Abstract
M.Ed. (Educational Leadership and Management)
In post-apartheid South Africa, socio-economic and socio-political challenges coupled with serious lack of adequate physical resources in historically disadvantaged public schools are barriers to effective curriculum delivery and the provision of co-curricular activities. The National Norms and Standards for School Funding policy has been designed to address equity and social justice by providing substantial funding to public schools ranked as quintile 1 and 2. The State funding has been earmarked for, amongst others, the purchase of learning and teaching support materials and other phyiscal assets for educational purposes. This study determines the perceptions and experiences of teachers and school managers on the management of physical resources. Governing bodies have been empowered and are held accountable to manage physical assets at public schools. In the case of fee paying schools, the State provides limited funding and consequently, governing bodies are expected to raise funds in order to supplement the State’s funds so that additional physical resources that further the ends of effective education in every public school, may be procured. The management of physical resources is found to be ineffective and inefficient in many schools, paricularly historically disadvantaged schools.
This study was framed using the quantitative research method. A structured questionnaire was distributed to a randomly stratified sample consisting mainly of post level one educators and members of the school management teams. This research was conducted at 30 public schools in the Gauteng East district. The questionnaire consisted of three sections: Section A required the respondents’ biograhical details; Section B comprised of 30 items on the management of physcial resources at public schools and Section C contained 11 items indicating the processes concerned with physical resources management. The analytical procedures applied in the empirical investigation revealed that physical resource management consists of three factors, namely, effective management of phyical resources; effective procurement of physical resources; and the provisioning of physical resources by the Provincial Education
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Department. The findings revealed that the educators agree that the governing body effectively manage and effectively procure resources for the school. There was only partial agreement that the Provincial Education Department provides physical resources adequately. It was found that governing bodies and school management teams need to be provided with continual training by the Provincial Education Department. Furthermore, it appears that whilst structures and processes are established to manage physical resources, there is need to constantly appraise and review their functionality.