should sit together and discuss issues pertaining to the school governance as the South African Schools Act of 1996 allows and the formation of school governing bodies.
Developmental Appraisal System has also opened up a space for personal and professional development. DAS renders teachers to prove that they can develop themselves personally without expecting the school or department to organize training sessions. DAS is one of the policies that I found relevant to the professional development of teachers and school managers. DAS allows the two stakeholders (teachers and principals) to attend workshop programmes and staff developmental programmes together and it caters for both. South African Council of Educators offers educators the space for ongoing professional development. The objectives of SACE (2000) include but not limited to develop resource materials and run in consultation with an employers' training programmes, workshops, seminars and short courses that are designed to enhance the professions promoting in sense of all educators. SACE, DAS and the Curriculum 2005 allow teachers and principal for personal and professional development (Department of Education, 2000, 4-8).
Drawing on the findings, it can be concluded that the principal working for quality teaching and learillng who adopts a democratic approach of leadership and relations with community, is perceived as an effective leader. This study has explored the nature of the community involvement in rural schools. A more deliberate analysis needs to be made of these collective relations and practices so as to understand in greater depth the content of such partnerships over a period of time in different contexts, for example, how managers and teachers in township working sites engage with the educational shifts and what kinds of communal practices do teachers in township schools engage in as a symbol of their progress. School managers are requested to involve or work collaboratively with teachers in their schools so as to close the gap that has been identified in this study. The abuse of power by managers and teachers alike may be another cause for this gap of working separately without consulting one another. My recommendation is that every effort be made to narrow the gap of misunderstanding between school managers and teachers. In many schools, teachers are not treated as the stakeholders, nor are they given the chance to express their views, to share in decision making regarding the problems facing the school. Teachers are viewed as employees, who earn their salary once they have done their duties.
I suggest that the nature of the teaching profession adopt some changes in terms of policy implementation, because the general policies that have been passed and implemented by the state do not have any useful impact whatsoever in rural schools.
Rural schools are still under-performing due to the lack of qualified teachers non- participating parent communities. Ithas been mentioned in chapter one that the acts and policies that have been passed by the state for better conditions in teaching and learning in rural schools have made little improvement on the quality teaching and learning, therefore, I suggest that the National Education Department take the problems experienced by rural schools seriously and accommodate their grievances. The application of school level policies (micro-policies) in all schools, rural urban, should
differ from those of urban schools for the following reasons: Schools should be provided the opportunity to give different options in terms of learners' assessment. While policies are in place to address the ongoing improvement for teaching and learning, it seems as rural context and the capacity required for teaching and learning in rural schools are different and require different kinds of support given contextual socio-economic culture.
There are very little policies that are specific or directed to school managers, most of the policies are only directed for teachers' improvement ego SACE, Curriculum 2005 and Developmental Appraisal System. These policies have no direct impact to school managers. I suggest that the National Education Department should develop or formulate more policies directed to school managers and teachers collaboratively. My study has found that teaching and learning will not improve without involving stakeholders working together collaboratively, brainstorming in a workshop or in service training.
Ongoing training development is essential in this study for teachers and school managers, if principals and teachers are attending workshops together sharing ideas, understandings, interests and desires they will be able to brainstorming all issues that are affecting them in their meeting on personal and professional levels, they will forget about their positions and status and everyone in the workshop will be treated as same and equal. It will be easy to implement the decisions taken in their meeting when they arrived at their schools because both teachers and principals would be jointly part of the workshop. This process would cultivate a healthy relation that will enable a progressive healthy relationship in rural schools. By implementing what has been mentioned above the status of teachers especially those in the rural areas should be raised. The teaching profession should be dignified by raising the standard of the character of education required for certification and entrance into the profession. Good rural schools require good teachers. More opportunities need to be created for upgrading the ongoing professional development. Good living conditions should also be provided for teachers offering their services in rural communities. The government should provide adequate and stable financial support for rural education. Rural communities have to educate more
children with less money, whereas the urban communities which compnse fewer children have more money. There should be decentralisation of funding at rural and urban schools. Budgets for these two different contexts should differ. Rural schools should be entitled to a larger budget than urban schools, and teachers who teach in rural schools should receive a special allowance above their normal remuneration. It has also mentioned in this study that community relationship is very important to school development, very little has been mentioned in other literature about the involvement of community to school. Community development projects like Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) should be encouraged and sustainable for decreasing illiteracy among the community and promoting school and community relationship. Rural schools should have their own ways of assessing their learners due to the lack of important resources like libraries and laboratories.
The higher education centres like Universities and teacher Training Colleges should create programmes that prepare teachers teaching in rural school. As studies done in England show that teachers who are employed in rural schools are entitled to extra benefits and different programmes for teaching in rural schools are offered in training centers (Kozol, 1991). Another crucial point suggest for future improvement of rural teaching and learning, is an increase of educational management and leadership training programmes for school managers and teachers. If possible, these should be allocated time by the Department of Education and should be run by the Department of Education.
These programmes should make and increase knowledge of school managers and their assistants in creating an enabling environment for teaching and learning.
Further research studies in the field of rural education should involve learners and the school community, including parents of learners. I recommend that there is a need for study that will look at how rural communities experience the relationship with rural schools, what are their needs and interests for rural communities that will help parents to
be actively involved in attending school activities and become more attracted to the school and become part of the schooling system, and what school managers experience in rural context and in rural development and what support from the district office is needed for school and community developments.