South African Public Secondary School Administration Machinery: A Case of Three Educational Institutions

Abstract

This paper examines how a public secondary school administration machinery could be made more responsive to the attainment of an institution's mandate of quality instructional practice. The paper is both conceptual and empirical in nature within the qualitative research paradigm. Narrative enquiry and interviewing techniques were employed to generate data. Out of the population of 15 public secondary schools in Mopane District in Limpopo Province, South Africa, three were conveniently sampled and in each secondary school, a school principal and a deputy principal became research participants. Research findings revealed that lack of accountable institutional leadership contributes to unaligned administration machinery. Secondly, the absence of ethical institutional leadership contributes to administration machinery being in disarray. Thirdly, the absence of solidified work ethic contributes to unaligned administration machinery. Lastly, lack of consequence management for derelict of duty promotes utilisation of inappropriate administration machinery. The researcher recommends for the repurposing of administration machinery to contribute to its efficacy.