D.Phil. / The problem of the research is to investigate why South Africa failed to make township schools effective despite new legislation, developmental programmes and projects, and change of personnel. Can this failure be attributed to the lack of knowledge on the ground on what constitutes an effective school in the township? A number of the characteristics of an effective school were identified through the literature review. During the review of these characteristics, a conclusion was drawn that they were developed from a context that is different from a South African township. To enable the researcher to collect "home-grown" data, the relevant stakeholders had to speak about what they consider to be the characteristics of an effective school. A qualitative method was used in collecting and analysing the data. The study was conducted in two phases: The first phase, had two components. Informants were asked to write their naive statements on what they consider to be the characteristic of effective township school and this was followed by a lengthy focus group interview with each subgroup that participated in the study. The second phase was a questionnaire developed from the analysis of the naive statements and focus group interviews that was administered to a larger audience of the informants to allow them an opportunity to confirm or refute the findings. Finally, the following list represent what the informants considered to be the characteristics of an effective township school. The reader must be reminded that these characteristics are not presented in the order of their importance, but they are all equally important: O Strong leadership Dedicated, committed and disciplined educators Dedicated and committed learners Parental support and involvement A well-developed vision and mission O Strong partnership with relevant stakeholders O A supportive environment Towards the end of the study, specific recommendations were directed to parents, learners, principals, members of teacher organizations, the departments of education and non-governmental organizations on what they could do to contribute towards school effectiveness in the township.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:3181 |
| Date | 27 August 2012 |
| Creators | Mdletshe, Khumbulani Desmond |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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