The study was designed to investigate the relationship between the perceptions of public elementary school principals concerning the procedures for the voluntary accreditation of elementary schools by regional accrediting associations and how acceptable the idea of voluntary accreditation was to the same principals. Section I of the survey instrument developed for the study, "Survey of Perceptions about Voluntary Elementary School Accreditation," was a request for demographic information about the respondents. Section II was designed to assess the amount of congruence between the perceptions of the principals concerning North Central Association requirements for elementary school accreditation and the actual requirements as set forth in "Policies and. Standards for the Approval of Elementary Schools." In Section III, the respondents indicated where they would place themselves on a five-point scale in regard to each of ten statements expressing positive attitudes toward the voluntary accreditation of elementary schools. The first and last statements in Section III expressed a positive attitude toward involvement in the accreditation process. The other eight of the ten statements identified benefits which might be derived from accreditation. The five-point scale ranged from "strongly disagree" at one end of the scale to "strongly agree" at the other. It was postulated that there would be a strong positive correlation between perceptions of accreditation that were congruent with the North Central Association Policies and Standards and positive attitudes toward accreditation.Other related questions were also investigated. Is the relationship between principals' perceptions of North Central Association Policies and Standards and their acceptance of voluntary accreditation related to such other factors as geographical location, school size by enrollment, age, level of teaching experience, years of experience as elementary principals, years of experience in their present assignments, educational level attained, experience in number of school corporations, or previous experience with the North Central Association?The population for the study was the 1,345 public elementary school principals in Indiana. From the population, a random sample of 273 subjects, stratified by eight geographical districts and five categories of school size, was drawn. Usable returns were received from 14.8 of the 273 subjects, 54-.2 percent of the sample.Relationships between the main variables of the study, congruency of principals' perceptions of accreditation with actual North Central Association requirements and acceptability of the concept to the subjects, were tested statistically with Pearson product moment coefficients of correlation. The relationships between the main variables and each level of the potentially monitoring variables noted above were also tested with Pearson correlation coefficients.The main hypothesis of the study, stated in null form to facilitate testing, was rejected at the .01 level of statistical significance (r = +.391 and +.380). A positive relationship not due to chance appeared to exist between the extent to which the principals' perceptions of accreditation procedures were congruent with the actual procedures defined by the North Central Association and the acceptability of voluntary accreditation to the principals. None of the other eighteen hypotheses, which were concerned with relationships between each of the main variables of congruency and acceptability with each of nine potentially monitoring variables, were rejected. A few statistically significant relationships were discovered between some levels of the variables which were investigated for monitorial relationships and the congruency and acceptability measures; but, since statistical significance did not occur consistently among the various levels of each of the potentially monitorial relationships, the null hypotheses relating to these relationships were not rejected.

Thesis (Ph.D. (Education))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Risk has now become part of the common forensic vocabulary used in the new global culture to hold persons (such as principals) and institutions (such as schools) accountable. Thus, in a risk society (Giddens 2000; Beck1992), the nature of a principal's work is changing. Risk and its management have become integral parts of a principal's professional repertoire as the commonplace activities of schooling have become framed as risks to be managed. Tensions arise for school principals when external and internal pressures to measure performance threaten to overwhelm their responsibility for paying attention to the learning that is, or should be, occurring in their schools. A problem that emerges out of all this is the extent to which the nature and scope of contemporary accountability and audit regimes are underpinned by a negative logic that impacts directly on choices made by school leaders about the learning environment of their school. This dissertation addresses this problem by examining the impact of risk management on the nature of a principal's work and the implications of this impact for secondary school leadership. It does so through a series of nested publications and an empirical study, beginning with the testing of conceptual understandings through international and national journals, and moving to dissemination of key findings through professional journals and conference and workshop delivery. The strategy was one of moving from global feedback on a locally experienced problem, to national feedback and then to engagement with professional colleagues. This approach was chosen to verify the quality of the analysis and to target the dissemination of findings to professional colleagues, facilitating professional dialogue on the core issues both during and subsequent to the dissertation process, and, in so doing, contributing to improved professional practice of the principalship. The dissertation begins by addressing risk and its minimisation as a powerful rationality and organisational logic driving leadership practices in contemporary schools. It explores the impact of risk-consciousness on the work of school leaders with particular reference to the impact such risk-consciousness can have on their role in fostering a learning culture within schools. It then moves to examine how this risk-consciousness has fostered a new 'attentional economy' (Taylor, 2005) in which schools must be seen to perform, and to perform in ways that are measurable and rendered visible for all. Rationalities of risk now require principals as school managers to pay attention to, and require of others, the forensic work of making schools calculable (that is, auditable on pre-determined risk minimisation metrics). Such forensic work has its place in schools and, indeed, has improved professional practice in some areas, particularly related to student safety. The dissertation raises questions about the extent to which this calculability is becoming the dominant, even the only, leaderly imperative for school principals. The dissertation positions the school as a risk organisation, and the strengths and limitations of that positioning are carefully examined. Carol Dweck's (1999) work on performance and learning goals provides a basis for an empirical analysis of the demands of school leadership. This analysis reveals the dominance of performance goals and the struggle experienced by the author, a school leader, in maintaining a balance between learning and performance, between being a risk-taker and a risk-minimiser, between being both appropriately accountable and socially responsible. It provides further evidence for the view developed through the dissertation that the dominant and prevailing negative logic of risk can overwhelm broader ethical responsibilities. The author argues strongly that proactive engagement with risk management underpinned by a positive logic of risk and focused, not on the imposition of ever-increasing controls, but on refining and improving judgement, offers new and more promising possibilities. A model for risk management is then presented which has a robust, flexible and systematic approach to risk management built on informed trust in professional human judgement. Such an approach, it is argued, may not only make the school safer but it may also provide a greater capacity to respond to opportunities to dare and to grow. School leaders are encouraged to move beyond risk minimisation to an educative approach to risk management in the interests of a dynamic learning environment.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-161).

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 170-172).

Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 288-297).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-172). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-161). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1974. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

In Malawi the future of a child in terms of academic achievement is known before a child completes a higher secondary education. This is determined by the type of secondary school a child has been selected to. The secondary schools in Malawi are classified into three types namely the grant aided, secondary schools, the district conventional secondary schools and the community day secondary schools. When a pupil has been selected to a grant aided secondary school the general public expectation is that such a student would achieve a high academic standard, similarly when a pupil has been selected to the community day secondary school the public expectation is that such a pupil would not achieve a high academic standard. On the other hand those who are selected to attend the district conventional secondary schools will have an academic achievement which is between the other two types of secondary schools. This research was carried out to find out the impact of the ADMISSIONS POLICY OF STUDENTS INTO MALAWI SECONDARY SCHOOLS by examining the factors which contribute to disparities in academic achievements from the three types of secondary schools. The study was carried out in Dowa District in the Central Region of Malawi. Specifically it was conducted in the Central East Education Division which is comprised of five education districts namely: Dowa, Ntchisi, Nkhotakota, Salima and Kasungu. The research was conducted using a number of methods namely: survey questionnaires, convenient sampling, interviews and snowballing. Through the research it was established that the grant aided secondary schools offer excellence of education where many students excel in academics and is seconded by the district conventional secondary schools, while the community day secondary schools offer poor education which attributes to poor academic achievement. The research has explained what has been responsible for the differences in academic achievement. / Public Administration and Management / MPA