Effectiveness of rural-based secondary School Governing Bodies in Limpopo Province of South Africa: Implication for rural development

Abstract

The need for sustaining the provision of high quality education in all countries cannot be overemphasised. Linked to this is the centrality of ensuring that effective governance prevails. In an effort to address the latter challenge in South Africa, School Governing Bodies (SGBs) were introduced through the South African Schools Act (SASA) 84 of 1996. A SGB is composed of democratically elected members, viz. Principal who serves in an ex officio capacity, teacher representatives, learner representatives in secondary schools, and parent representatives. The parent representatives are the majority in this body. The current case study was carried out to analyse the effectiveness of SGBs in rural secondary schools with respect to their designated roles and responsibilities. The mixed methods approach in two sequentially integrated phases was applied in the study undertaken in Vhembe District‟s Thulamela Municipality in Limpopo Province of South Africa. There were nine secondary schools located in rural areas from four circuits. In each circuit two schools were sampled, a performing and an underperforming. Principals, teacher governors and non-governors, learner governors and non-governors, teacher union representatives, a traditional leader, circuit managers, manager for governance, deputy managers for governance and parent governors participated in the study. Interviews were held with Principals, and the following governors; teachers, learners and parents, individually, and focus group interviews were held with the following non-governors: teachers and learners who were purposively sampled to take part in this study in Malamulele cluster of Vhembe Education District. A questionnaire was generated from the results of the qualitative data and completed by Principals, parent governors, teachers and learners. To analyse and organise qualitative data, Thematic Content Analysis was used and for quantitative data, the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 was used. The results revealed that the governors related well with traditional leaders; parent governors‟ illiteracy impacted negatively on their performance; Principals and teachers were not supportive to parent governors; funding received from government was insufficient; and learner governors were passive during meetings with other governors. There were no statistically significant effects of schools and interest group or category of respondents on the views expressed. However, statistically significant effects (P < 0.05) were observed with regard to the following challenges: “some Principals are not conversant with Department of Basic Education (DBE) policies and may mislead SGBs in making informed decisions”; „„the writing of quarterly reports v by SGBs that would assess their progress in relation to their plans,‟‟ and “some teacher governors are bench warmers and are not interested in SGB activities”. It was recommend that Traditional leaders be represented in the SGB; parent governors be encouraged to further their studies to improve their literacy; training should address the needs of schools instead of using a one-size-fits-all type of training; and the funding model used by government be relooked into so that rural secondary schools and their communities could benefit more. The cordial relationship existing between traditional leaders and SGBs was crucial for improved disciplining of learners and nurturing strong bonds between schools and neighbouring communities. This work provides ingredients for formulating strategies for improving the performance of rural-based secondary SGBs and enhancing their contribution to local development.