6. CHAPTER SIX: PROBLEMATISING THE NOTION OF “SUSTAINABLE
6.2 Looking Back
In this section I focus on how the journey started and explain how I moved on throughout all the chapters. The report is made up of six chapters.
In Chapter One I introduced the study. I signposted what policies in Swaziland say regarding resources in secondary schools. I reported on government having interest in procuring sufficient resources that meet the needs of all learners. I identified the need in the country to examine secondary school infrastructure and distribution to create a register of the buildings and their geographic location in relation to feeder primary schools in the country. I identified the research problem as to do with the need to understand the processes of generating and managing resources in secondary schools. I argued that there was not enough evidence on how schools fared with regard to generating and managing resources. I set the scene and explained that the availability of resources is the cornerstone of sustainable economic and social development of a country in general and progress in education in particular. Olatoun (2012) makes it clear that government and parents‟ expenditure on education is largely regarded as an investment. There is need for continuous appraisal for public secondary schools to ensure cost effectiveness and prudence on educational resources, as it is the case with business and industry sectors.
156
In Chapter Two I reviewed literature. The chapter unfolded through eight themes to do with resource generation and management. First, I explained the key concepts and resolved that resources constitute a strategic factor in organisational functioning, so their availability, adequacy and relevance influence organisational efficiency and productivity (Owoeye &
Yara, 2011; Ada & Ada, 2013). Secondly, I explored practices in schools regarding resource mobilisation and management through previous studies. There-from, it emerged that expanding and developing educational systems was of high priority in many governments.
Also, strategic management is crucial as it promotes knowledge sharing, transparency, monitoring and evaluation. It facilitates development of partnerships with more engagement of civil society and private sector.
Thirdly, I discussed literature on the status of resource provision in Swaziland including issues of record keeping and policy implementation. Fourthly, I examined factors influencing resource generation in other parts of the world. In this section I also discussed strategies and principles of generating resources. Fifthly, I identified and discussed six management functions which managers need in their operation to improve decision making in schools namely planning, organising, leading, coordinating, controlling and commanding. Sixthly, I isolated five important management skills for school managers. One is the use of modern technology skills to care for resources; high involvement management skills; networking skills needed for managers to mobilise educational resources and improved procurement and budgeting skills with a greater focus on value for money. The forth one is human skill, which is the cooperative effort, teamwork and the creation of an environment in which people feel secure and free to express their opinions. Finally it is design skill, the ability to solve problems in ways that benefit the organisation or working out a practical solution to a problem in the light of the realities they face in schools. Seventh, I examined arguments on factors that influence resource mobilisation. These include the use of entrepreneurial approaches in resource mobilisation for organisations. Finally, I touched on some sustainable practices regarding resource generation and management. These include the use of school clusters, sharing expertise, accessing economies of scale when making shared purchases, identifying relevant resource inputs for the attainment of educational goals and ensuring appropriate training and regular supervision of educational resources.
157
In Chapter Three I explained the theoretical framework of the study. The framework is three- pronged comprising of the following: collegial model, systems theory and funding model.
The collegial model is a management approach through which organisational members work as colleagues towards reaching a mutual understanding about objectives of the institution shared among some or all members of the organisation (Bush, 2003). In this case, the collegial model formed part of the justification for the optimistic assumption that it is possible to reach an agreement about school goals and policies as a team. According to Shrifian (2011) the collegial model contends that by developing close relationships with their staff managers develop a more effective working environment. Employees see themselves as a closely-knit team where each member has an important say in the decision-making process.
The systems approach entails a set of different independent parts working together in interrelated manner to accomplish set objectives (Deacon & Fiebough, 1988). The quality of resource inputs available for a school determines the type of result (outputs) (Castillo, 2014).
According to Fasasi (2011) it is important for managers to maintain effective interpersonal relationships with the community and external agencies. Therefore, the systems theory suggests that the external environment influences the process of management inside any organisation. Funding models are to do with efficiency and sustainability of resources. They suggest possible strategies that may improve school governance in mobilising educational resources for long-run operation of schools (Downes, 2007).
The three-pronged theoretical framework gave an insight that, in a school system, the teaching and learning process is dynamic and that best results are achieved when the most suitable resources are fed into the teaching-learning processes in the best way possible. This implied that for the success of a school operation there should be cooperation, connectivity and collaboration among systems and sub-systems of education and beyond.
In Chapter Four I presented and explained the methodological toolkit of the study. I positioned the study within the pragmatist paradigm. As explained by Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2009) pragmatism helps shed light on how research approaches can be mixed fruitfully in ways that offer the best opportunities for addressing the research questions. I reported that the study adopted a mixed methods approach, seeking to explain, understand and capture the processes of generating and managing educational resources in schools.
Therefore, I adopted a combination of the quantitative and qualitative methods. These two are
158
compatible and possess fundamental values to allow their combination within a single study.
I discussed the research design as a multiple site case study.
To generate data I utilised multiple-sources including a questionnaire, face-to-face interviews, focus group interviews and document analysis. Informed by literature the mixed methods approaches involve various steps in analysing the data, therefore, I adopted the concurrent triangulation data analysis procedure (Creswell & Clark, 2007).
According to the procedure, each of the quantitative and qualitative data-sets are analysed separately then merged to develop a complete picture. This was followed by answering questions related to data convergence, the extent to which similar types of data confirmed each other and the extent to which open-ended themes supported survey results. I reported that quantitative data were analysed through descriptive statistics and qualitative data by categorisation into related themes. I clarified the processes of trustworthiness as well as ethical considerations.
In the Fifth Chapter I presented and discussed the data. I did so through four themes that emerged from the data analysis namely perspectives on sourcing educational resources;
availability, adequacy and management of resources; factors influencing resource generation and management; and sustainable practices in resource generation and management. In the next section I crystallise the findings of the study.