Durban - While National Education Evaluation and Development Unit (Needu) evaluators heard complaints of unions meddling in human resources processes in more than 50% of provincial and district education offices around the country, they also encountered exemplary leadership.
This was the case with District Z and Mr X. In 2009, the average matric pass rate for schools in District Z was 28%.
In 2010, the director of District Z was suspended, and the provincial Education Department approached Mr X to spend six months getting the district back on its feet (while still responsible for his own district).
Mr X was interviewed by Needu in 2013.
“The first day I arrived, the SA Principals’ Association phoned me for a meeting and I met all principals in the district. They were frustrated by the unions who did not respect government policy. They asked me three questions.
“First: ‘Our schools are underfunded, how will you deal with this?’ I said: ‘Changing schools is not just about money, but how to use it.’ The district had more than 200 teachers in excess but no funds for school maintenance.
“Second: ‘How will you change District Z to be a performing district?’ I answered: ‘I am not the principal, you are, and there are clear roles and responsibilities of teachers and principals; you will change the schools, not me.’
“Third: ‘Is it politically correct to bring you here?’ I said: ‘This is not Parliament. I am meeting principals to deal with the curriculum, this has nothing to do with politics.’
“From then there was order in the meeting; the support was overwhelming. I presented a four-year plan … The next day I visited a school which had a 3% pass rate. Learners were outside when I got there and four teachers were absent. All the teachers were sitting in the staff room. Only one teacher from Swaziland was ready to teach. I told the principal she was not ready to lead and that she should stay in the district office from the next day and not come back to school. I brought a new principal who is still there now, who was a very good head of department in another school. At the end of the year, the pass rate was 71%.
“The following day I went to another school, where the pass rate was 16%. I asked the principal why learners were failing. She complained of stress, lack of co-operation from the school governing body, and so on. I said to her that I’d come to take her out of the school and my job was to get a new principal. She was so relieved she wanted to call the whole school to tell them … I told the deputy to stand in and brought a new principal two weeks later, who is still there and the school is performing at 80% (by 2013 the pass rate was 90.9 %).
Every afternoon I called an under-performing school to present their turnaround strategy. Principals must take responsibility and present the plan themselves. Schools don’t need winter schools: they need contact time. On Sundays, we would ask schools to invite all their stakeholders – traditional leaders, healers, pastors, parents – and asked principals to present their results.
“I didn’t want to waste my time getting reports from circuit managers, I went to schools and the district officials followed me. I would walk into a staff room. They didn’t know me and the teachers would be eating vetkoek and gossiping. I would find out exactly what was going on.”
The Needu interviewer asked Mr X how he had managed to bring the unions around.
“I called the Sadtu chairperson … I asked them what they wanted. They would say, ‘Hey, Meneer, give so-and-so the HOD post, he’s good. But they meant he’s good in the branch meeting, not in the classroom. I changed their attitude.”
What Needu gives the Basic Education Department credit for
*No-fee schools
*Funza Lushaka teaching bursaries
*Allowances to teachers working in rural areas
*The National School Nutrition Programme
*Training programmes in English offered to South African teachers by the British Council
*Workbooks. Nearly 24 million language and maths workbooks were distributed to children in grades 1 to 9 at the start of the 2013 school year
*The increasing volume of data available on the schooling system in the past five years.
The Mercury