The role of school governing bodies in transforming education in South Africa : a study of selected secondary schools in the Tsomo district of Eastern Cape Province

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The year 1994 ushered in a new era in the education system of South Africa. For thefirst time in the history of the country all population groups were given a chance toparticipate in the affairs directly affecting them. To ensure that such a dream would beachieved, education needed to be transformed. This kind of transformation wasenvisaged to include all stakeholders in education. From the National Minister ofEducation down to the provinces and at the local level of ordinary public schools, allthose who were considered to have a stake in education were to be given a chance toparticipate, especially through new forms of governance. The most significant ofthese at community level were school governing bodies.School governance was to be developed through participative structures. At locallevel parents, educators, non-educator staff members and learners, identified as therelevant stakeholders, were allowed to participate in the governance of their ownschools. The principal, by the very position he/she holds, was an automatic memberex officio. All the other members could only become members by being elected to thisgovernance structure. With the passing of the South African Schools Act (Act No. 84of 1996), this new structure to delegate governance functions to all schools in theRepublic of South Africa came into being. This marked the birth of School GoverningBodies (SGBs) for all schools.The researcher as a teacher and resident in the Eastern Cape Province becameinterested in the functioning of these newly formed governing bodies. The interest tocarry out a systematic research project was stimulated by what the researcherexperienced in the practical situation of schools in his environment: what he observedbeing done appeared to be different from what the legal policy frameworks suggest inorder to achieve democratic participation by all stakeholders in all schools. Inaddition, studies during course work as part of a Masters degree programme inEducational Policy Studies made the researcher particularly aware analytically ofconcepts like transformation, democracy, governance, empowerment andstakeholders, especially as regards their application to school governance. Thisreinforced the researcher's desire to find out whether the SGBs in rural sernorsecondary schools of Tsomo are really able to fulfill their roles using the democraticprinciples as part of the overall transformation of South Africa.To evaluate the role of the SGBs in transforming the education system throughdemocratic governance, the researcher aimed to investigate aspects such as whetherSGBs really existed in schools in a formally constituted way; i.e. whether all thestakeholder-components were included in these bodies, whether they had constitutionsand if such constitutions were drawn up with reference to the country's Constitutionand the SA Schools Act. Further questions were how these SGBs performed theirduties (functions) and whether they arrived at decisions using democratic principles,such as voting on issues. It was the researcher's aim to assess whether the parent,non-educator staff members and the learner components were really playing an activerole in these structures, such as at times when there might seem a deadlock indecision-making in the SGB. How did the role players perceive their different andnew roles, and to what extent were the principal and educators empowering the othercomponents as light-bearers. The research mainly aimed at discovering progress andproblems of the SGBs in this rural area, chiefly in order to determine what kind ofcapacity building might be necessary to improve their functioning to achievedemocratic governance through active participation in these structures.To do all this, the research follows five steps. Step one is to provide a very briefbackground history of main characteristics in the development of the educationsystem up to 1994. Step two identifies and discusses the main concepts that areconsidered relevant to the study. Step three is to present a survey of relevantdocuments that gave rise to the establishment of the SGBs, including the NEPI reports(1992-3), the Hunter Report (1995), and the South African Schools Act of 1996 (ActNo, 84 of 1996). In addition the importance of the Interim Constitution of 1993 (ActNo. 200 of 1993) and the final Constitution of 1996 (Act No. 108 of 1996) areemphasised. Step four is an empirical investigation into the actual functioning of theSGBs in three senior secondary schools in the Tsomo district. These schools wereinvestigated through using an interview schedule in which representatives of the fivestakeholder components of the SGB were interviewed individually while aquestionnaire was also used in the two senior secondary schools with hostels. Thequestions and responses for both the interview schedule and the two questionnairesare included as Appendices Two and Appendix Three. In addition, an extract from theSouth African Schools Act of 1996 (Act No, 84 of 1996) is included (Appendix One)showing only the important aspects of the Act in relation to the working of the SOB.Step five provides a summary, conclusions and recommendations regarding thefunctioning of SOBs in an area like Tsomo.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University