The birth of democracy in 1994 in South Africa moved away from the authoritarian leadership style of the Apartheid era to a democratic style where accountability , democracy, transformational and distributed leadership style was encouraged at school. Leadership was not deemed to be the duty of the principal alone but leadership is shared among all the stakeholders at school. The above assertion prompted the researcher to engage in this study whose purpose was to investigate the extent of teacher participation in decision making in curriculum and management issues at schools. The study sought to assess:(i)To identify the categories of teachers who participated in decision making at school level (ii) To find out the areas in which teachers are involved in decision making at school (iii) To identify the strategies used by principals/ school management in involving the teachers in decision making (iv) To find out the views of principals and teachers regarding their involvement regarding their participation in decision making in curriculum and management issues. To achieve these objectives the researcher opted for the qualitative approach which is embedded in the interpretivist paradigm. The qualitative approach typically studies people by interacting and observing the participants in their natural setting and focusing on their meanings and interpretations. This methodology was relevant because it produced the desired results and gathered information directly from the respondents through interviews, observation, and document analysis. This methodology assisted the researcher to find out the extent of teacher participation in decision making. The data revealed that all teachers are expected to be involved in decision making but that depends on the nature of the issue. The study revealed that all teachers were involved in decisions concerning disciplinary, curriculum, sport as major school activities but some teachers were not involved in financial matters. The data also found out that male teachers feel that there is imbalance of contribution in staff meetings since female teachers are more than male teachers. Furthermore , the study showed that school principals used various strategies to involve teachers in decision making such as consultation on individual basis, group or at committee level. The study also revealed that the principals and teachers felt that when they work together as the school community all organizational goals and objectives will be achieved and owned by all teachers. Teachers also viewed non involvement as what resulted in the negative impact of the activities including high teacher absenteeism and demotivation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:27567 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Latsha, Xolisa Noluvo |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Education |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, M Ed |
| Format | 213 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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