An analysis of schooling outcomes in the Eastern Cape, using production function approach
- Authors: Ncanywa, Thobeka
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Education -- Economic aspects , Production functions (Economic theory) , School management and organization
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/26570 , vital:65656
- Description: This study analysed the schooling outcomes of the Eastern Cape Department of Basic Education in the period heading into the second decade of democracy. The main objective of the thesis is to discover what constitutes the education production function of the Eastern Cape schooling system. In an attempt to reach this objective, the study adopted an education production function approach to answer the questions of what constitute the Eastern Cape education production function, what the effects are of the Dinaledi policy interventions on learner performance and the effects of district size on schooling outcomes. The main focus of the constituents of the production function is on the level of the former Bantustan penalty and Department of Education and Training (DET) penalty in relation to former White schools; as well as the quality of educators in the province. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and quantile regressions were used to analyse the data and the Annual National Assessment (ANA) represented schooling outcomes and was estimated against school, educator and community characteristics. The results indicated a strong relationship between schooling outcomes and the school inputs that were used in the study. The effects of the Dinaledi intervention programme were analysed using the grade 12 panel data for the period from 2008 to 2013, where event dropout rates represented schooling outcomes. The findings that emerged from this study indicated that this programme provides a model that can improve the Eastern Cape schooling outcomes. The effects of district size on schooling outcomes were analysed with the regression discontinuity design technique and this revealed that district sizes have an impact on schooling outcomes. Overall, the results suggested that White schools perform better than their counterparts; that placing schools in quintiles is a good policy intervention; and that educator quality is associated with schooling outcomes. The key findings from this research were the continuing existence of the apartheid legacy in Black schools; poor educator quality; an inappropriate language of instruction; gender inequalities in performance and an uneven distribution of schools in districts. The recommendations for this research are to pay more attention to the improvement of educator quality in terms of educator qualifications, training and remuneration; implement a programme like the Dinaledi programme to all schools, as it provides resources to schools; and enforce the district size as informed by the district act so as to improve the support that district officials give to schools. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Management and Commerce, 2015
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Ncanywa, Thobeka
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Education -- Economic aspects , Production functions (Economic theory) , School management and organization
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/26570 , vital:65656
- Description: This study analysed the schooling outcomes of the Eastern Cape Department of Basic Education in the period heading into the second decade of democracy. The main objective of the thesis is to discover what constitutes the education production function of the Eastern Cape schooling system. In an attempt to reach this objective, the study adopted an education production function approach to answer the questions of what constitute the Eastern Cape education production function, what the effects are of the Dinaledi policy interventions on learner performance and the effects of district size on schooling outcomes. The main focus of the constituents of the production function is on the level of the former Bantustan penalty and Department of Education and Training (DET) penalty in relation to former White schools; as well as the quality of educators in the province. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and quantile regressions were used to analyse the data and the Annual National Assessment (ANA) represented schooling outcomes and was estimated against school, educator and community characteristics. The results indicated a strong relationship between schooling outcomes and the school inputs that were used in the study. The effects of the Dinaledi intervention programme were analysed using the grade 12 panel data for the period from 2008 to 2013, where event dropout rates represented schooling outcomes. The findings that emerged from this study indicated that this programme provides a model that can improve the Eastern Cape schooling outcomes. The effects of district size on schooling outcomes were analysed with the regression discontinuity design technique and this revealed that district sizes have an impact on schooling outcomes. Overall, the results suggested that White schools perform better than their counterparts; that placing schools in quintiles is a good policy intervention; and that educator quality is associated with schooling outcomes. The key findings from this research were the continuing existence of the apartheid legacy in Black schools; poor educator quality; an inappropriate language of instruction; gender inequalities in performance and an uneven distribution of schools in districts. The recommendations for this research are to pay more attention to the improvement of educator quality in terms of educator qualifications, training and remuneration; implement a programme like the Dinaledi programme to all schools, as it provides resources to schools; and enforce the district size as informed by the district act so as to improve the support that district officials give to schools. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Management and Commerce, 2015
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
My living theory of the transformational potential of my educational leadership
- Authors: Johannes, Arnold Marius
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Educational change -- South Africa , School management and organization , Leadership
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DPhil
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/4079 , vital:20510
- Description: In democratic South Africa, policies place much emphasis on the need for transformational leadership. This challenges school leaders to ensure that their practice is in line with the democratic and inclusive values espoused therein. This thesis is an account of my journey of learning about educational leadership and how I attempted to influence transformation at my own school. The development of my living theory of educational management is grounded in my desire to make a positive change to the quality of teaching and learning at my school, by embodying and exemplifying such values in my leadership. My learning as an educational leader comprises my living theory on improving my educational leadership within a socially challenged context. I explain the context and problems experienced at my school and provide evidence of the need to move from the hierarchic, autocratic form of leadership, still prevailing at many South African schools. I adopted the theoretical framework of servant leadership to enable me to develop a more contextually sensitive and visionary style of leadership through critical reflection on my own practice. My stimulus for this journey of learning stemmed from the perceived contradiction between my espoused beliefs about leadership and my actual practice. My own autocratic leadership style was one of the main barriers that prevented teachers from attaining autonomy and taking on leadership roles within the school. My leadership style was more in alignment with the values of accountability, discipline and efficiency than those of care, trust and the development of the potential of others. This interrogation of my ontological values informed my subsequent interventions to improve my practice. Following an action research design, I investigated the quality of my leadership to determine which areas I needed to improve, took action to improve these and evaluated the change against the values inherent in the notion of servant-leadership. I embarked on a journey that helped me to shift my practice from being based on previously held authoritarian professional values towards values that underpin a more transformational leadership, such as care and trust. My journey of learning was guided by the tenets of self-study action research, which required critical self-reflection and holding myself accountable for my own actions The practical knowledge I gained through this self-reflection on my practice enabled me to make professional judgements, which then became conceptual knowledge in the form of a living theory generated by my research. This was made possible through a continuous process of data generation to extract evidence to test the validity of the claims to knowledge I made. Multiple sources of data (written, graphic and multimedia) were used to better understand the scope of happenings throughout the research and to monitor my practice over time. I explain how I used my improved understanding of leadership to promote collegiality for building quality relationships to promote teacher leadership for school improvement and how I subjected these claims to social and personal validation procedures. The significance of this study is that it contributes to new forms of practice and theory in terms of showing how a values-based approach to school leadership can influence positive change in teacher practice. While this study is a narrative of my practice, it is also a narrative of theorising about how my colleagues and I have come to know and how our thinking has changed about our work and ourselves. Although I had to indicate a cut-off point in this action research enquiry, the knowledge gained will continue to develop and influence my practice in the future and hopefully will be judged as useful by others in positions of leadership. The thesis is thus an original contribution to educational knowledge in the field of self-study action research. It demonstrates how sociohistorical and sociocultural insights from Apartheid to Post-Apartheid South Africa can be integrated within a living theory of transformational leadership.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Johannes, Arnold Marius
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Educational change -- South Africa , School management and organization , Leadership
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DPhil
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/4079 , vital:20510
- Description: In democratic South Africa, policies place much emphasis on the need for transformational leadership. This challenges school leaders to ensure that their practice is in line with the democratic and inclusive values espoused therein. This thesis is an account of my journey of learning about educational leadership and how I attempted to influence transformation at my own school. The development of my living theory of educational management is grounded in my desire to make a positive change to the quality of teaching and learning at my school, by embodying and exemplifying such values in my leadership. My learning as an educational leader comprises my living theory on improving my educational leadership within a socially challenged context. I explain the context and problems experienced at my school and provide evidence of the need to move from the hierarchic, autocratic form of leadership, still prevailing at many South African schools. I adopted the theoretical framework of servant leadership to enable me to develop a more contextually sensitive and visionary style of leadership through critical reflection on my own practice. My stimulus for this journey of learning stemmed from the perceived contradiction between my espoused beliefs about leadership and my actual practice. My own autocratic leadership style was one of the main barriers that prevented teachers from attaining autonomy and taking on leadership roles within the school. My leadership style was more in alignment with the values of accountability, discipline and efficiency than those of care, trust and the development of the potential of others. This interrogation of my ontological values informed my subsequent interventions to improve my practice. Following an action research design, I investigated the quality of my leadership to determine which areas I needed to improve, took action to improve these and evaluated the change against the values inherent in the notion of servant-leadership. I embarked on a journey that helped me to shift my practice from being based on previously held authoritarian professional values towards values that underpin a more transformational leadership, such as care and trust. My journey of learning was guided by the tenets of self-study action research, which required critical self-reflection and holding myself accountable for my own actions The practical knowledge I gained through this self-reflection on my practice enabled me to make professional judgements, which then became conceptual knowledge in the form of a living theory generated by my research. This was made possible through a continuous process of data generation to extract evidence to test the validity of the claims to knowledge I made. Multiple sources of data (written, graphic and multimedia) were used to better understand the scope of happenings throughout the research and to monitor my practice over time. I explain how I used my improved understanding of leadership to promote collegiality for building quality relationships to promote teacher leadership for school improvement and how I subjected these claims to social and personal validation procedures. The significance of this study is that it contributes to new forms of practice and theory in terms of showing how a values-based approach to school leadership can influence positive change in teacher practice. While this study is a narrative of my practice, it is also a narrative of theorising about how my colleagues and I have come to know and how our thinking has changed about our work and ourselves. Although I had to indicate a cut-off point in this action research enquiry, the knowledge gained will continue to develop and influence my practice in the future and hopefully will be judged as useful by others in positions of leadership. The thesis is thus an original contribution to educational knowledge in the field of self-study action research. It demonstrates how sociohistorical and sociocultural insights from Apartheid to Post-Apartheid South Africa can be integrated within a living theory of transformational leadership.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
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