Abstract
D.Phil.
The problem of the research is to investigate why South Africa failed to make
township schools effective despite new legislation, developmental
programmes and projects, and change of personnel. Can this failure be
attributed to the lack of knowledge on the ground on what constitutes an
effective school in the township?
A number of the characteristics of an effective school were identified through
the literature review. During the review of these characteristics, a conclusion
was drawn that they were developed from a context that is different from a
South African township. To enable the researcher to collect "home-grown"
data, the relevant stakeholders had to speak about what they consider to be
the characteristics of an effective school. A qualitative method was used in
collecting and analysing the data.
The study was conducted in two phases: The first phase, had two
components. Informants were asked to write their naive statements on what
they consider to be the characteristic of effective township school and this
was followed by a lengthy focus group interview with each subgroup that
participated in the study. The second phase was a questionnaire developed
from the analysis of the naive statements and focus group interviews that was administered to a larger audience of the
informants to allow them an opportunity to confirm or refute the findings.
Finally, the following list represent what the informants considered to be the
characteristics of an effective township school. The reader must be
reminded that these characteristics are not presented in the order of their
importance, but they are all equally important:
O Strong leadership
Dedicated, committed and disciplined educators
Dedicated and committed learners
Parental support and involvement
A well-developed vision and mission
O Strong partnership with relevant stakeholders
O A supportive environment
Towards the end of the study, specific recommendations were directed to
parents, learners, principals, members of teacher organizations, the
departments of education and non-governmental organizations on what they
could do to contribute towards school effectiveness in the township.