7.2 Strategies to combat unethical practices
7.2.1 Provision of training on ethics and ethical leadership for both principals and
behaviour of some principals and teachers, the foremost was to provide them with proper ethics training to prepare them for their work. There was resonance among the participants that unethical behaviour was rife amongst principals and teachers. Moreover, they corroborated each other a number of times on this issue, a number of times that when enough training is offered to the principals and teachers as practitioners, there is a possibility of a decline in unethical behaviours of some school principals. This is what Mr Mnguni had to say:
137
The Department of Education and SACE must provide training on ethics and ethical leadership for those who have been appointed in the principal positions.
However, the training should not be limited to principals only but be extended to teachers as well because they are a number of times caught up in various forms of unethical practices, including having intimate relationships with their learners.
(Mr Mnguni, the principal of Intuthuko Secondary School)
Similar sentiments were echoed by Mr Ndlovu, the principal of Iphothwe Secondary School who had the following to say:
Considering the level of scandalous activities that have been reported about both principals and teachers in various forms of media, I think it is necessary that there is proper training on ethics for principals and teachers. I also think that ethics training should not be a once off thing but be continuous.
(Mr Ndlovu, the principal of Iphothwe Secondary School)
The latter views were also corroborated by Mr Pelepele who had the following to say:
There must be emphasis on ethics training for newly appointed principals. It is the responsibility of the Department of Basic Education to ensure that newly appointed personnel are empowered to execute their mandates. I mean the Department of Basic Education must have mentoring programmes for principals and teachers. On the other hand, SACE must be putting emphasis on the ethics training for both teachers and principals.
(Mr Pelepele, principal of Ikhethelo Primary School)
Congruent to the latter assertions, Mr Ngobese, the principal of Zakhele Primary school stated that:
My view is that to attenuate unethical behaviour of both teachers and principals, the Department of Basic Education must have a series of ethics training workshops for the novice educators and also newly appointed principals. Over and above that there must be mentoring programmes in place which will ensure that principals and teachers are continuously reminded of their responsibility and the implications of unethical conduct to the image of the leader and the consequences thereof to the culprit, and to the image of the school and the Department of Education.
138
(Mr Ngobese, the principal of Zakhele Primary School)
In the same vein, Mr Mhlophe felt that training principals and post level one educators (teachers) could make a huge difference to their behaviour. When one is perpetually exposed to what constitutes ethical behaviour, one is bound to comply, as the conduct will be embedded in the leaders’ thought processes. This is what Mr Mhlophe of Ikhethelo Primary School had to say:
I strongly believe that when education on ethics is prioritised by the Department of Education, the attitude of teachers and principals will drastically change and I believe when one is more often exposed to the impact of unethical behaviour is likely to change for the better of the organisation he or she works for.
(Mr Mhlophe. post level one educator from Ikhethelo Primary School)
Congruent to the previous assertion, Ms Thandi of Intuthuko Secondary School posited that:
I think education on ethics and ethical leadership is partly a solution to this conundrum of unethical behaviour. Department of Education and SACE as the Council for teachers should take a giant step towards training teachers and principals on ethics. They need to have constant training workshops and not take for granted that they have to keep on reminding principals and teachers of ethics.
(Ms Thandi, post level one educator from Intuthuko Secondary School)
The same sentiments were echoed by Mrs Thobela, who argued that:
I think SACE and DBE can tame the scourge of unethical behaviour of some school principals and teachers by offering ethics education/training especially those who are joining the sector or promoted to new positions. The training must be continuous. Not like workshops that are conducted for two hours, once a year but each year at least one weekend be dedicated to the training of novice and experienced employees in their portfolios.
(Mrs Thobela, post level one educator from Iphothwe Primary school)
In the same motion, Mrs Gadlela from Intuthuko Secondary expressed that:
I think SACE needs to focus on educating or training and evaluating principals and educators on ethics. Principals and educators need to be exposed to what constitutes ethical behaviour and be closely monitored. That can vanquish the
139
tendency of being too comfortable for principals in their positions and learning ways of defrauding the institution they work for.
(Mrs Gadlela, post level one educator from Intuthuko Secondary School)
There foregoing assertions strongly make the case for principals and educators to be trained on ethics. Due to the widely spread corruption perpetrated by principals and teachers, which has been reported on various forms of media, focus has to be placed on continuous ethics training.
The ethics training needs to be continuous so that it gets embedded in both the principals’ and teachers’ minds. In addition, the significance of training is that when an employee if found involved in unethical behaviour, sanctions can be instituted with minimal objections. However, prior to instituting any form of sanction, the employees need to be well exposed to the sanctions.
When there is proper training, and sanctions are consistently communicated and known by all staff members, the message sinks into one’s brain. The benefits of ethics training, when it is continuously done, is that the conscience of the employees is revived. However, to ensure that the embedded ethics understanding remains, there is a need for providing mentors for principals and teachers. When principals and teachers have mentors, they will not be comfortable to engage in corrupt activities.