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findings show that the quality of learner teacher support materials was of poor standards or were not available and unable to support teaching and learning throughout the year and this posed challenges to the schools and learners showing a lack of interest in school. Due to the number of learners schools in quintile 3 had to admit, it emerged that classes ended up unmanageable because of large numbers which compelled the schools to allocate subjects to teachers that were not adequately qualified to teach them. This suggests how the school was categorised and its ability to raise resources to fund its academic activities had a negative impact on teaching and learning to schools. The schools in lower quintile rankings seemed to suffer the most as they served mostly poor communities and were thus unable to hire school governing body paid teachers.
6.3.10 Impact of school categorisation on school finances
The factors that the participants felt impacted negatively on their schools were school finances which were allocated from the Department of Education, the utility bills from the municipality and non-payment of school fees. The findings showed that the allocations from the Department of Education were unable to meet their accounts from the municipality up until the end of the year. The insufficient allocations, according to the participants, resulted in school services being discontinued and they failed to maintain teaching and learning if they did not have water and electricity. The findings also showed that the participants in quintiles 4 and 5 which were the schools charging school fees have challenges in getting full complement of learners paying and this caused a negative impact on their finances. Such schools found themselves unable to maintain the needs of their schools, above all to pay for the security of the school. This seems to suggest that the state subsidies provided by the Department of Education were minimal across quintiles and impose challenges in the running of schools.
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6.4.1 Conceptualisation of school categorisation and school ethos
While all principals in the studied schools seemed to understand the meaning of school categorisation, is of importance that they make their teachers, learners and parents as well understand not just the term but the implications of how they are categorised as well. Also, it is important for teachers to worry themselves and find out what quintile ranking their schools were in as these have financial implications that directly affect what is allocated to them as schools and eventually to the learners they teach. With regards to the term “school ethos”
based on the findings of the study, it is obvious the participants do not need just to know it but live it as well to cement the moral spirit of ethos.
6.4.2 School relationships with learners, teachers and parents
As schools indicated that they have a Code of Conduct which was the fundamental document that all schools formulate to uphold discipline. The findings seemed to suggest that there was no thorough consultative process and buy-in from all stakeholders. It is therefore recommended that the schools in quintile 3 formulate a code of conduct in consultation with all stakeholders which include learners, parents and teachers. In the code of conduct the school rules and the consequences of the transgression of the rules must be clearly stated. All learners should be given a copy of the code of conduct yearly, with an acknowledgement slip to fill and return to the school. The management of the schools in quintile 3 should ensure that all teachers were workshopped on the South African Council for Educators document called the Code of Professional Ethics so as to understand what is expected of their conduct as professionals. Teachers need to work collaboratively with their fellow teachers when they are faced with issues. Schools should go out of their way to encourage and motivate parents’
active involvement in the running of the school by ensuring that there was a two-way effective communication. Schools must ensure that every parent signs the commitment form to be involved in school matters at the beginning of the year.
6.4.3 Complexities to school functionality
It is recommended that the Department of Education ensures that they make greater efforts to assist and support schools by working together with them in terms of proper channels of
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communications and be reasonable in their requests. School principals are usually the targets of the teacher unions because they are perceived by the teacher unions as the puppets of the Department of Education. In order to make sure that there is mutual understanding, it is recommended that the teacher unions be appraised of their role in terms of labour issues and labour peace in an organisation as school. Furthermore, teacher unions must ensure that school managers are not their enemies but partners in labour force, therefore they must work in collaboratively with the schools. The principals of the schools must ensure that teachers and learners are conscientise on time management and the policies of the school and consequences for being late be outlining clearly to them. Communal relationships are important for the quality teaching and learning to take place at school. The study also found that there was a wastage of time where learners were buying from vendors outside the school when the bell was long gone and therefore school principals must invite the community and hawkers to the meeting where they can make arrangement in terms of time to sell and what to sell to the learners.
6.4.4 Impact of school categorisation on teaching and learning
Large classes present occupancy challenges and also bring other discomforts experienced by both learners and teachers. The Department of Education should accelerate the programme of infrastructure so as to alleviate overcrowding in school. Furthermore, as the employer, the Department of Education must ensure that there were sufficient teachers in schools who were qualified to teach the subject that the schools offer. The learner teacher support materials were the backbone of the schools and therefore the Department of Education must work closely with schools to ensure that there were sufficient and suitable resources that can last the whole year for teachers to teach and learners to learn more effectively. If learners are demotivated they would not be able to grasp the content they need to learn. Schools must also come up with other ongoing motivational programmes of providing incentives to learners not to wait for the prize-giving ceremonies.
6.4.5 Impact of school categorisation on school finances
The Department of Education allocates funding using the quintile ranking system. Such system posed challenges to schools in the sense that the human factor was not taken into
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consideration when the system was conceptualised and implemented. It is recommended that the Department of Education should reconsider this funding system to accommodate the needs of all the schools. Municipalities were billing schools like they were billing businesses.
The Department of Education must come up with a memorandum of understanding with the municipalities so as to charge schools the minimum rates for utility bills. School fees in quintile 4 and 5 schools form a large part of school income, hence the running costs of these schools largely depended on income from fees for maintaining the educational standards.
Non-payment of school fees thus has a negative impact on these schools that have to a large extent relied on school fees to be able to pay their bills. This study found that poverty on the paying of school fees and therefore it is recommended that parents who cannot pay school fees need to inform the school early and apply for exemption but the schools should be compensated by the state for such a shortfall. In this way, the schools would be able to survive.