5.2 Data presentation
5.2.3 Influence of school categorisation on learner performance
When the participants were giving their views if school categorisation has any influence on the performance of the learners, there were mixed responses in a way that some agreed to the question and other disagreed. Mr Zukwa, the principal of Lokishini Secondary School had the following to say:
Certainly yes, but I must mention that we do not have an alternative to choose or to groom whomever we want, we have got a mixture of learners we are unlike our neighbouring secondary schools who have a type of learner which they want
(Mr Zukwa, the principal of Lokishini Secondary School).
When asked to explained further how the mixture of learners has to do with the performance in his school. Mr Zukwa, the principal of Lokishini Secondary School stated:
Those schools are mentioning through their admission policies and their criteria have a way of identifying an underperforming learner and exclude him or her or a difficult learner in terms of behaviour. Our school was like an appendix we have taken those learners which result to our learner performance being bad
((Mr Zukwa, the principal of Lokishini Secondary School).
Similarly, Mrs Thobeka, the post level 1 teacher of Hloba Primary School explained:
Yes it does, because we are a no-fee paying school learners are not serious about their school work and above all we got large number of learners who cannot perform academically and should have been referred to special schools
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(Mrs Thobeka, post level 1 teacher of Hloba Primary School).
Likewise, Mrs Ngema, the post level 1 teacher of Ngoyi Primary School had the following to say:
A person outside the school may not see the influence of this categorisation but it does affect the performance of our learners in such a way that learners are not taking their school work seriously and nobody is supporting us in terms of bringing in remedial specialists
(Mrs Ngema, the post level 1 teacher of Ngoyi Primary School).
Some participants felt school categorisation was not an issue to them, thus they had a task to teach their learners and they were able to execute their duties regardless of the category their school was in. Mrs Khuleka, the post level 1 teachers of Toyi Primary School said the following.
Not at all, it does it not. As a school firstly, we ensure that there is effective teaching and learning in classrooms. At the end of the year we evaluate the good performance of learners which we are able to equate and compare with Ex-Model C schools. And we are proud of that
(Mrs Khuleka, the post level 1 teachers of Toyi Primary School).
Likewise, Mr Bell, the principal of Mshini Secondary School explained:
It does not, we were so fortunate and our school was lucky because our learners worked so hard and they really managed to perform to the best of their ability. Look at our grade twelve results there are the evidence of good performance of our learners
(Mr Bell, the principal of Mshini Secondary School).
Corroborating what Mr Zukwa, the principal of Lokishini Secondary School said was the school log book entry dated 24 April 2014 where the Superintendent of Education Management was instructing the school to admit three learners who had been removed from their schools because of behavioural problems. Looking at the final mark schedule of the school, the performance of three learners was so bad. I perused the assessment records and few learner assessment books at Ngoyi Primary School and what I found was: some of the
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learners were really struggling to meet the required assessment criteria as they were performing way below the level of their grades. This evidence corroborates what was mentioned by Mrs Ngema, the post level 1 teacher of Ngoyi Primary School. In addition, the letter dated 2 March 2015 to Toyi Primary School from the District Office was inviting the principal to the Annual National Assessment Awards function for the good performance of the school. Moreover, there was the certificate displayed in school foyer stating the position the school had received for Annual National Assessment Awards. This evidence corroborates what Mrs Khuleka, the post level 1 teacher, pointed out during our discussion when she mentioned that they are able to equal or match their learners’ performance to that of former Model C Schools. There was similar evidence in the form of a certificate displayed at the foyer of Mshini Secondary School where the school was congratulated by the Department of Education for their 98, 5 % Grade 12 pass rates for the 2014 academic year. Perusing the assessments records of Hloba Primary School as well as the records of the Annual National Assessment, the performance of the learners was appalling. In 2013 and 2014 the school Annual National Assessment results were 3 % and 2 % respectively. I do not know whether such results at Hloba Primary School can be attributed to no-fee paying as Mrs Thobeka, the post level 1 teacher suggested. The study by Jelagat (2014) showed that the high learner performance in his study schools was strengthened by the commitment of the all the structures of the schools which resulted in the positive school ethos. In addition, Deal and Peterson (2009) posit that artefacts that recognise the performance of learners provides motivation and shout out that the school has done great if not excellent things. Hogg and Abrams (1999) postulate that the in-group based identities may be categorised along the social identity theory stereotyping of the intellectual outcomes of the in-group.
The findings from the study schools seem to suggest that schools do not focus on the negatives of their individual categorisations but at the broader picture of the learner performance by ensuring that they inject more effort to produce the good results.
The following theme discusses the influence of school categorisation on the schools effectiveness.
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