A case study of the effects of school management programmes on school effectiveness

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:The Republic of South Africa has a population made up of different racial groups. Thedifferences are far reaching. There are differences with regard to the geographic location,wealth, educational levels and quality etc. amongst the racial groups. This has been thecase for many years.A new democratic government came into being in South Africa in 1994. The advent ofthe democratic rule brought along a number of changes. The big change has been theobserved concerted effort by the government to improve on the quality of life of the lot ofthe previously disadvantaged people of South Africa. This effort is observable in almostall spheres of government. One of the areas where such attempts are being made is ineducation. Several programmes have been put in place to improve the educational leveland quality of the majority of the previously disadvantaged people. Much money, effort,time and energy are put into these programmes. The main question is whether theseprogrammes are yielding the results that were intended.In this study, I tried to evaluate the impact of one such programme. I chose the TOPSschool management programme as an example of these programmes. The programmewas operational in eight areas of the Republic of South Africa. Its activities ended in1996. I chose the case study approach in this study. The evaluation is summative innature. One school which participated in the programme was chosen, to see what impactthe programme had on its effectiveness. A second school that had not participated in theprogramme was brought into the study for purposes of comparison.The conclusion I reached is that school management programmes have a significantimpact on the effectiveness of the schools that participate in such programmes. Thisbecame very clear in the study. The school that participated in the TOPS managementprogramme was found to be very effective. The school met quite a number ofrequirements for effectiveness. The performance of the programme school was found tobe much better than that of the comparison school.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University