School governing bodies and their duty of staff appointments

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Since the introduction of the SA Schools Act in 1996 and institution of school governingbodies (SGBs), the Education Department began to experience serious problemsregarding school governance. The incidents that happened in schools brought intoquestion the legal role and authority of SGBs in the administrative actions they perform.This study aimed specifically at investigating the problems that arise in relation theappointment of teachers. Since SGBs play an important facilitating role in the process ofstaff appointments, their way of handling this duty was at the heart of the study.The research made use of literature studies, policy documents from the educationdepartment, viz. the SA Schools Act, Educators Employment Act, Education LabourRelations Council documents, and questionnaires and interviews with members of schoolgoverning bodies at a selection of local schools in the Western Cape Province.The findings led to the conclusion that most SGBs in the disadvantaged communities findit difficult to appoint new educators. Clearly SGBs are regarded as legitimate structuresthat should govern learning institutions and it is evident that one of their duties is toemploy new educators, in line with the legal procedures stipulated in the variousprovincial education departments' policies. Perhaps the most important finding is thatparents in the disadvantaged communities are illiterate. This is a significant problembecause most of their duties require them to read documents from the educationdepartment so that they may know exactly how to perform their functions andresponsibilities. Some of the problems encountered, however, are also caused by theignorance and reluctance of parents to offer their services without being remunerated.These conclusions resulted in the formulation of specific recommendations for improvingthe role and implementation of SGBs. The recommendations are made for improving therole of SGBs as a whole as well as for specific capacity building relating to the needs ofeach stakeholder group. The overall emphasis of the study is thus on therecommendation for more effective training of SGBs.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University