The role of school principals as managers in empowering educators and learners in Tshinane Circuit, Limpopo Province

Abstract

The role of school principals as managers in empowering educators and learners in Tshinane Circuit. This study was carried out to investigate the role of school principals as managers in empowering educators and learners in Tshinane Circuit. Empowering is the process of development and growth where a person is enable to take decisions independently and in an autonomous way to make a contribution to the development of his/her organization ( a school) .empowered people feel confident that they can perform adequately. Empowerment aimed at improving the educator’s and learner’s livelihood ultimately, in order to improve teaching and learning. It also equip educators with information, knowledge, skills and new classroom teaching strategies, which put learners in the centre of the didactic situation required for them. Chapter two is devoted to literature review. The aim of chapter two is to clarify concepts related to empowerment of educators and learners, concepts such as school climate, principals’ management role, participatory school governance, educator’s empowerment mechanism, learners empowerment mechanism, purpose of empowerment, the impact of empowerment on motivation, importance and significance of empowerment and making empowerment possible. Chapter three outlines the methods and techniques used to gather data for this research. The researcher used the qualitative research parading to collect data from selected respondents. Two instruments for collecting data were used in this study. Questionnaire in (Appendices A, B and C) were handed out to school principals, educators and learners. Interview schedules in (Appendices D and E were for circuit manager and subject advisor. The main findings of this study were: • Educators were poorly empowered and in effective as a results of poor attendance of in service training, no proper techniques for supervision and no proper coordination between educators organizations and schools management teams. • Educators competence and effectiveness in enhancing learner performance were found to be remarkably low as a result of indiscipline learners, no involvement in curriculum planning and curriculum development, poor management of schools by principals, lack teaching media and high educator-learner ratio. • Amongst learners, educators were disempowered and ineffective and visible sign were absenteeism , no preparation of lessons when teaching , continuous boycott of classes in attending meeting of their organizations. • Subject advisor and circuit managers indicated that educators were ill empowered and in effective in enhancing scholastic achievement of learners as a result of their being rejected by educators in supervising their activities. Main conclusions Educators are poorly empowered and ineffective in enhancing learner’s performance as a result of: • Poor attendance of in-service training by educators. • There is no proper techniques for educators supervision. • Learners are not disciplined with visible sign-posts such as absenteeism , bullying and negligence of written work. • Poor management behaviour and performance of the management teams by education managers. • Teachers are not involved in the curriculum development of their subjects. • There is high educator-learner ratio, which prevents educators from executing individual teaching necessary for the betterment of learner performance. Resultant Recommendations Several recommendations are made and they are detailed in Chapter Five