Exploring effective decision-making of principals in secondary schools in the Free State province

Abstract

In a democratic South Africa, a variety of factors are necessary to ensure effective school governance and management. One of these factors is shared decision-making (SDM). SDM is a process of making decisions in a collaborative manner at the school level. Those responsible for implementing a decision must be actively and legitimately involved in making the decision. In South African schools today, SDM is no longer an option. The new framework of SDM is embedded in the South African Schools Act (Act 84 of 1996). According to the Act, parents, learners and teachers should be given the opportunity of participating in decisions on educational matters.

In this study, the researcher set out to investigate and explore effective decision-making of secondary school principals in the Thabo Mofutsanayana Education District (THMOED) of the Free State Province. In an endeavour to realize that end, an open-ended questionnaire, individual and focus group interviews were used to collect data. The main aim was to find out how teachers, learners, parents and principals experienced decision-making in their schools.

The main findings of this research were that, decisions-making practices in the secondary schools in the THMOED still adhered to pre-democratic formal lines of authority. In other words, the locus of control and decision-making powers resided mainly with the principals, with minimum participation of other stakeholders. Consequently, there were dissatisfactions and concerns raised by the participants. The concerns were directed at the management and included lack of communication, lack of transparency, unacceptable disciplinary procedures, autocratic leadership styles and centralized decision-making.

According to the findings, it would appear that democratic models of governance were insufficiently used or overlooked by the principals. Concerns raised by the respondents were a clear indication that much needed to be done to change the mind-set of the principals.