N Pandor: Senior Managers Symposium

10 February 2006

SHAPING SCHOOLS FOR SERVICE - THE SOUTH AFRICAN CHALLENGE

Several extracts from a book recently given to me by a colleague starkly
illustrate the core issues that should occupy our minds.

First, a commentary on schooling from a rural-based grandfather.

“The children learn nothing that is of use to them in that school. All the
teachers do is to stop them from doing useful work. There is not enough water
in the village and it has to be brought in. We often have to stay overnight at
our fields and we cannot leave our children in the village on their own. Who
would look after them, the teachers? Once long ago the old man recalls, his
grandson came home and showed him how to make compost. That was the only time
either of them had had profited from school.” (p. 6)

Second, the book continues:

“[Many people] assume enrolment in formal education is a key indicator of
development and that what happens in schools and universities is automatically
of benefit to both individuals and society. This assumption is shared most of
the time by national governments, global institutions like the World Bank and
international aid agencies where the dominant concern is with access to
schooling rather than what happens in schooling.” (p. 7)

Three:

“Yet in reality education is paradoxical in that under the general rubric of
‘education’ many good things take place but many bad things (as well as many
indifferent things) take place as well. Despite the access to education
described above, there is nothing inherently good about education, schooling or
learning. Learning can either be very good or very bad depending on what is
learnt, how it is learnt, and what it is designed to do.” (p. 7)

Four, here is a quotation from a teacher that captures this dual potential
well:

“I have come to a frightening conclusion: I am the decisive element in the
classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily
mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a
child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument
of inspiration. I can humiliate, humour, hurt or heal. In all situations it is
my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated,
and a child humanized or de-humanised.” (p. 8)

(Extracts from Clive Harber, Schooling as Violence. How schools harm pupils
and societies, 2004)

These thought-provoking extracts serve as a useful way of introducing my
contribution to your conference.

It is important to begin by thanking MEC Dugmore for conveying your
invitation to me. I am particularly pleased to be addressing a conference of
school and education-sector leadership.

The extracts present a worrying perspective on education and schooling. It
is however, a perspective that has to be given attention. What happens in our
schools from day to day, what is the experience of children, what is the
contribution of learners, and how do school principals harness goodwill and
ability in the interests of children and communities?

These and several other matters I shall refer to this morning suggest that
we are often technical and mechanical in the manner in which we respond to
education practice and educational change. In the first 10[e1] years of our
democracy, we focused primarily on policy change and institutional
re-organisation. This may have been to the detriment of teacher development,
institutional leadership and the creation of a new ethos and practice in
education. Fortunately we have people and a sector with immense energy so all
is not lost.

There are matters that require dedicated attention. They form a mosaic of
tasks for you as education leaders.

First among them is the important imperative of offering quality education
to all in our schools. Several facts point to this aspect. In many of our
schools we are failing children, not in academic terms only, but also failing
them in the sense of not giving them an education of quality. Thousands of
children learn very little after spending years in our schools.

Second, a further reality is that schools that perform badly persist with
that poor performance, unhindered by education managers sometimes for decades.
As in the extracts I have read we are happy to have children enrolled and care
little about their learning and success. I believe it important to give
children and adults access to schooling; but I think the critical question the
extracts pose about the worth of schooling requires answers.

How then should principals respond to this concern for quality?

First, we should be bold in the interests of children. Quality outcomes must
be part of our assessment of ourselves. As I have said previously, school
leaders must show administrative and learning achievement leadership.

There are school principals who develop excellent time-tables and yet pay
little attention to teacher attendance in class. Our records of matric
examinations over five years show many repeatedly failing schools. Yet there
are no indications of action to close schools, to sanction poor performers, or
to provide support that will lead to a turn around.

South Africa needs to bring the dominance of failing schools to an abrupt
end. A message needs to go out from provinces that wilful incompetence will not
be tolerated; that schooling and leadership in schooling requires quality and
practical efforts to support quality achievement.

Of course much has changed in our system and there have been significant
improvements in many schools, but it is clear that we are not yet all seeking
to achieve the best.

All available evidence indicates school leadership by principals (and
managers) is pivotal to the successful provision of quality schooling - a
meeting such as this one confirms this perspective. All in education agree that
leadership is a strong factor in determining school success. Thus, it is
vitally important to ensure that education has firm, capable, informed school
principals.

School principals should play a strategic leadership and development role in
our schools.

What would this leadership role potentially mean beyond the learning
challenges referred to earlier?

The grandfather complained about the relevance of school curricula. So what
should we focus on teaching in the Winelands area? What kind of skills and
subjects hold out positive potential for children schooling in this region?

It would seem sport is important in many schools. To what degree do all
children of all races and genders have the opportunity to be South African
sportspersons?

What about education on social issues such as violence and alcohol? Schools
located away from the political centre sometimes develop negative practices
because they are generally invisible.

What is the status of corporal punishment in this region, are children
valued and protected?

The school teacher referred to her powerful role in creating a positive
milieu in school. Do teachers in your schools recognize this power?

Who is charged with giving intellectual leadership to teachers? Is the
principal a mentor or the person who does the returns and earns the most? Many
of our schools are changing in terms of including all South Africans - what
role do our school leaders play in promoting respect for diversity? Is racism
challenged? Are our schools made up of a diversity of teachers, all our schools
not just those in posh suburbs.

In meetings last year I signalled my intention to give clearer guidance on
the role of leadership that we expect from principals. I indicated then that I
did not find the Schools Act helpful in clearly delineating the role of the
principal as distinct yet complementary to the role of the school governing
body.

At the moment there is confusion between the roles of the principal and the
school governing body. In reality, the principal bears the final responsibility
for running a school. This needs to be clearly articulated in our laws. But the
system we have is one in which executive authority appears to lie primarily
with the governing body. There is a tension there and there are other tensions
that need to be resolved in the day-to-day running of a school and in tools of
accountability that we should create and clarify.

How can principals expand their authority without damaging the positive
aspects of the democratic model of parental and community involvement in
schools that we adopted ten or less years ago?

It is a truism that a failing or struggling school will have a weak, absent
or poor principal.

This does not hold for the teachers - some of the teachers could be
dedicated and doing good work - but without a strong pivot the school will
still struggle.

Principals, to a lesser extent your school management teams, set the tone
and climate of the school.

On the one hand, if they are authoritarian and inconsistent, then there will
be a climate of apprehension and fear in the school. That climate may improve
results, but the school will not be a happy place. It will not be a place that
nurtures, builds character, and promotes democratic practice.

On the other hand, if they allow anything and everything to go, and let
staff sit in the staffroom chatting during lessons, then there will be a
shabby, directionless and ill-disciplined school environment.

Principals are the pivots around which schools turn. But principals cannot
work alone. They need to be receptive to parental and community concerns.

You should ask: “What do you want from your school?” and “How can the school
serve this community better?”

Let me give you an example from here in the Western Cape.

Some of my officials visited a farm school called Rondeheuwel Primary School
as part of the “opening of schools” visits a few weeks ago. The school is a few
kilometres from here in the Winelands.

What struck my officials was the quality of education being offered.

The school provides a supportive, friendly environment for the children.
Teachers were hard at work during the early afternoon on a sweltering hot day
on the second day of school, even though the principal was away at a
meeting.

The Grade 1 children, with no experience of school till the day before, had
their painting work already displayed on the walls and were busy in groups
working, while talking quietly to each other. The teacher was walking around
supporting the children.

There was a colourful jungle gym, which had been built by the school's
grounds man and one of the teachers during the weekends using off cuts from
local farms. In a Grade 3 classroom the teacher was reading the children a
story. This is a school that serves a number of farms and where the district
office estimates the incidence of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome to be at around
60%.

These teachers have created the best learning conditions that these children
could have anywhere in the world.

Even if these children follow in their parents’ footsteps and work on the
farms, they will have learned what a nurturing, caring environment is and what
it feels like to be respected and loved. They will also have learned a number
of literacy, manipulation and technical skills that will make them better at
whatever they do in later life.

We cannot ask more of our schools.

Further, the school had developed relationships with the local farm worker
and farmer communities so that the school receives as much support as it
can.

There is a clear sense of local pride in the school.

This is just one of many exemplary schools we have in this province and
other provinces.

We can all visit a school that is high performing, so that we know what such
a school looks like. The District or EMDC offices can facilitate that. The
District also has a role to play in sharing good practice, in developing joint
strategies across schools, in sharing resources and so on. This is already
being done and can be deepened and strengthened.

We believe that with the co-operation of the higher education institutions,
NGOs, and yourselves as the practitioners we can make a huge improvement in the
quality of the education that our schools provide.

I thank you for inviting me and listening to me. I wish you well in all your
endeavours.

Issued by: Ministry of Education
10 February 2006

[e1]1 – 9 write out, e.g. one from 10 upwards only numbers