An investigation of participative management in a museum in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Madinda, Nozipho
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Museums -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Management , Management -- Employee participation , Albany Museum (Grahamstown, South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2068 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020847
- Description: The purpose of my research was to investigate participative management at the Albany Museum with a view to generating knowledge and insights that can be used to support senior management’s engagement with participative management at mid-management level. My interest was to investigate participative management with regards to five HODs of the Albany Museum with a view to generating knowledge and insights that can be used to support senior management’s engagement with participative management at mid-management level. The research was informed by the interpretive paradigm. The interpretive paradigm does not concern itself with the search for broadly applicable laws and rules but rather seeks to produce descriptive analyses that emphasise deep interpretation and understanding of social phenomena through the meaning that the people assign to them. This study is mostly descriptive and presents the reality of participants from their own experience. Semi-structured interviews and observation capture ‘insider’ knowledge that is part of an interpretive methodology. The study found that participative management was both understood and generally accepted as a good way to manage an organisation, and even members who were critical of it could see its benefits. However, the fractured and diversified structure of the organisation calls for a particularly skillful application of this management approach, one which would also demand leadership and a greater sense of working towards what are called collegial models of management. Whether this is in fact desirable for a museum is debatable.
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Exploring teacher leadership: A case study at a senior secondary school in the Ohangwena region, Namibia
- Authors: Hamatwi, Isak
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/1275 , vital:20042
- Description: Leadership has been for long thought to centre on the actions of a positional head of the organisation crafting the vision and influencing followers’ behaviour based on his/her charisma and legal authority in a quest to achieve the set goals (Christie, 2010). However, contemporary views “emphasise leadership as relational” (Van der Mescht & Tyala, 2008, p. 226) and focuses more on the practice while taking form “in the interactions between leaders and followers” (Spillane, 2005, p. 146). Looking through the lens of distributed leadership and using the Grant’s (2008; 2012) model of teacher leadership as a data analytical tool, this research study aimed to explore the enactment of teacher leadership at a secondary school in the Ohangwena region, Namibia. The motivation of this research study was twofold; one, it was due to my personal interest in getting a deeper understanding of what constituted teacher leadership as a concept which is gaining momentum in the educational leadership discipline; two, it was due to the evident knowledge gap existing on the concept of teacher leadership as there seemed to be very less research done on the concept. Using observation schedules, survey questionnaires, semi-structured interview schedules and analysing documents as data collecting tools, the study was geared towards answering four research questions which were driving the study, namely; i) In what ways do teachers participate in the leadership activities of the school? ii) What is the nature of the relations of these leadership activities? iii) What factors that may constrain the leadership activities of these teachers? iv) How do the principal and the School Management Team (SMT) encourage teacher leadership at the school? The study was of a qualitative nature located in the interpretive paradigm. A purposive sampling method was used to select research participants The findings of the study indicated that the research participants had a general understanding of what teacher leadership entails. Teachers enacted leadership across the four zones of Grant’s (2008; 2012) model of teacher leadership, though with very limited teacher leadership enactment in zone four. Zones one, two and three proved to be the popular media of teacher leadership enactment wherein teachers led in their classrooms enforcing discipline, serving as guides and caregivers to their learners (zone one). Teachers then extended their leadership outside their classrooms where they served as decision makers, curriculum developers for knowledge enhancement through reflective teaching and sport coaches (zone two). In Zone three, teachers led in committees’ structures, as mentors of learners, policy makers and as models of good practice. Zone four was the least media of teacher leadership. The data pointed to a host of factors that prevented teachers to assume leadership at the case study school, namely; ignorance and fear for accountability, policy and regulatory limitations, time limitations, limited skills and teachers as barriers to teacher leadership in terms of apathy, lack of confidence, negative attitude and anti-social behaviours as well as professional jealous. Nevertheless, the principal and the SMT emerged as catalysts for teacher leadership at the school as they enabled teacher leadership in a number of ways, namely, through delegation, motivation, free choice, open engagement, moral support and interdependence leadership practices. In the final analysis, the findings revealed that, leadership at the case study school was manifested as spontaneous collaborated leadership practices through institutionalised practices embarked upon with intuitive working relationships.
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Managerial leadership in committees: a case study in a public rural combined school in the Ohangwena region, Namibia
- Authors: Vaeta, Simon
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/1220 , vital:20036
- Description: The existing education legislations in Namibia call for school principals to put in place appropriate support mechanisms and create necessary internal conditions for leaders, including teachers who do not hold formal leadership positions, to exert their sphere of influence beyond the classroom and into school-wide leadership activities. The establishment of various committees in the school is to enhance and improve the performance of the school and to create a pleasant work environment and spirit of collaboration and teamwork (Namibia Ministry of Education, [MoE], 2005). Leadership in committees is one of the expectations of new education policy. The aim of this study was to explore the leadership practices within a range of committees in a public rural combined school in the Ohangwena region of Namibia. It further unpacked the purpose, roles and membership of each of the four committees; how these committees were established; what leadership functions the teachers as committee members exercised and what challenges inhibited their leadership practices within committees. The study provided recommendations for future research in the area of leadership practices in committees. This research is a case study. The study is designed within the qualitative interpretive paradigm. It is rooted in a social constructivist tradition and employs a range of data collection tools, namely document analysis, semi-structured interviews, observations and questionnaires to enhance the validity of findings. The study found that committees were established in line with the Namibian education legislation. However, the study found the principal lacked the experience and skills to use the committee system more effectively, and maintained the status quo. This resulted in the committees practising pure management responsibilities rather than leadership interest. The study also found that only the leadership tasks were distributed to the committees but the power was not distributed. It was revealed that committees were dormant; while they were named in school documents, they functioned variously, intermittently or not at all. The significance of the contradiction was there were no regulations to guide the conduct of committee members.
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The role of leadership in shaping organisational culture in a school in Namibia.
- Authors: Nangolo, Filemon
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2075 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021303
- Description: The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of leadership in shaping the culture of a rural combined school in Oshikoto Region, northern Namibia. This school had previously performed poorly in terms of Grade 10 examination statistics for many years. However, after the appointment of a new Principal, the academic performance of the school has improved tremendously over for the past five years. Having been a teacher, Head of Department, Deputy Principal, Principal, and later an Inspector of Education, I had long held the view that the academic performance of the school depended entirely on the type of leadership the school had. Equally, I have always been aware of the negative impact of the past segregation and the discriminatory education provided by the colonial masters in South Africa and South West Africa/Namibia. The poor education provided to South Africans and the then South West Africa /Namibia posed a serious challenge to the leadership and management of schools as the majority of Principals, if not all, were poorly and inadequately trained to provide the necessary skills needed for one to be a successful Principal. Given this background, I tried to use a case study to explore the role of leadership in shaping the culture of the organisation. Research suggests that there is a strong relationship between organisational culture and school effectiveness. This study was guided by Schein’s three levels of organisational culture namely artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions (Schein, 1992, p. 17). From these arise the following research questions: What do artifacts (symbols, structures, procedures and policies) reveal about the school culture? What are the espoused values shaping the school culture? What basic assumptions underpin the leadership of the school culture? How does leadership contribute to the creation and maintenance of a positive organisational culture at a school? The data was collected by using three different data collection methods namely, observation, document analysis and interviewing different people who hold leadership positions in the school. These were the Principal, a Head of Department, School Board chairperson, a teacher in the school management team (SMT) and a class monitor. With regard to data analysis, I first immersed myself in the data and I developed themes that formed the basis of my discussion with my research questions in mind. The analysis revealed that leadership plays a pivotal role in shaping the culture at the case study school. However, it emerged that despite the existence of a strong culture at the case study school, as with all other organisations, there are some challenges that limit the school to realise its goal of 100 % A-B symbols in all subjects.
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