- Title
- The role of the school principal in establishing a healthy school-community relationship
- Creator
- Mofokeng, John Thapelo
- Subject
- School principals - South Africa, Community and school - South Africa, Teacher-parent relationships - Case studies
- Date
- 2012-09-11
- Type
- Mini-Dissertation
- Identifier
- uj:10076
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7462
- Description
- M.Ed., The study was aimed at investigating the establishment and maintenance of healthy school-community relationships. The focus of the inquiry was the role that school principals can play in ensuring that harmonious relations exist between the school and the local community. A decline in the culture of teaching and learning in schools, and the resultant poor educational performance of the learners is a matter of serious concern to all people and organisations with interest in education. It is for that reason that the new South African Schools Act encourages the establishment of a strong partnership between the schools and all stakeholders in education. The stakeholders mentioned in the Act include the business sector, state, and members of the local communities. The partners in a partnership work together towards a common goal. In education the partners work together towards the optimal development of the potentials of the children. The children must be guided to become responsible members of their respective communities, and to contribute in the development of community life. The schools are built in a community to serve the needs of the community members in its area. This makes a partnership between the school and the community, essential if the school is to meet the needs of the community. The school-community partnership can help to ensure that the education offered in schools is relevant and responsive to community needs. Moreover, it is through community support that the school is able to carry out its tasks as expected by the stakeholders. The community is expected, inter alia, to help create a healthy climate within schools, and to promote the culture of teaching and learning. Community members need to be empowered in order to be able to contribute effectively in school activities. The investigation revealed that there are barriers between the schools and their local communities that isolate the schools from their communities. The schools, and the school principals in particular, are faced with the great task of breaking the barriers so as to enable the schools and their communities to work harmoniously together. More importantly, the schools must realise the need to increase their clientele to include the whole community, and not only the community's children. The study also discovered that the relationship between the school and the community takes place haphazardly. There is no plan as to how the school-community relations should be handled. The roles of the teachers and community members in the partnership are not defined. This makes it difficult to channel the actions of partners in school-community relationships to work towards a common goal. The study has highlighted some of the causes of poor school-community relationship and the strategies that can be employed by schools, particularly the principals, to deal with such causes with the aim of breaking down the wall between the school and the community.
- Contributor
- Dr. D. Daniels
- Full Text
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