Membership of school governing bodies is a new experience for many communities in South
Africa, because the election system for school governing bodies was only introduced during
1997 for the purpose of a decentralised management and governing system for schools in
the country. The new dispensation of democracy brought about some unique challenges, for
example, how to deal with diversity effectively. In this sense, the successful management of
diversity in education is viewed as one ·of the toughest challenges in the South African education
system. The aforementioned challenge led to the rationale for this research, which
focused on the influence of diversity on the functionality of school governing bodies and how
to manage diversity in the school governing bodies from the Laingsburg education region.
The strategy for the research was based on a qualitative research approach that took the
form of an interactive investigation of the views and experiences of the participants in relation
to the research topic. The research was further undertaken from an interpretative approach
which is appropriate, because the social experiences of the participants were central
to this research. Some of the most important findings were that prejudices and stereotyping
with regard to diversity posed a stumbling block for the effective functioning of school governing
bodies. To the contrary, it was also found that the perspective of diversity as variety,
is an advantage due to the multiplicity of available talents and competencies which can be
utilised to the benefit of education. Policy frameworks for the management of diversity and
I
appropriate communication were also part of the findings that have an influence on the functionality
of school governing bodies. The recommendations included amongst other that all
role players should be represented in the school governing body; training is regarded as a
priority; members should be willing to accept the role of servant leadership and finally the
roles of the principal and school governing body should be clarified to avoid friction and possible
conflict. The value of the research is in the first place a contribution to a better understanding
of the concept of diversity and it also supports the management of diversity in
school governing bodies of rural areas. / MEd (Education Management), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NWUBOLOKA1/oai:dspace.nwu.ac.za:10394/15099 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Pedro, Colin Raymond |
| Source Sets | North-West University |
| Language | other |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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