One of the problems of school improvement initiatives mentioned in section 2.3.2 is that changes that have been achieved through these initiatives are not institutionalised and do not endure. In places like the Eastern Cape, for example, there have many attempts at improvement of schools through projects like READ, SEP, and the Molteno Language Project mentioned in section 1.1, but matric results continue to be very poor.
School improvement requires that implementation of changes be sustained over time (Miles, 1998). This means that innovations that have been implemented need longevity to have any durable effects (Huberman, 1992), and this in turn requires that the changes be institutionalised. Institutionalisation means that the change is ‘built in’
to the life of the school. It is a process of making the change routine, that it becomes part of the ordinary life of the school, is treated as a normal, taken-for-granted part of organisational life, and has unquestioned resources of time, personnel and money available (Miles, 1998; Sergiovanni, 1991). Miles and Sergiovanni observe that changes in governance, student groupings, curriculum, time schedule and teacher roles do not normally survive on commitment or even evidence of efficacy but require new structural arrangements to become institutionalised when regular systems are adjusted to reflect these patterns. Huberman (1992) notes that proven and
acknowledged success is usually a necessary but by no means a sufficient requirement for institutionalisation. Therefore successful implementation of changes is not enough if nothing is done to sustain them. This study is about the changes in disadvantaged schools which lack resources of time, whose personnel may lack the relevant experience in management and effective methods of teaching as well as in governance. These pose challenges to the institutionalisation of the changes introduced. In schools which have these resources institutionalisation is likely to be assured.
According to Fullan (1991: 209) sustained improvement requires serious restructuring of the school, the district, and their interrelationships. This discussion assumes that schools are either ‘ineffective’ or ‘struggling’. It must be noted, however, that schools that are performing well and privileged can take time to transform because the focus of interventions tends to be on ineffective and struggling schools. As a result such schools can take time to change. My experience is that this restructuring depends on the individual circumstances prevailing at the time and in a particular school, the quality and disposition of staff at both the school and the district. Schools where teachers and the principal are qualified, and the principal, staff and the parents work co-operatively and systems are functioning effectively, the school district relationship needs to be relaxed. In this way the school is allowed enough latitude to experiment. Incidents in South Africa indicate that schools that have a rich parent base and are performing well in terms of student performance can avoid restructuring for a long time because they are seldom the focus of district or provincial officials
In effective and struggling schools, however, the role of the district is crucial. Fullan (1991) argues that ineffective and struggling schools can become highly innovative for short periods of time without the district, but they cannot stay innovative without district action to establish the conditions for continuous and long-term improvement.
Changes need to be embedded in stable organisational routines, be well-linked to policy above the school level, and not require sustained extra energy (Miles, 1998).
As indicated earlier, if the activities of interventions such as the IP are not sustained,
that changes in practice which are introduced through interventions of about three years are allowed to develop into a culture that is embedded before the schools can be given a high degree of autonomy. One of the broad aims of this study is to identify the possible factors that are likely to impinge on the sustainability and institutionalisation of the IP aims. The following section will discuss the factors that are thought to help ensure sustainability of the activities of interventions such as the IP. The aim is to examine the extent to which these have or have not contributed to the institutionalisation of the IP and why.
2.6.1 Changing the culture of the school
This section discusses the contribution of culture to the sustainability and endurance of changes resulting from external interventions such as the IP.
Culture is a reflection of shared values, beliefs and commitment of school members across an array of dimensions that include but extend beyond interpersonal life.
Culture helps direct attention to the symbols, behavioural regularities, ceremonies, and even myths that communicate to people the underlying values and beliefs that are shared by members of an organisation. It represents a source of inspiration, meaning and significance for those who live and work in the school (Sergiovanni, 1998;
Meyerson & Martin, 1997.)
Miles (1998: 63) notes that early in 90s change researchers and reformers expressed the need for ‘restructuring’ to be accompanied by ‘reculturing’. Restructuring is concerned with changing roles while reculturing is concerned with changing values and beliefs. Restructuring needs to be accompanied by reculturing. For example, the shift from teacher-centred to learner-centred approach is a component of restructuring as roles of teachers and learners have to change. This needs to be accompanied by a change in belief and values about how students learn and this will take a long time.
Hopkins, et al (1997: 269) also observes that the ultimate achievement of improvement is a transformation of the culture of the school. However, the process of cultural change is not a one-off activity, but evolves and unfolds over time (Hopkins, et al, 1997). Fullan (1991) suggests a period of ten years of doing the right things
consistently and persistently. In developing countries where most of the school improvement projects like the IP are externally funded and are tied to a three year cycle, the schools do not get enough time for a cultural change to occur. This may result in changes that have been achieved not enduring and the investments made being a waste.
School-based models of educational change often result in changes in formal decision-making structures but rarely result in a focus on developing instructional skills or on changing the culture of the school (Fullan & Miles, 1992: 747). This results in superficial changes. Changes in structure are especially susceptible to superficiality and unrealistic time lines. This means that, to achieve sustainability, changes in structure must go hand in hand with changes in culture and in the individual and collective capacity to work through new structures (Fullan & Miles, 1992: 748). Purkey and Smith (1985) note that efforts to change school have been productive and most enduring when directed toward influencing the entire school culture via a strategy involving collaborative planning, shared decision-making, and collegial work in an atmosphere friendly to implementation and evaluation.
In a study conducted among secondary schools West, Ainscow and Stanford (2005) found that principals identified changing the culture of the school as one of the strategies for achieving sustainable improvement. According to the principals interviewed, changing the culture involved changing values and beliefs. This involved building relationships, strengthening morale and raising expectations.
Changing behaviour can take a short time but changing beliefs and values is a long- term process that develops as people engage in action related to an intervention. The three-year cycle of most interventions works against the length of time required to change beliefs and values and suggested by Fullan (1991) and other protagonists.
This makes it imperative for the government to inherit the burden of providing and maintaining the activities of the intervention until the schools have developed the necessary culture to be able to own the activities of the intervention.
2.6.2 District support and pressure
It has been accepted by most school improvement protagonists that the school is the centre of change. However, according to Fullan (1991), the concept of the school as a centre of change should not be misconstrued to mean that it can be isolated from its socio-political context and can engage in self-renewing activities without the district.
He maintains that the school will never become the centre of change if left to its own devices. However, it must be noted that Fullan is obviously referring to those schools that are described by Stoll and Fink (1996) as cruising, struggling, sinking schools and lack the capacity to manage change without support from outside. These are the schools that are usually targeted for intervention and need continuous support and monitoring. Schools that are described as moving, however, need to be left alone because, according to Stoll and Fink (1996: 86):
people within them are … actively working together to respond to their changing context and to keep developing. They know where they are going;
they have systems and the ‘will and the skill’….to get there.
The schools referred to above do need to keep contact but must be allowed more latitude to experiment and such schools must be encouraged to solicit assistance from the district office when they need it. Such schools usually have principals and staff that are so confident and positive that they are usually ready to solicit assistance when they need it.
As indicated earlier, frequently change in a school is the result of system initiatives that live or die based on the strategies and supports offered by the larger organization (Fullan, 1991:73). Fullan (1991: 198) further argues that adopted changes will not go anywhere on any scale unless district staff provide specific implementation pressure and support. He observes that successful change projects always include elements of both pressure and support. In the study of secondary principals that they conducted, West et al (2005) reached a conclusion that there was evidence of balanced use of pressure and support in achieving sustained improvement. Pressure without support leads to resistance, while support without pressure leads to drift or waste of resources (Fullan, 1991). LaRocque and Coleman (1989a: 190) concluded that effective
districts have an active and evolving accountability ethos that combines interactive monitoring with a respect for school autonomy. Fullan (1991), however, admits that there is an insoluble problem of school/district balance, precisely because it represents an inherently complex dilemma between autonomy and accountability, variation and consistency, and the like. Effective superintendents continually negotiate and monitor this relationship with school staff, attempting to stay within an acceptable corridor of mutual influence (Fullan, 1991: 211). The district officials should therefore be in close personal contact with schools so that they are able to identify appropriate specific points of pressure and support in working with schools for change (Christie, 1998: 295).
However, the Department of Education (2000) acknowledges that many of the district officials themselves are not yet proficient in the areas in which they are expected to give advice. The department, therefore, suggests that staff development should be extended beyond the school personnel. This is particularly important when interventions such as the IP are used to develop schools and their stakeholders. It should be recognised that staff in these offices may not be conversant with the content and approaches of the intervention. They are, after all, products of the schools which they have to support, and the system that they have to change. However, the problem is that it is difficult to predict when ‘pressure’ or ‘support’ or both are appropriate in a case that has not yet been encountered, nor is it possible to know in advance which form either or both should take (Huberman, 1992: 4).
2.6.3 Local ownership by the school
One of the possible ways of achieving sustainability of change is ensuring local ownership. Local ownership involves a learning process of coming to grips with new personal meaning and it is loaded with uncertainty (Fullan & Miles, 1992). Fullan (1991: 92) observes that ownership in the sense of clarity, skill and commitment is a progressive process that is not acquired easily. Yet deep ownership on the part of many people is real change. It is something that comes out the other end of a successful change process (Fullan 1991). Hopkins and Lagerweig (1996: 71) argue that without deliberate attention to the institutional steps that lock an innovation into
that persons in local situations grapple with what broad principles look like in their own practice. Ownership depends on the degree to which the capacity building intervention has been internally driven, that is, the degree to which the institution has been able to exercise its own choices in terms of activities, processes and procedures.
New meaning and new learning for those who encounter them initially require time to assimilate them. Understanding as learning also puts ownership in perspective.
Ownership of a reform cannot be achieved in advance of learning something new. A deep sense of ownership comes only through learning. So, one of the propositions for success is to understand that all change involves learning and that all learning involves coming to understand and be good at something new. Thus, for local ownership of an intervention to be achieved, conditions that support learning must be part and parcel of any change effort (Fullan & Miles, 1992). This aspect of educational change calls not only for training, but for adequate opportunity to learn, embedded in the routine organization of teachers’ workday and work year (Little, 1993: 133).