6.3 Causes of unethical behaviour among some principals and educators
6.3.7 Availability of opportunity to do unethical activities
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misappropriation of school funds according to the law. Unfortunately, as principals we do it though some of us take advantage of such programmes to benefit themselves.
(Mr Ndlovu, principal of Iphothwe Secondary school)
Mr Mhlophe similarly stated that:
I have observed and heard many wrongful doings of school principals such as embezzling or misappropriating school funds without being punished for that. Even at my school, a lot of things my former principals were doing without our knowledge which some ended up living school because they were alleged to have misappropriated or embezzled school funds. Under a period of 10 years, we have had five if not six principals having been moved to other schools because were suspected to have squandered school finds.
(Mr Mhlophe, post level 1 educator of Ikhethelo Primary school)
Mr Ngobese highlighted that some principals will obviously exploit the flows in the controls that are non-existence in the Department when it comes to managing finances:
A principal from the neighbouring school had resigned a year ago because he was investigated after a teacher from his school reported him to have solicited a loan of R25000.00 from loan shark in the area claiming to use that money to pay for security guard.
(Mr Ngobese, the principal of Zakhele Primary School)
Similar sentiments were echoed by Ms Grootboom, who said that:
In my previous school, which was a fee-paying school, more money went to the school administration clerk, principal, and even to teachers’ pockets, unaccounted for. This happened during the times when report cards were issued at the end of the year to learners and were paying cash to the principal, clerk to access their report cards. Some teachers were advising their class learners to pay to them as report cards were issued by the teachers. Principal was unable to reprimand teachers as he knew that teachers were aware that a lot of money was going into his pocket without being accounted for.
(Ms Grootboom, post level 1 educator of Zakhele Primary School)
134 A congruent view was shared by Mhlophe who said:
More money went to sport organisers’ pockets in the previous years at our school.
Learners were paying more for the trip and the organisers were pocketing some money as money was not deposited in the school account. They were not accounting to the previous principals about money collected from learners. However, they reported about the trip as well as the results only.
(Mr Mhlophe, post level 1 educator from Ikhethelo Primary School)
Judging by the participants’ utterances, it is clear that corruption is multifaceted. The school principals succumb to the temptation of money. Suppliers who work with schools are able to convince those principals who are morally weak to act against the school policies, which they are expected to be the custodians of. Further, the findings seem to suggest that it is not only the school principals who are perpetuating corruption in schools but also teachers at the lower levels. In the positions that they hold in various committees, teachers tend to find ways of financially benefitting themselves with the money they have collected for school activities or programmes.
It is worth noting, though, that sometimes principals engage in unethical practices with no intention to harm others or to benefit themselves. They sometimes divert money budgeted for a specific activity to run other programmes such as afternoon and Saturday matric classes. Some principals are forced by the circumstances to make unauthorised the school resources that they have bought with the state finances. Due to lack of money, they end up negotiating with the loan sharks to lend them money to pay for security guards, with the intention of protecting teaching and learning aids in the main. In the township schools there is a lot of burglary taking place with an intention to steal food that is meant to feed learner and that was provided by the National Schools Feeding Programme, computers and other school resources. However, though the intention may be good, the conduct is against the law. Therefore, school principals need to have full understanding of the policies that govern their duties and uphold those policies as stipulated.
Moreover, the failure of school principals to communicate policies and adhere to the policies themselves creates gaps for teachers to receive the money that is due to the school and not to forward it to where it is supposed to go. Educators are quick to learn from the conduct of their leader and emulate their leader’s conduct. That said, some principals are by nature corrupt.
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They take advantage of the illiteracy of the school governing body members by advising them to sign blank cheques and principals put in the figure of amount they need, without the knowledge of the member who signed. In sum, the situations that are obtaining in schools are as a result of the school principals using their powers to benefit themselves. Principals at times do the wrong things in pursuit of their own selfish narrow interests, hence opting to abuse their power.
Butts (2013) avers that power corrupts a person who is in authority. Therefore, having power opens the doors for principals to capitalise on personal gains. Business ethics are different from laws because in some circumstances it may not be illegal to engage in unethical behaviour. To elucidate the foregoing assertion, the following were put forward by Askew, Beisler, and Keel (2015) as examples of unethical behaviour that are not illegal: short cutting quality of work, abusing sick days, and lying to customers. Singh and Twalo (2015) opine that principals’
unethical behaviour is not always driven by lack of capability or capacity but sometimes is due to selfishness and personal interests. Furthermore, Singh and Twalo (2015) claim that, when inappropriate behaviour is allowed to prosper by being not punished, generally employees take the advantage of the environment because they know that there will be no negative consequences to follow their unethical behaviour. Therefore, principals and educators tend to believe that unethical behaviour as opposed to legitimate means can offer them the opportunity to realise their personal ambitions.