PERSONAL CONTEXT AND MOTIVATION FOR THE STUDY
2.2 My personal journey
As I write, I work full time as a researcher for the Centre for Educational Research Evaluation and Policy (C.E.R.E.P.) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (ex-University of Durban-Westville). I am also a part-time lecturer at Durban- Umlazi Campus of the University of Zululand, which is one of the previously disadvantaged black universities in South Africa. I teach an Educational Management module at B. Ed (Hons) level. This puts me in close and frequent contact with school principals; deputy-principals, heads of department and teachers. I also supervise mini-dissertation tasks that educators complete as part of course requirements. I am therefore in close touch with issues that affect rural principals and educators in different parts of the province.
I left the Department of Education in 1999. From 1990 to mid 1993, I served two schools as acting-principal under the (then) KwaZulu Department of Education
and Culture, until I was appointed as principal in 1993 by the (then) Department of Education and Training, on a permanent basis. This meant that I ran schools in two Apartheid departments of education, with different approaches to governance.
Many schools in the province in the 1980s and early 1990s went through traumas of political turmoil and instability. There were campaigns launched by underground struggle movements aimed at undermining Apartheid rule and management structures and personnel in a range of institutions; frictions between the African National Congress (ANC) and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP); disruption to schooling; burning of school buildings; depletion of the few resources available in African schools; demands by learners (and later by parents) for participation in decision-making through Student Representative Committees (SRCs) and Parent Teacher Student Associations (PTSAs), and a whole range of issues of social and political nature that put school principals in a precarious position. Principals (and others) were judged as either for the
"struggle" or against it. Confusion prevailed, because right and wrong depended on which side one was looking from. The situation was too complex for any rational decision process; survival was everyone's preoccupation.
Early appointments
When I started managing schools in 1990 in an acting capacity, I was barely five years into my teaching career. I was the youngest educator in the school, in terms of age and teaching experience, but the only educator who had a post- graduate degree. Presumably, this was an important factor in my appointment but the teaching staff also recommended that I be the person to guide them through the deeply troubled situation that existed.
The entire management team of the school had left the school within months of one another, and there was a management vacuum. The exodus of the managers occurred at the height of the 1989/1990 township violence in
Mpumalanga Township, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The conflict was between youth supporting the now defunct United Democratic Front (UDF)/African National Congress (ANC) and those supporting the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). The school served as a battleground, as it lay at the boundary between territories controlled by the warring factions. Blood was spilled within the school premises, during and after school hours.
The support I was offered by my fellow educators proved crucial, as we worked together to 'keep the ship afloat', because the entire functioning of the school was under serious threat. For example, it wasn't clear whether matriculation examinations would be written. Education Department officials were afraid to visit, because of the unpredictable and unstable security situation in and around the school. The Circuit Office officials had vacated their premises, taking refuge in the teacher training college within the township, where security was better.
Consequently, the outside world had no way of knowing what exactly was going on inside the school. I became the link between the school and outside world, but that link was weak. It was a traumatic experience for me. I decided that my main role as principal was ensuring that learners remained at school and were attending classes. A sizable number of classrooms (7 classrooms) had been destroyed in arson attacks against the school roughly 11 months before. The administration building, together with two staff rooms, had been destroyed as well. I had to ensure that rudimentary resources were available, e.g. pieces of chalk, shelter for educators so that they could sit down and prepare for lessons, or hold staff meetings etc.
During my first year as educator, I had not even been taught or briefed about the responsibilities that went with being a class teacher. Now I was the principal of the school as a whole, again with no orientation programmes. Nonetheless, I had always been interested in school management, at least at a theoretical level.
From my academic studies, I had some grounding, in terms of understanding
how people communicate and interact in organisations, as part of my post- graduate studies. I was, to that extent intellectually prepared. I left the school before I could develop and refocus it and move from the 'reactive-crises-damage control' type of management that characterised my term of office, to a more proactive-strategic mode for the future of the school.
Permanent appointment
My permanent appointment as principal came in 1993 and took me to another school context, a secondary school belonging to a different department, the DET.
Compared to my previous schools, this one was relatively well resourced, in terms of human and physical resources. Besides the principal, deputy-principals, the school had five heads of department (HODs) and five non-teaching staff members. For me, a major shift in focus in management and administration was required.
There was more paper work to be done by everybody, i.e. educators, heads of departments, deputy and the principal as well. The DET put more emphasis on ensuring that the filing system was in order.
Unlike the previous department I had worked for, the first people who had to be informed should something go wrong at school were departmental officials, not the chairman of the school committee, as had been the case in the other department.
Principals usually did not teach, and spent most of their time in their offices.
When not in their offices, they could be attending the department's meetings, which were characterised by a conveyor-belt mentality of that time. Inspectors of schools, as they were called then, used to cascade the information from higher officials in the department's bureaucracy to schools, with no inputs from principals below. It was always top-down. There was even a programme called
Top Down' through which principals were trained about the protocols of the department.
Many stakeholders were vocal in demanding representation in the decision- making processes in schools. This demand was ubiquitous in all schools in the area. Learners were putting more pressure on schools and the Education Department for recognition of their representative structures (the SRC's).
Teacher unions were also demanding participation in schools. Parents felt that they were marginalized by school principals and wanted their voices to be heard too. Consequently, Parent-Teacher-Student Associations (PTSAs) gained momentum during this period.
Being new to the DET and having to face all these challenges was not easy.
Ironically, having to attend to all these issues provided an opportunity for me to interact with various stakeholders, and in the process harness their expertise and inputs. I actually felt some kind of relief when problems arose at school, because there were many people with whom to share them, people who could co-own these problems. I felt some relief that I didn't have to carry the burden alone. The management approach I adopted was participatory and transparent. And it was helpful to me.
In the midst of all these demands and protests, never-ending meetings, (some with departmental officials, some convened by the local civic structure, some convened by principals in the circuit), work overload, and day to day issues, I found myself floundering about, not knowing what I had achieved each day, but I would notice that when I got home I was totally exhausted. I decided that I had to have some sense of direction and a sense of achievement at the end of each day, each week, each month. I designed the following plans of monthly, weekly and daily objectives. Each day, in order to see what I had done, I divided my diary into two columns, one for 'Proactive management' and another for 'Reactive management' Under 'Proactive management', I entered the tasks I
wanted to accomplish for the day. The 'Reactive management' column was reserved for notes on unscheduled interactions with parents, community members, or any other engagement that had not been planned. From the diary, I could see how much of my time was spent attending to unscheduled matters and how much was used to do what I had planned to do.
Overall management duties were divided among the seven of us that comprised the management team i.e. the principal, deputy and five heads of department.
Each HOD was responsible for a key management area. The deputy principal was responsible for learners and school discipline. I was responsible for overall co-ordination including public relations and communication with the outside world, (including parents, industry and so on). A considerable amount of my time was taken up by meetings outside of the school. It was important that when I was away everything went smoothly in the school. To help, I designed a school stamp for the deputy principal because I kept the principal's stamp with me 24 hours a day (for many reasons, one of which was that, should I need to authenticate documents, the stamp should be available).
Despite the trials and tribulations of that time, on hindsight, I feel that my interactions with various stakeholders (although hostile at times) were helpful especially because I welcomed their participation. I liked transparency and openness. I had observed with the learners too that if they were well informed about everything pertaining to school matters, they were less destructive, compared to when they were left in the dark, when they felt that things were being hidden from them.
I used to consult as widely as possible about the latest developments regarding the school. I think, as a result, during difficult times the groups would combine and defend the school, for example, against thugs and criminal elements, disgruntled youth who had left school, and others who were disruptive of the school's progress.
Masters research project
As a teacher, I had been aware of tensions between school management and educators, particularly, when it came to supervision of the latter by the former. I had come to understand from the literature that supervision and professional development were not necessarily mutually exclusive, that supervision was not an end in itself, but rather, a means to an end, in terms of providing support to the teaching and learning situation. Hence, my study sought to:
• Access the principal's understanding of his/her role in staff development.
• Ascertain the extent to which principals' supervision strategies were enhancing their teaching staff's professional development.
The study showed that principals of schools in the sample desired to play a constructive role in the professional development of their teaching staff, but lacked the capacity to do so. They felt they were powerless to positively intervene in the educators' professional lives, given the militancy of teachers' unions. Their supervision strategies were not enhancing educators' professional development, and they saw no clear conceptual link between supervision and staff development.