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Exploring the practices of school management teams (SMT's) in the promotion of quality teaching and learning: A case study of three rural primary schools in King Williams Town District

- Blie-Musoke, Nondumiso

Authors: Blie-Musoke, Nondumiso
Date: 2012-01
Subjects: School management teams , Effective teaching
Language: English
Type: Master's theses , text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/24671 , vital:63434
Description: This study sought to investigate the practices that the School Management Teams (SMTs) utilize in promoting and monitoring quality teaching and learning in the rural primary schools. The researcher thought it important due to the fact that such actions form part of their central activities. It also aims to explore the kind of difficulties that may be experienced by these formations in rural settings while supporting quality teaching and learning. The main delineations and limitations of this work was that SMTs are supposed to be operational across the spectrum of schools from the first grade to the last one in the high schools. However, due to time constraints and lack of resources, this study was only carried out in three rural primary schools of the king William’s Town district. SMTs are ideally made up of the Principal, Deputy-Principal and HODs (school heads of Department) of these sampled schools who were interviewed. However, in some of the schools under study, the positions of HOD and deputy-principals had already been abolished. The researcher was informed that this was because they had low numbers of learners. In such instances, Senior Teachers were substituted since they are incorporated in the SMTs of those schools. These educators were purposively selected from the foundation, intermediate and senior phases in each primary school. With the research exploring the practices of the SMTs of three rural primary schools, a case study research design was utilized. The research instruments utilized by the researcher to collect data in this case study were Interviews and Document Analysis. The data collected was put into categories and interpreted into common themes. Sources included responses of the participants, school documents, field notes and other relevant documentation such as minutes of the minutes of the SMTs. Constructs, themes and patterns that speak to the strategies used by SMTs in promoting teaching and learning in schools were explored. Briefly, the main findings indicated that the SMTs of the sampled rural primary schools do understand the Departmental policies, but need to be innovative and create space for the practices that they could employ to promote quality teaching and learning. They seem to be working under difficult circumstances. They are grossly over-loaded as full-time administrators and teachers with many learning areas, as well as being responsible for the school nutrition programme. The vacant posts created by retired caretakers added to the overload. There was a concern about the difficulty they were experiencing in the teaching and learning of Mathematics which is nationally regarded as a scarce skill. As an overview of the researcher’s conclusions, it is noted that the SMTs do support the educators to a certain extent. However, there was no documentation that showed how resolutions were made and implemented to validate the nature of support that they give to them. There seemed to be a lack of meaningful parental involvement in the sampled rural primary schools, possibly due to poverty, lack of education and alcohol abuse in the community. Lastly, it seemed to the researcher that there could be uncertainty and uneasiness about the functionality of the senior teachers. Their job descriptions as members of the SMTs remain vaguely defined. In response to the problem statement posed in this study, six major recommendations were made as follows: • Schools, irrespective of their size, ought to have clerks who are able to deal specifically with office administration and external communications. • The teacher-learner ratio as a means of determining the number of educators a school ought to have, should be reviewed as a matter of urgency, if the vital goal of quality teaching and learning is to be realized. • A clear official mandate concerning the job description of senior teachers ought to be established and their positions advertised in that category. This will ensure their equitable distribution as some schools are having them in excess, while others have none. • The department of Education should work with sister departments in government such as Social Development to enforce the law regarding parental negligence. A data basis of negligence parents should be compiled by the concerned departments and reviewed from time to time. Teachers should attend workshops on various policies that govern their roles in the delivery of quality teaching and learning. They need not be conversant with the subject matter only, but also with the relevant policies as a vehicle that facilitates service delivery in education. The introduction of Mathematics support educators who specialized in the learning area should be introduced in each phase of schooling. Such incumbents would rotate from school to school within a circuit, with special reference to rural schools where they would tackle problematic topics as reported by the educators. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, 2012
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Date Issued: 2012-01

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