Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Education, South Africa

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    LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES FOR RURAL SCHOOL EDUCATORS IN LIMPOPO
    (2011-04-19) Mabote, Metse Abel
    This study examined the leadership and ethics challenges facing educators which stem from inappropriate behaviours or relationships in a rural school in the Capricorn District in the Limpopo province. Inappropriate relationships as defined in this text relate to those attitudes that are not respectful or professional in an educator-learner relationship and include educator-learner intimate/sexual relationships, embezzlement of funds and the issuing of fraudulent reports, amongst others. Within the education sphere, the concept of leadership is considered to refer to school principals as managers. Educators look at themselves as mere employees and not as role models to learners and the community at large, and they therefore do not even consider the consequences of their behaviour to their followers, namely the learners. This study further intended to show that educators are leaders in their own right, and that their behaviour, both within and outside the classroom must not be in contradiction to the principles of honesty and trustworthiness as expected of any leader. The study employed a qualitative approach in collecting data from the respondents. A case study approach was used where one school was identified and five educators and five learners were interviewed. In addition the official from the Provincial Department of Education (DoE) and secretaries of the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) and the Professional Educators Union (PEU) were interviewed. The study aimed to elicit information from the respondents on whether inappropriate relationships occur, why they occur and their impact on the teaching learning process from the point of view of the perpetrators (usually educators), the victims (usually learners) and of the interveners (provincial DoE and the unions) Data was analyzed by summarizing the responses into key themes. The findings from the study show that various forms of inappropriate relationships do occur and that such behaviour results in ill discipline which is a challenge to leadership. Taking into account that this study was conducted among Grade ten learners at a high school, it was concluded that inappropriate relationships may be a reason for the high failure rate in many rural high schools
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    LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES FACING SCHOOL EDUCATORS IN
    (2011-04-18) CHAVALALA, DESMOND
    Leadership is the cornerstone of success of any organisation. Successful organisations have strong and quality leadership, whereas unsuccessful organisations display poor leadership. Top organisations have shown that where there is better leadership, there is better performance by subordinates. School educators have been faced with a number of challenges since the dawn of democracy in South Africa. Many challenges are the result of traditional practices which have their roots in the apartheid regime. The key challenge school educators are facing is undemocratic leadership, which makes them uncomfortable with the daily execution of their work. The leadership challenge continues to damage the relationship between school educators and their school managers as well as the officials from the Department of Education. The leadership challenge at various schools creates room for finger pointing, lack of trust, suspicious practices and lack of confidence between colleagues. The objective of the research was to investigate the leadership challenges facing school educators in the Manombe circuit of Mopani district in Limpopo province. The study revealed that the leadership problem emanates from the school managers and from poor leadership practices at the district and provincial levels of the Department, which negatively affect performance in the schools. The study revealed that school managers make unilateral decisions, do not motivate their subordinates to perform at their best levels and do not empower their subordinates, and that their negative behaviour is a detrimental example to their subordinates. The study recommends that the school managers in the Manombe circuit undergo training on democratic leadership practices in managing school educators; school managers also need to learn to “tame their tongues”. This training can be carried out in the form of workshops attended by both managers and their subordinates, since good leadership can create a sense of inspiration and hope in the followers. School managers also need to learn to recognise and reward the hard work performed by school educators. They also need to learn to delegate duties to their school educators for them to learn how to do work and be empowered
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    THE PERCEIVED RETURN ON INVESTMENT OF AN MBA
    (2011-03-24) Carmichael, Teresa
    The traditionally accepted approaches to training or educational course evaluation, as well as more recently publicised Return on Investment (ROI) models all examine the costs and benefits of such interventions from the corporate perspective. All also simply refer to the intervention itself in a single word, neglecting to elaborate on the factors within that intervention that enhance or reduce its effectiveness. Whilst the published approach has provided useful input into this study, other aspects of relevance to business schools and to students, such as learning methodologies and competence development have not been discussed in the context of ROI in the literature. In this study, the factors perceived to contribute to the ROI for Master of Business Administration (MBA) graduates have been explored and identified. Insights obtained here will be of value to all stakeholders within the MBA arena. The two-phased study applied input from initial exploratory interviews with graduates and faculty to a mainly quantitative phase two questionnaire. The identified financial and non-financial costs and benefits, learning methodology effectiveness and the development of key generic meta-competencies were rated and weighted by the quotabased sample (n=54) who had completed their MBA degrees at Wits Business School. The findings identified that, although the financial components of ROI are important, the non-financial aspects also contribute to the perceived ROI. An overwhelming majority perceived that the benefits of doing an MBA outweigh the costs in all categories. There was a strong preference for interactive, classroom based and group learning activities, these being perceived to contribute the most to building the career capital of graduates. Key generic metacompetencies linked to SAQA’s critical crossfield outcomes were developed during MBA study. A transformation model has been proposed, linking the perceived ROI for MBA graduates to business schools’ role in maximising their transferable business competence.