Appendix C Consent Letter to KZN Education Department Appendix D Letter of Informed Consent to the Principal. This was done by listening to the real stories of students, parents and teachers served by these rural schools.
Rurality in the South African Context
- The Native Land Act of 1913
- Bantu Homeland Constitution Act of 1971
- Bantu Education Act of 1953
- Post-Apartheid Reforms
This encouraged separate housing areas for black Africans (or natives as they were called in official documents). 3 These were territories allocated to black Africans as part of the apartheid policy.
Rationale of the Study
Researchers have also noted that despite the large amount of money spent on education in South Africa, schools are still inferior compared to other countries of the world (Chisholm, 2004a). Insights gained from this study will inform the direction my school should take and enable me to help the school generate a strategy that will not only deliver sustainable improvement in results, but also meet the needs of the community will serve what the school serves.
Significance of the Study
Moreover, rural people are never part of the development of interventions intended to improve their education; rather, these interventions are developed for them by these outsiders (Moletsane, 2012). The study will hopefully add some depth to our understanding of the phenomenon of underachievement in the context of rurality and our approach to.
Conceptual Frameworks
School Underperformance
In this case, underachievement relates to benchmarking based on pass rates of successful students in Matric, which in turn relates to accountability measures for school performance. In light of the above clarifications and in line with the DBE nomenclature for schools 'in trouble', the concept of 'underperforming school' was used in this study.
Rurality
The reason why this view of the countryside still persists is the confusing and constant comparison with the urban (Hlalele, 2012), with rurality often being defined as a passive follower of urbanity (Budge, 2006). This view is unchanged as the results of the study showed it to be true.
Methodological Approach
The purpose of the study was to reflect on the participants' perspectives on underachievement of a rural school and to discover the meanings they made of school underachievement within their rural context. The study gave voice to rural communities as they communicated their knowledge and understanding of their 'world'; therefore, the choice of using a naturalistic method of inquiry such as an ethnographic study was appropriate.
Overview of the Thesis
In this chapter I also discuss the ethical issues that were taken into account in conducting the research. This chapter reports on the perspectives of rural students, parents, and teachers by focusing on their views on education within their rural communities.
Summary
I further explain how the study will contribute to knowledge about underperforming country schools.
Introduction
In the first section, I review literature on the accountability systems approach used to measure school performance. The section concludes with some conceptual frameworks for understanding achievement and underachievement in rural schools as used in this study.
The Accountability Systems Approach and School Underperformance
Accountability Systems Approach and Socio-economic Factors
Writing in the US context, Toutkoushian and Curtis (2005) emphasize the importance of taking into account the socioeconomic status of school districts when trying to explain, among other things, average student standardized test scores and school rankings within states. . Socio-economic factors explain most of the variation in school-level outcomes and the subsequent ranking of schools.
What does this mean in terms of measuring underperformance in rural
In this connection, the purpose of the study was to investigate how students, teachers and parents viewed a poorly performing country school.
School Underperformance in South Africa: Policy Review
An Overview of Education Reforms in Post-Apartheid South Africa …
- Influence of Curriculum Reforms in Disadvantaged Schools
- Impact of School Funding Reforms on Disadvantaged Schools
In their view, this was a clear indication that there would be disparate impacts in the implementation of the curriculum. The 2009/10 review resulted in the revision of the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) and the development of the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS).
Underperforming Schools: A South African Perspective
These schools are commended for their dedication and commitment to the quality of education in this country. According to the DBE, this is vital to improving the overall quality of teaching and learning and improving the quality of basic education across the country.
The Continuing Disparities in South African Schools
This means that schools with learners with high SES continue to do well while schools with learners from poor socio-economic backgrounds underperform. In particular, characterized by, among other things, poor SES, rural schools continue to perform the worst.
Implications for Performance/Underperformance in Rural Schools
This research was underpinned by the premise that obtaining the views of rural residents themselves (parents, students and teachers) about their educational needs and what they perceived as good school performance or an underperforming school could yield positive results in identifying interventions that will work in the development of education. relevant performance measures for schools in rural contexts. It will also provide a basis for understanding that, despite all the challenges rural residents face, it is also important to explore the attributes they have, listen to them and enable them to say how they respond to academic achievement and underachievement their rural context.
Factors that influence School Underperformance
Thus, schools in low-income communities continue to pose a problem for policymakers in many countries. However, schools in poorer communities are believed to provide a lower quality of education than those in more advantaged areas.
Understanding Underperformance in Rural Schools
Research has shown that teachers in rural schools are often written as underqualified and unqualified (Emerging Voices, 2005; Ebersohn & Ferreira, 2012). A high proportion of teachers in rural schools mention a lack of cooperation from parents (Ebersohn & Ferreira, 2012).
Stakeholders’ Perspectives on Underperforming Rural Schools: Lessons
Macro Policy Mandate
Based on the goals of the education system, rural school performance can be seen as the ability to create positive development in rural schools and in rural areas. In rural areas, as the education goals predict, a school must be seen to produce results or change by showing great improvement and by serving the development needs of the community in a tangible way.
External Factors (Contextual)
Creating a decent and economically successful life in rural areas is an important achievement and schools should be able to do this. There is something very powerful about the sense of place and culture in rural communities that helps them overcome the challenges of poor infrastructure and few resources.
Internal Factors (Schooling)
The second is the influence of contextual factors such as socio-economic factors (poverty, deprivation, low SES, poor infrastructure) in rural schools. Third are the challenges facing rural education such as poor infrastructure, poor quality of teachers and lack of resources.
Summary
It aimed to examine poor school performance through the eyes of rural students, parents and teachers. Informed by the conceptual and theoretical frameworks, I conclude this chapter by presenting key propositions for underperforming rural schools.
A Generative Theory of Rurality
In rural settings, the spread of the environment to change the relationship between space and time determines the extent to which they require agency to be modified or brought closer together. Engagement and connection with territory have the potential to expand access to resources and transform the relationship between space and time.
Theories of School Underperformance
Opportunity to Learn
Gustaffson (2006) provides a good example of how challenging conditions in schools may not allow the minimum curriculum objectives to be achieved. These factors have a negative impact on students' ability to learn, as insufficient learning and teaching time, inadequate teaching that does not inspire some students and ignoring struggling students are common (van de Grift & Houtveen, 2006).
Compensation Hypothesis
The compensation hypothesis is based on the notion that schools in disadvantaged areas must compensate for the fact that students entering those schools already lag behind their peers in better-performing schools; dysfunctional schools must therefore do more to meet the basic needs of their students, such as creating a safe, orderly and stimulating environment, before they can work on making structural improvements to educational processes (Janssens, 2001). This hypothesis suggests that staff in schools in disadvantaged areas must work harder to improve both academic and situational factors than staff in functional schools to achieve the desired educational outcomes.
Contingency Theory
The schools in this study were considered to be facing extremely challenging circumstances characterized by high levels of socio-economic disadvantage and deprivation. Chapman and Allen (2006) argue that schools in difficult contexts tend to reflect the communities they serve.
Propositions for Understanding Underperforming Rural Schools
The second statement is based on the compensation hypothesis (van de Grift & Houtveen, 2006) which recognizes the importance of considering external factors in school underachievement. The third statement is based on the contingency theory (van de Grift & Houtveen, 2006) which is rooted in the argument that for schools to be successful, there is a need to search for the best fit between their internal (schooling) and external (education). contextual) factors.
Summary
This study examined school underperformance through the eyes of students, parents, and teachers at a high school in a rural context. In this chapter, I present a comprehensive discussion of the methodological orientation and research design, data collection, ethical considerations, and the processes of data analysis and interpretation employed in the study.
Research Approach
As such, this approach was useful in this study as I sought to understand how groups of students, parents and teachers made sense of and expressed their understandings of poor school performance within their rural context. The paradigm resonated well with this study as my goal was to find meaning within social interactions.
An Ethnographic Study
The ethnographic process allowed me to get close to the students, teachers and parents and observe what was continuously happening in the school within a certain period of time. Therefore, during the time I spent at school, I observed and spoke with students, teachers and parents.
Sampling Process
She helped me in the initial phase of the research to find my way within the school and also in choosing suitable participants. Later, I chose seven students (four boys and three girls) from grade 12 to serve as interview participants representing the school's students.
The Research Site
The Community Context
The road from the school to the commercial center is full of potholes, making public transport scarce. In the five kilometers to the school there are about five shops along the road.
The School Context
- The History of the School
- Isibani Secondary School Today
Seven of the teaching staff, including the principal, commute from the city (Durban) to the school every day. The third building at the far end of the school served as an administration block.
Data Collection Process
Observations
During the first two weeks, I came to the school to observe and capture patterns of all school activities. As Brewer (2000) states, the time spent in the field may be reduced depending on the nature of the role undertaken and the variety of the role.
Interviews
A good example of this was when the principal mentioned to me that the father of the current SGB president, who was a member of the school board, was still alive and living in the area. I conducted semi-structured interviews with a 12th grade student, a SGB leader, a Life Orientation teacher, and a principal in the same order.
Document Analysis
They are time-consuming in the sense that they require careful preparation, and one always has anxiety before an interview (Radnor, 2002). I found that using the three data collection methods allowed me to compare my observations with what I inferred from the interviews and with what I encountered in the documents I analyzed.
Ethical Issues
- Gaining Access
- Getting Past Gatekeepers
- Gaining the Trust of Research Participants
- Informed Consent
- Termination of the Data Collection Process
He argued that through the study's findings, they could get the answers they were looking for. These include a summary of the research proposal and the name of the school where the research would be conducted.
Data Analysis
I then decided to conduct the analysis in an IsiZulu version of the data and translated only the excerpts that I was going to use for my dissertation. In the final analysis, the data were presented in a thematic format, with the final analyzes and interpretations presented in three main themes with subthemes.
Trustworthiness
Summary
This study was based on the idea that the influence of context on rural residents' perspectives on low-performing schools would be significant. In this chapter, I focus on perspectives on the underperformance of rural schools, but focus on the relationship between the school under study and its rural context.
Perspectives on the Relationship among the Rural Household, the
Rural Household
On the other hand, the data also suggested that what happened in a rural household had an impact on schooling. The data analyzed in this study suggest that what happened in a rural family was often in conflict with what happened in school.
Parental and Community Involvement
This has caused parents to stay away and not be part of school activities. The community was also not fully involved and did not support the school and its activities.
Perspectives on the Role and Value of Schooling in a Rural Setting
Poverty and Poor Infrastructure
There are no resources such as libraries in the community to feed these learners with general knowledge. You come to school late and in the first few periods you are too tired to concentrate.
Lack of Development and its Links to School Underperformance
As a result, learners had no role models as most successful people in the community were not educated. This ideal was based on the fact that most people in the community did not speak English.
Societal Benefits of Schools
One of the challenges experienced by the young people in this rural area was the high number of pregnancies. The students also recognized the relevance of some of the subjects they did at school, which in their opinion also made schooling relevant to society.
Summary
First, the chapter focused on the relationship between the family, parents, community and school. Moreover, the lack of communication between home and school worsened the situation.
Understanding Schooling in Rural Contexts
Conceptions of an Underperforming Rural School
Academic Results as a Measure of School Underperformance
The School Context and Learning Prospects
Conduct and School Routines
Curriculum Relevance
Summary
Introduction
Reflections on the Research Process
Perspectives on Rural Schooling and Performance: Summary and
Perspectives on the relationship among rural households, the
Perspectives on the role and value of schooling in a rural setting
Perspectives of underperformance in a rural school
Towards a Place-Sensitive Approach to Understanding and Addressing
Conclusion
Implications for the study
Implications for Further Research
Final Reflections
