Abstract
The Education District and Circuit Offices in South Africa are mandated by the Department of Basic Education to support schools under their jurisdiction. Reasons for the lack of such support to schools have been highlighted in various reports and research findings. This paper examines the role that properly constructed school improvement plans, developed by schools, and circuit improvement plans, developed by the Circuit Team, plays in effective district/circuit support to schools. We report on the construction of a theoretical model to assist Circuit Teams to support School Management Teams of underperforming high schools towards whole-school development in which these improvement plans play a central role. We followed an action research design, employing qualitative data generation and analysis methods. The participating School Management Teams and Circuit Team members attested to the value of the collaborative learning experience which ignited feelings of empowerment and increased cooperation. These findings suggest the value of an action learning approach to the professional development of both School Management Teams and Circuit Team members. The action-learning model that emerged from this collaborative enquiry consists of three distinctive phases, each phase containing a number of specific activities to be implemented in order for schools to progress towards becoming self-managing institutions of learning. Keywords: action learning; action research; circuit improvement plan; Circuit Team(s); District Office; model; school improvement plan; School Management Team(s); whole-school development
Highlights
If the role of the Education District and Circuit Officers in South Africa is to work collaboratively with schools to improve educational access and retention, provide management and professional support and help schools achieve excellence in teaching and learning (Department of Basic Education, Republic of South Africa, 2013), why are so many schools in the country underperforming? This question is posed against the background of growing reports that indicate the state of education in South Africa is in crisis
To design a model that would enable circuit teams to support school management teams of underperforming high schools towards whole-school development, we conducted two action research cycles, depicted in Figure 1, where we worked with the participants to identify their concerns, design an action plan, implement it, and reflect on it (Van der Voort, 2013)
The value of constructing a plan of action and following through with it was emphasised by the principals, referring to their school improvement plans: We are becoming aware that a plan is as good as its implementation [...] We have identified gaps with regard to implementation, and these need to be addressed as a matter of urgency (Principal)
Summary
If the role of the Education District and Circuit Officers in South Africa is to work collaboratively with schools to improve educational access and retention, provide management and professional support and help schools achieve excellence in teaching and learning (Department of Basic Education, Republic of South Africa, 2013), why are so many schools in the country underperforming? This question is posed against the background of growing reports that indicate the state of education in South Africa is in crisis. Spaull (2013) investigated the quality of education in the country between 1994 and 2011, and came to the conclusion that, except for a wealthy minority, most South African pupils cannot read, write and calculate at grade-appropriate levels He found that South Africa had the worst education system of all middle-income countries and that it even performed worse than many low-income African countries in cross-national assessments of educational achievement. These low levels of learner achievement can be linked to the general state of dysfunctionality that many schools find themselves in as a result of poor management and leadership (Van der Voort, 2013).
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