5. CHAPTER FIVE: DATA PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION
5.3 Theme One: Perspectives on Sourcing of Resources
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and were appropriately qualified to understand the generation and management of resources and contribute meaningfully to the study.
The biographical information of participating HTs and HODs gives an impression that most of them were qualified for the work they did. This gives an expectation of a positive impact and smooth operation in schools regarding resource generation and management.
5.2.3 Staff Compliment and Enrolment in the Schools
To understand the availability and functionality of educational resources in the selected schools, I first needed to know the staff complement and enrolments in each school. This was important to aid in the comparison between resource availability and the number or learners and teachers in schools as revealed in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1: Staff Complement and Enrolments in the Schools
Institution No. of Teachers No. of Learners Learners per Class
Mega High School 84 1300 35
Mango High School 39 710 47
Mass High School 42 618 36
Miko High School 31 394 28
Masiko High School 82 1600 50
Malta High School 53 730 43
Average 51.17 892.00 41.5
The average staff complement was 51 per school. The average enrolment was 892.00 and the average number of learners per class was 42. The EDSEC policy (2011) stipulates that the primary policy objective of the MoET is to achieve a sustained, average teacher/pupil ratio of 40:1 in all schools. Thus, the teacher-pupil ratio in the schools was in-keeping with the policy.
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5.3.1 HTs’ Perspectives on Sourcing Resources
Table 5.2: HTs Responses on Sourcing Educational Resources
Source No of
Responses
Not at all (f) Little Extent (f)
High Extent (f)
Very High Extent (f) Government
grant
5 1 4 - -
Parents payments
5 - - 1 4
Fundraising initiatives
6 3 2 - 1
Community partnerships
5 5 - - -
Local and International grants
5 4 1 - -
Table 5.2 shows that five out of six HT participants reported that their schools got educational resources from school fees. Only to a little extent did the schools get resources from other sources such as grants, fundraising activities and community partnerships.
Interviews with HTs on the matter of acquiring teaching and learning resources revealed that they resources came from parents‟ school fees payments.
We acquire resources through parents’ school fees payments. (Mango HT).
Malta school HT also expressed the same sentiment:
Resources come from school fees. (Malta HT).
One HT revealed a notion of donations:
We sometimes but rarely, get donations from government like computers and printers.
(Mass HT).
HTs‟ responses indicated that, to a high extent resources were acquired through internal sourcing activities that is, parents‟ payment of school fees. One school reported that they got
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some resources from local and international grants. This suggested that schools could draw resources from external sources. Having known the main source of funding, I then went on to ask HODs about other means of sourcing resources at departmental level if any.
5.3.2 HODs’ Perspectives on Sourcing Resources
Table 5.3: HODs Responses on Sources of Educational Resources Source
N
Strongly Disagree
Disagree Agree Strongly
Agree
f % f % f % f %
School gets proceeds from garden
30 9 30 12 40 6 20 3 10
School gets proceeds from the school projects
30 2 7 10 33 12 40 6 20
School stage plays to raise funds
31 10 32 12 39 7 23 2 7
Parent Teacher Association funding school operations
30 9 30 9 30 9 30 3 10
School partners with suppliers to offer support services for school activities
30 3 10 9 30 15 50 3 10
School gets financial support from
business people
31 7 23 10 32 10 32 4 13
School gets financial support from alumni
31 11 36 14 45 4 13 2 7
School gets financial support from
charity
32 4 13 14 44 13 41 1 3
School gets financial support from
31 3 10 3 10 18 58 7 23
118 government for its
operations School rent out facilities to get income
30 6 20 5 17 9 30 10 33
A total of 25 (81%) participating HODs either strongly agreed or agreed that their departments mobilised resources through financial support from government. Another 18 (63%) said they rented out facilities to get income. They also got proceeds from school projects and partnered with suppliers to offer support services for school activities.
On the other hand, a total of (25) (81%) participants reported that alumni, school fundraising activities, parent teacher association (PTA), staging plays and charities were not sources for their educational resources.
According to FGIs, one area of general agreement among HODs was that from school fees payments, there were fees allocated per subject that catered for each department needs. In this regard, one of them had the following say:
Subject fees are used to buy current assets like perishable goods and stationery. The fixed assets are left to be decided upon by the office of the HT. (Masiko HOD 4).
On the same matter some HODs reported that they benefited from the Ministry. One of them said that they reported their department resource needs to the regional subject Inspector who then moved the request further to the Senior Inspector.
We report our resource requirements to the regional Inspector. This is taken further to the office of the Senior Inspector who then provide some of the big items we need like refrigerators for our practical’s in the Consumer Sciences department. (Miko HOD 4).
Another HOD explained:
We sometimes receive donations for our department needs from the French cultural services through the Inspectorate office. (Mega HOD 6).
A key dynamic emerging here is that basically most resources were generated internally in the schools. The capacity for generating extra resources was very limited.
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NCVO (2015) suggests that non-profit making organisations can consider fundraising that is effective, economic, legal and ethical for example, the use of such sources as gifts and donations, grants, loan financing and equity capital, contracts and trading for the organisations to overcome financial challenges. In this case, it seemed that in the Swaziland system of education vigorous fundraising among the schools was not popular. The question is how sustainable is the way things were done in the schools? From the background to the study, (Section 1.2) the WB Group (2013) argues that most countries in the developing world face challenges of sourcing resources. This is consistent with the view of Sontang-Padilla, Staplefoote and Morganti (2012) who suggest that non-profit organisations like schools depend on diverse sets of funding sources and streams of funding to sustain their operations. This suggests that such organisations may consider innovative fundraising techniques like fostering relationships with investors for support. The need for additional funds in schools is discussed in the subsequent theme (Sections 5.4.1 and 5.4.2) on the availability and adequacy of educational resources.