5.7. Structural and policy-driven challenges faced by district officials
5.7.1. Insufficient capacity in principals, SGBs, teachers, and district officials
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learning while the context of teaching and learning is complex and unpredictable with constant changes (Honig & Rainey, 2015). The following section of this chapter moves presents and discusses the structural and policy-driven challenges DOs face.
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District directors attributed poor leadership by principals to a lack of accountability systems on managing principals' performance. One DD said: And I have been saying it, to say, up until we have principals signing a performance contract, we are not going to win DD1. Similarly, DD2 share a similar view on the accountability of principals. She said: They lack accountability, they lack managing timelines, delivering on targets that are set for those. Yes, we deal with that because those are the schools that we categorise for specialised interventions. We continue to support them. One participant shared her view on how principals' poor leadership impacted DOs day-to-day operations. CLI2 said;
Poor leadership by some principals is a challenge. We end up attending to a crisis that can be avoided…It becomes too heavy for me as a manager now, because I do not know where to touch, it is burning there, once we are far away, fifty kilometres away, you are told another place is burning, while we have school managers who are supposed to manage the situations.
Participants also shared their views on principals not wanting to make unpopular decisions and, consequently, requesting DOs to intervene. DD2 shared his recent account of one principal who failed to make a decision when one HoD decided to leave for the external examination marking while that HoD had not met obligations of finishing the work first before leaving. That principal reported the matter to the district office. He explained
I will report you to the district; to do what. They do not want to be seen to be the ones that are taking that difficult decision. I have got one DCES; he is sitting with schools that have not submitted marks, you know. When I asked the principal, why?
No, the HoD decided to go to the marking centre. But I said, you signed that thing, you allowed that person to go to the marking centre.
Similarly, CLI2 shared her experience
Like when you go to schools, you will find SMTs say, can you please attend that teacher, and so on and so on. Trying to pass the buck, and what they must do, they are not doing, but they want us to do it for them. And thina [us] we are not there for that.
The above accounts on school managers’ insufficient capacity suggest a need for principals’
capacity building on taking hard decisions. Also, one DO believed that lack of capacity by
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principals was a result of the recruitment processes of principals. DD1 believed that the responsibility of appointments to be done by the School Governing Bodies posed a challenge.
This is what he said;
You see, there is a perception in some areas that says the whole idea of having SGBs to be instrumental in the appointment of principals is a big challenge, you know. And I am not taking anything away from them, but if you do not have the right leader, you must forget. In this district, I can tell you that if there is an issue, it would always be around posts. And that is an element of destabilising everything, you know. So, those that must assist us in appointing the right people for the right job. We are not getting the right people to do that, so that is negative.
From this quote, School Governing Bodies (SGBs) seemed to sometimes lack expertise in making appointments for principals. DD2 further indicated that SGBs involvement in school governance resulted in conflicts. They shared their views;
Conflict in schools impacts negatively. I do have schools where the principal was sitting in the SGB, has a conflict with the Chairperson of the SGB, you know, and have to spend hours trying to resolve the crisis. That is good quality time that they should be used to account on teaching and learning. So, those factors impact negatively. DD2
While SGB involvement seemed a challenge in both participating districts, it did not stop DOs to try to address this challenge. DD1’s quote exemplifies how DOs communicated with SGBs and principals, underscoring the importance of prioritising curriculum when there are SGB meetings;
We emphasise with our SGBs and principals that they must have standing agenda items on their meetings when there are parents meetings, items including curriculum issues, learner performance so that parents can be informed so that they can know and know the expectations. They must know, when we speak about issues, they must understand them. But our Governing Bodies do not, for now, understand their role, you know. For them, it is all about money and nothing else. The curriculum is not at the centre of the discussions. But I always say, Governing Bodies, the first agenda item in their meeting, must be curricula, you know. And those things do not happen, you know.
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It also came out that lack of teacher capacity could also be a factor that hindered DOs attempts to support teaching and learning. As a result, DOs’ believe that their role is to ascertain and discover the gap in terms of teacher capacity to teach the content.
Because we need to look maybe, out of the three teachers, maybe there is this one who is pulling the whole grade or the whole subject down. So, we need to look at, who is it? What is it? What is the challenge? So, sometimes you will pick up that maybe, maybe it is the teacher. The concept, maybe she is not like, good in the concept, then she will do ‘touch and go.’ You just introduce the concept then you move on. So, we engage in such issues and then make recommendations, and then we will do a follow-up. When the next time comes also, and during school visits, we interact to say, what are you doing concerning the issues that we raised during the data conversation? Yes. CLI2
However, a concern was on the imbalances in learning outcomes, which were attributed to teacher performance. DD2 shared her view;
Some teachers are not reaching the learners as best as they are supposed to. You have, in this district, our Maths and Science are at 50%, and there is a teacher every day in the classroom. And for me, there are pockets of teachers that are producing 80% and above. In the same breath, an educator can hardly produce 20%, and it is the same Maths and Science educator in another school in the same area. So, teachers sometimes do contribute negatively to achieving the targets, though we do have programs to support.
While there was a general concern on poor leadership and management by some principals and teachers, district directors DOs’ lack of capacity, which at times hindered the strategies they put in place to support schools, DD2 said: The capacity of officials in the district sometimes does fail our strategies on the ground. Similarly, DD1 claimed;
It cannot be the principal alone. Where is the supervisor, where is the circuit manager? Where was your strategy to say; I can account that these schools have been supported, they know what to deliver on? So that is lacking. That is lacking;
it is not there. Ja, in the district, there are those people who will not be comfortable to keep taking certain decisions. And they allow things to flow even things are not correct, you know.
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This theme suggests that the lack of capacity of principals, SMTs, teachers, and DOs could hinder DOs endeavours from supporting teaching and learning. DOs also believed that policies of recruitment of principals were a result of this challenge.
5.7.2. Misalignment between district and head office and within the district