A formative intervention study of how learner voice and leadership can be developed within a Learner Representative Council (LRC) in an urban combined school, Namibia
- Authors: Shipopyeni, Salomo S M
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Education, Secondary -- Namibia , Student government -- Namibia -- Case studies , Student participation in administration -- Namibia -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144934 , vital:38393
- Description: The Namibian Education system, after the country gained independence, introduced various reforms to ensure the attainment of the educational goals of access, quality, equity and democracy in schools. One of the policies introduced to promote democracy in our schools was The Educational Act 16 of 2001, which gave birth to the establishment of Learners Representatives Councils (LRC) in schools. The LRC body is the legal learner leadership body established to ensure learners are represented in school leadership. However, various studies have revealed that this legal body of learners in many schools has been merely ‘rubber-stamping’ decisions made by teachers; learners have had very little input in decisions that affect them as learners. Thus, I was prompted to conduct this formative intervention study on learner leadership at an urban combined school in Namibia. Informed by distributed and transformative leadership theories, the study aimed to develop leadership within the LRC members and the needed expansive transformation regarding leadership practices in school. The intention was for learners to be enabled to practice their democratic right in decision-making processes in matters that concerned their schooling and learning. This study was theoretically and analytically framed by second generation CulturalHistorical Activity Theory. The participants included 12 LRC members, the LRC liaison teacher, the class register teacher, three school management team members and the principal. The research method was a case study, underpinned by the critical paradigm to bring about the fundamental expansive transformation in learner leadership practices at the case study school. This qualitative study was divided into two phases, a contextual profiling phase and an intervention phase. Data were generated through document analysis, observation, questionnaires, focus group interviews and Change Laboratory Workshops. The data were generated to answer the over-arching question: How learner voice and leadership can be developed within a Learner Representative Council (LRC) in an urban combined school, Namibia. The data were analysed inductively and abductively. The key findings were: first, there were a variety of understandings of the concept learner leadership; second, the involvement of LRC members in decision-making processes was limited to involvement in organising extracurricular activities and controlling of other learners at school; third, leadership development opportunities for learners at the case study school were only provided through training at the beginning of the year and the LRC carrying out various activities and roles at the case study school. Several challenges that constrained the LRC voice and leadership development were surfaced and, through Change Laboratory Workshops, the participants of the activity system together with me (the researcher-interventionist), identified the expansive learning opportunities to develop leadership amongst Learner Representative Council (LRC) members. In the final analysis, this study will contribute to the production of knowledge on the concept of learner leadership in the context of Namibia. Fellow scholars, professionals, colleagues and policy makers in education are requested to engage with this thesis to contribute to our understanding of this important aspect of our field and speak back to policy.
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Developing voice and leadership amongst a group of class captains
- Authors: Nehunga, Jacobina Taukondjele
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- Namibia , Transformational leadership -- Namibia , Leadership in adolescents -- Namibia , Rural schools -- Namibia , School children – Namibia -- Attitudes , School management and organization – Namibia , Cultural Historical Activity Theory
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145034 , vital:38402
- Description: The notion that leadership can be reduced to that of a formal position such as principalship has become problematic in school leadership research and practice, globally and also in Namibia. It appears that when leadership is concentrated only at the level of a principal within schools, teachers and learners within the same school experience a lack of opportunities to contribute to leadership practices, thus losing a sense of ownership. Supporting a distributed leadership perspective and embracing transformative leadership, this study investigated how learner voice and learner leadership (see for example Mitra and Gross, 2009) can be developed within a group of class captains in a combined school in rural Namibia. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) underpinned the study which is located within a critical paradigm. Findings of the study were captured into two phases whereby phase one generated contextual profiling findings through the adoption of qualitative methods such as questionnaires, interviews, document analysis and two other participatory methods of mapping and transect walks. Phase two findings were captured through expansive learning actions in Change Laboratory Workshops. Observation notes, video recording and photographs and informal discussions were used as data sources during this phase. Both inductive and abductive analysis were employed. The findings revealed that a few enabling conditions to class captainship practice existed, but generally there was limited participation of class captains in school leadership. Class captains were seen as merely class representatives and their leadership was confined to a classroom level in the school. They performed more managerial tasks than leadership. It was also revealed that class captainship is not a documented practice in Namibia and it lacks support. Against this backdrop, during phase two of the study, seven contradictions were identified and two contradictions were prioritised for resolution during the Change Laboratory Workshops. Some of the resolutions included the development of a school based guiding document for class captains; an establishment of a class captainship club; and the promotion of a yearly election campaign of class captains. The study recommends more interventionist studies to be conducted on class captainship in order to see the practice documented in terms of policy in Namibia, perhaps in the near future.
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Exploring parents’ participation in school governance with the purpose of developing parents’ leadership: a formative intervention in a Namibian combined rural school
- Authors: Nghiteeka, Hileni
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- Namibia , Education, Secondary -- Parent participation – Namibia , Democracy and education -- Namibia , Transformational leadership -- Namibia , Rural schools -- Namibia , School management and organization – Namibia , Cultural Historical Activity Theory
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145045 , vital:38403
- Description: In a post-independent Namibia, the Education Act 16 of 2001 accorded democratic rights and equal opportunities to all education stakeholders, including parents, to be involved in educational decision-making in schools. This involvement advocated increasing the voice of the educational stakeholders at a grass roots level in an attempt to redress the past injustices of the apartheid education system. However, the studies carried out internationally, as well as in Africa and Namibia, reveal that the issue of democratic participation in school decisions is a restricted reality. This study was conducted in Happy (pseudonym) combined school, a state rural school in the Oshikoto Region, Northern Namibia, aimed at exploring parents’ participation in school governance. The study adopted an interventionist approach to develop parents’ leadership in school. Framed by a distributed leadership perspective, the main purpose of the study was to seek parents’ voices through participation for them to be catalysts for change in transforming parents’ leadership in school. For its theoretical and analytical framing, the study adopted the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). The study findings revealed that parents’ leadership as a concept was understood differently in the case study school and it was practiced within the boundaries of policies. Through the lens of distributed leadership, it was evident that distributed leadership was still in its infancy in the school, as only the characterisations of an authorised distributed leadership were evident in this school. The CHAT analysis revealed that parents’ leadership was constrained due to a number of challenges, including language barriers, transport to and from meetings and a lack of support from other parents and some teachers. Study participants, through participation in a Change Laboratory workshop process, envisioned some models such as raising funds to serve as an incentive for parents’ School Board members and for an information dissemination committee within the community to do educational campaigns in an effort to enhance parents’ leadership in school. To unleash distributed leadership in schools, the study offered some recommendations, including that parents’ leadership should be included as part of the curriculum at higher institutions in order to sensitise educators to this critical aspect of leadership, prior to joining the profession. Another recommendation was for stakeholders to make use of the study’s findings, when designing workshop materials and conducting workshops. Finally, the study recommended further interventionist research to be conducted on the same research topic, preferably on a larger scale, in an effort to add to the body of knowledge in the field of leadership and management, particularly with regards to parental leadership.
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Investigating how teacher leadership can be developed among teachers in a rural school Namibia
- Authors: Shapange, Laban
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Technical education -- South Africa , Vocational education -- South Africa , Educational leadership -- South Africa , Postsecondary education -- South Africa -- Administration
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144728 , vital:38374
- Description: In established democracies, the notion of ‘singular’ school leadership practised by the principal has been challenged and a more expansive approach to leadership, which includes teacher leadership, is now widely accepted. However, in Namibia, as with many countries on the African continent, the idea of ‘singular’ school leadership embedded in the position of principal still prevails. Effective leadership is generally accepted as being core to effective school improvement. The evidence from the school improvement literature constantly highlights that productive leaders exercise an indirect influence on a school’s ability and potential to improve and enhance the achievement of learners. This influence does not necessarily come from senior managers only, but partly lies in the strength of middle level leaders and teachers. Research has shown that when teachers assume shared leadership in the redesign of the school, mentor their colleagues, engage in problem solving at the school level and provide professional growth opportunities for their colleagues, they can be effective in bringing about positive change. These findings triggered my interest to study the potential of this approach to teacher leadership development in Namibia. In this context, this study investigated how teacher leadership can be developed among the teachers in a combined school in rural Namibia. The study examined both the understanding of the concept and the practices of teacher leadership among the teachers and school management team and also aimed at bringing about transformation in their practice. The study was a qualitative case study, which took an interventionist approach, framed by Cultural Historical Activity Theory as the theoretical and analytical framework. In addition, the study also used Grant’s Model of Teacher Leadership as an analytical tool. Eleven teachers and three members of the management team took part in the study as research participants and were selected by means of the purposive sampling method. Data were generated from two different phases. The first phase of the study examined perceptions and practices of leadership, while in the second phase of the study, a series of intervention Change Laboratory Workshops were conducted. Document analysis, observations, focus group interviews and closed-ended questionnaires were used as data gathering tools. The study lasted for a period of six weeks. Data were analysed using inductive and abductive approaches. The main findings of the study revealed that teacher leadership is understood as an ability to influence and inspire both learners and other teachers. Furthermore, although the participants demonstrated an understanding of teacher leadership as a concept, their understanding of teacher leaders’ roles was more on classroom management and control of learners. Teacher leadership development was understood as the process of empowering teachers to take-up various roles and delegated functions through school structures such as committees and within the community. The study further revealed a number of cultural-historic contextual tensions that led to constraints of teacher leadership practice in the case study school. For example, school management team members were seen as a barrier to teacher leadership practice and development. Factors such as limited involvement of teachers in decision-making in the school and lack of school-based continuous professional development programmes for teachers emerged as causes that constrained teacher leadership practice and development in the case study school. The Change Laboratory Workshop findings suggested that in the participants’ view, the revival of the different school committees would especially make a positive contribution to teacher leadership practice and development at the case study school.
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The development of teacher leadership: a formative interventionist study in a semi-urban secondary school of Khomas region in Namibia
- Authors: Shilongo, Justina
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Educational leadership -- Namibia , Educational leadership -- Namibia -- Case studies , Education -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144923 , vital:38392
- Description: Historically the education system in Namibia was shaped by the policies of the apartheid ideology (Amukugo, 1993). During that time, authority and responsibility were centralised and teachers were not part of the decision making process. By then, most people expected to be told what to do and would not initiate something on their own, a culture inherited that even exists today. In addition, opportunities were not given to teachers to develop as leaders. While Namibians have this history on record, the fact remains that the way in which apartheid laws were put in place, the ideological basis of the policy of apartheid and its impact, was not supportive of the ideas of democracy that Namibia is advocating for today. Despite a number of series of policy guidelines and directives issued to guide the development of a democratic culture in the education sector, less is happening about the leadership of teachers in schools. This stimulated me to conduct an activity theoretical interventionist research, aimed at exploring what opportunities there are for teachers to develop as leaders. This study is a case study, operating from a generative standpoint. The study was conducted in a semi-urban secondary school in Windhoek, Khomas Region, Namibia. The study took a formative intervention approach as it sought to bring about change to practice in the case study school and also to contribute to a body of knowledge in the field of study. This qualitative study employed interviews, observations, document analysis and WhatsApp messaging as data generation tools. Crystallised data revealed multiple realities that demonstrated meaningful and trustworthy data. To analyse data the study employed inductive and abductive analysis to make data meaningful to the reader. Thus, to explore teacher leadership development in a semi-urban secondary school, Change Laboratories Workshops was used as a method to gather and analyse data, as underpinned by 2nd generation CHAT. Grant’s (2017) model of teacher leadership was also used to analyse the data and indicate where teacher leadership roles were mostly visible from all four zones. The findings revealed that there were different understandings of the notion of teacher leadership. It was understood as the possession of certain qualities, a managerial role, an involvement in the decision-making process and a form of social responsibility. It was also revealed that teachers led in all four zones (Grant, 2017b), however participants were not active in all the roles. High participation was noticed in zone one, within the classroom; zone two, leading in curricular and extra-curricular activities and zone four, leading beyond the school into the community. This study explored teacher leadership development and at length identified the conditions that constrained and enabled teachers to develop as leaders in a secondary school. The factors that constrained teacher leadership in the case study school were: lack of time, demanding workloads and other commitments, lack of interest in extramural activities and SMT support for initiatives. Fear and unwillingness to take on leadership roles, narrow views on leadership and ingrained traditional leadership structures, limited leadership capacity building initiatives and the absence of clear educational policies on teacher leadership were also identified. The high involvement in zone one, two and four were attributed to some mechanisms the school put in place to promote teacher leadership, such as through various committees set-up, as well as a culture of mutual care and love. During the change laboratory workshops, teachers opted to be trained in leadership-related matters and to revive the CPD committee.
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