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Behaviour and performance are, therefore, manifestations of organisational strategy.
These observable manifestations of predefined strategies are also manifested in schools’ visual and verbal manifestations. Numerous examples were indicated for the schools in the study. However, behaviours aimed at maintaining work performance and good results at schools are noteworthy.
139 Recommendation 2
It is believed that all schools want to be well-performing schools despite their contexts such as unfavourable socio-economic conditions. For this, and related to the first recommendation, schools should strive to create conditions for organisational cultures that support success. Therefore, they should strive for a dominant culture that will define their uniqueness and support effective learning despite such contexts. The role of the school leadership in establishing success- oriented philosophical convictions and beliefs and ensuring that these are reflected in how they manifest verbally, behaviourally and visually, is pivotal. In this regard, departmental officials charged with institutional support and development should play a key role in monitoring and helping schools evaluate themselves through culture auditing instruments and supporting them to develop such cultures as is intended at such schools.
Recommendation 3
For existing well-performing schools, it is recommended that organisational culture be enhanced. The lessons gleaned from the schools in the study include the fact that focus on learner achievement and growth be considered holistically such that their lives take precedence. For this reason, attention must be paid to learners’
backgrounds and families as a way of inculcating in them inspirational motives for growth and development with conscious and full cognisance of the effects of their socio-economic circumstances. Moreover, the use of heroes and heroines of the schools can be a major lever for promoting these aspects. In addition, this involves paying attention to learners’ development needs from the lower grades of secondary schools rather than the exit point, which is currently Grade 12. Therefore, schools must put all the necessary focus and pressure on the lower grades so that when the learners get to Grade 12, they have mastery of basic concepts and do not need to attend extra hours at schools to ensure good academic results.
Recommendation 4
Existing well-performing schools should work towards shaping a dominant organisational culture, while school leadership uses situational leadership. This is recommended for purposes of creating stability and predictability of school
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processes in terms of strategies, structures, and behaviours or processes to help in establishing operating systems that are stable and suited to the needs of learners and their communities as well as fostering school uniqueness of organisational culture.
Recommendation 5
It is also recommended that historically disadvantaged schools in the same areas could pair or collaborate in terms of structures or substructures. There was no evidence of schools working together though being in the same areas and serving similar communities. The system of teacher exchanges for learning areas that are usually challenging could be initiated with creative time allocation(s) in school time tables. This could be coupled with development committees in such learning areas so that there can be sharing of expertise and resources.
Recommendation 6
The local education districts should design leadership programmes where principals from the well-performing schools mentor principals in underperforming schools.
The local education districts should design leadership programmes where principals from the well-performing schools mentor principals in underperforming schools. This mentorship could focus on problem management and leadership areas as experienced by such principals. This furthermore could be supplemented with the engagement and use of retired principals of successful schools for determined periods. Such mentorship programmes should involve the entire spectrum of the schooling system, perhaps with more emphasis of foundational levels which include Early Childhood Education and Foundation Phase levels at schools.
This is recommended because establishing positive relationships between well- performing and underperforming schools can help underperforming schools with lessons of good practice from well-performing schools. This could also help develop leadership styles and systems that work best in terms of establishing schools’
organisational cultures that are supportive of effective learning practices. The district should then evaluate the improvement of underperforming schools. This will promote collective improvement at the schools within the district and can improve government’s objectives of school improvement in all areas of school functionality.
141 5.5.2 Recommendations for further research Recommendation 1
This research shows a clear understanding of the beneficial effects of supportive school organisational cultures. However, the scope of the research is only in the Metsimaholo Municipality. Therefore, it is recommended that further studies include all the schools in the district and other districts. Future research can be done using a larger sample and quantifiable data to enable the generalisation of the findings.
Recommendation 2
This study mainly focuses on the nature of school organisational culture at well- performing, previously disadvantaged secondary schools. Other variables such as the relationships between school organisational culture and school performance, learner achievement, teacher job satisfaction which potentially affect the school culture can be areas for further research. Such studies will help to establish the relationship between organisational culture and such variables.