Abstract
M.Ed.
The emergence of South Africa into a democracy has resulted in the development
of steps to transform the country's education system. The Department of
Education radically shifted the education and vision of the education system
after 1994 with a series of new legislation, policy initiatives and intervention
strategies for school improvement. Schools have been encouraged to implement
school improvement programs and are perceived as being capable of developing
and designing their own improvement strategies. However, these strategies are
failing in some schools. One of the main reasons for this failure is the
misconception that "one size fits all". All schools employ the same intervention
strategies. The specific needs of different schools are not considered. Educators
are expected to contribute to school improvement through formulating strategic
and development plans using programs that do not consider local needs. The
Educational psychologist who has an important role to play in whole school
development has been excluded from the process. This research focused on the perception of educators in respect of the
implementation of whole school development in a disadvantaged school. The
purpose of this study was to understand the educator's experience of the
implementation of whole school development and the impact it had on the school.
Furthermore, guidelines for the Educational psychologist in the implementation
process were described.
The methodological format used to achieve the research aim was a generic
qualitative study. The qualitative design allowed for the process of describing
teacher perceptions and experiences of the implementation of whole school
development in a disadvantaged school. It accommodated the explorative nature
of the research and allowed for rich interpretive descriptions of the process. The
research was limited to a single school as the scope of the research allowed for
only one school to be purposefully selected for the study. The researcher collected data using multiple means of data collection, namely,
observation, documents and interviews. Data was coded into manageable units
and into themes. The themes were then clustered into regularly occurring
patterns for consolidation. Interpretations were then made which led to the
research conclusions.
The findings of the study described the educator's perceptions and experiences
of whole school development as a process for school improvement. The
perceptions and experiences of educators suggest that the participants had a
limited understanding of the concept of whole school development. The
educators experienced a fragmented implementation process. The facilitators
and educators lacked qualities and skills as agents of change. The lack of support
to educators resulted in emotional turmoil. The study concluded that many of the
qualities and skills needed to facilitate the implementation of whole school
development are within the scope of educational psychology. Thus, guidelines for
the educational psychologist that would support educators in the implementation
of whole school development were developed.