During the past few decades the role and functions of the principal have
undergone a radical change. Traditionally, the principal was merely the head of
the school and her/his role and functions at the school were to implement policies set out by the education authorities. The principal was required to have
professional training and experience to manage the school. The traditional view
was that a competent educator with a certain number of years of experience, and the right personality, was well equipped for the task and the demands of
principalship. This makes the assumption that the ability needed by an
educational leader to perform certain administrative and managerial tasks could be developed through experience.
The present study attempted to interrogate this assumption. It was
hypothesized that there is a need for induction programmes and professional
development programmes for newly promoted management personnel. This
research was undertaken to determine the degree of managerial competence amongst principals and other senior management personnel in primary and
secondary schools. The quantitative method of research was adopted. Based
on the assumption that there was a serious lack of leadership competencies
among senior management teams at schools and there was a need to address this problem, a questionnaire was drawn to obtain responses from both senior
management teams and educators at six South African public schools, and to compare the responses of both groups to the same questions.
Results of the present investigation reveal that the underlying problem of the lack of leadership competencies amongst senior management personnel lies in
the fact that they have not been properly inducted into their roles as well as the lack of professional development courses.
Findings from the present research emphasize the increasing importance for
management training of the educational leader. This should comprise two aspects, viz., basic management training (the academic-professional
component) followed by a management development programme (in-service training). Managers should be given courses in, inter alia, school management,
curriculum and programme development, school law, supervision of instruction,
human relations, school finance and budgeting, personnel administration,
leadership, community relations, internship and field experience, child and
adolescence development, psychology of learning, counselling and guidance theory and practice. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2003.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ukzn/oai:http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za:10413/1829 |
| Date | January 2003 |
| Creators | Pillay, Kanagamal. |
| Contributors | Bayeni, Sibusiso Douglas. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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