SGBs in the execution of their duties.

PhDRDV / Institute for Rural Development / The need for sustaining the provision of high quality education in all countries cannot be overemphasised. Linked to this is the centrality of ensuring that effective governance prevails. In an effort to address the latter challenge in South Africa, School Governing Bodies (SGBs) were introduced through the South African Schools Act (SASA) 84 of 1996. A SGB is composed of democratically elected members, viz. Principal who serves in an ex officio capacity, teacher representatives, learner representatives in secondary schools, and parent representatives. The parent representatives are the majority in this body. The current case study was carried out to analyse the effectiveness of SGBs in rural secondary schools with respect to their designated roles and responsibilities. The mixed methods approach in two sequentially integrated phases was applied in the study undertaken in Vhembe District‟s Thulamela Municipality in Limpopo Province of South Africa. There were nine secondary schools located in rural areas from four circuits. In each circuit two schools were sampled, a performing and an underperforming. Principals, teacher governors and non-governors, learner governors and non-governors, teacher union representatives, a traditional leader, circuit managers, manager for governance, deputy managers for governance and parent governors participated in the study. Interviews were held with Principals, and the following governors; teachers, learners and parents, individually, and focus group interviews were held with the following non-governors: teachers and learners who were purposively sampled to take part in this study in Malamulele cluster of Vhembe Education District. A questionnaire was generated from the results of the qualitative data and completed by Principals, parent governors, teachers and learners. To analyse and organise qualitative data, Thematic Content Analysis was used and for quantitative data, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 was used. The results revealed that the governors related well with traditional leaders; parent governors‟ illiteracy impacted negatively on their performance; Principals and teachers were not supportive to parent governors; funding received from government was insufficient; and learner governors were passive during meetings with other governors. There were no statistically significant effects of schools and interest group or category of respondents on the views expressed. However, statistically significant effects (P < 0.05) were observed with regard to the following challenges: “some Principals are not conversant with Department of Basic Education (DBE) policies and may mislead SGBs in making informed decisions”; „„the writing of quarterly reports v by SGBs that would assess their progress in relation to their plans,‟‟ and “some teacher governors are bench warmers and are not interested in SGB activities”. It was recommend that Traditional leaders be represented in the SGB; parent governors be encouraged to further their studies to improve their literacy; training should address the needs of schools instead of using a one-size-fits-all type of training; and the funding model used by government be relooked into so that rural secondary schools and their communities could benefit more. The cordial relationship existing between traditional leaders and SGBs was crucial for improved disciplining of learners and nurturing strong bonds between schools and neighbouring communities. This work provides ingredients for formulating strategies for improving the performance of rural-based secondary SGBs and enhancing their contribution to local development.