The Principals Management Development Programme (PMDP) Was Piloted at 50 Schools in KZN

1

Contents

1. Executive Summary

The Principals Management Development Programme (PMDP) was piloted at 50 schools in KZN in the latter part of 2009.

The programme was aimed at the rapid upgrading and transfer of management skills in areas including curriculum management, planning, finance, resource and people management.

The secondary schools participating in the programme improved their Grade 12 results by 12,3% over 2008 against the KZN average of 2% and the national average which reflected a decline over the previous year. With the exclusion of the lowest two performers the improvement in the balance of the secondary schools was nearly 17%!

The PMDP was implemented jointly by the KZN DoE and a service provider consortium consisting of the University of KZN, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Performance Solutions Africa who acted as project managers.

Funding for the pilot programme was shared by the KZN DoE, the J & J Development Foundation Trust and the Development Bank of South Africa.

This report contains an in-depth analysis of the outcomes of the pilot programme.

The intention is to rollout the pilot to 1,710 schools within the province over the next three years. All ward managers within the province will be included in the programme.

The total cost of the rollout will be R33m over the three years of which approximately 55% will be carried by the DoE. Private sector funding of approximately R5m per annum is being sought from a small number of premier private sector organisations.

This final report follows an interim evaluation which was completed in October 2009.

2. Background

The challenges in the education sector have been well documented. These challenges are no less acute in KZN than in any other Province but the sheer scale and volume of the education infrastructure which has to be managed in this province adds huge weight to the administrative challenges of the KZN DoE.

There are 5900 ordinary public schools in KZN. They accommodate 2.6m students and some 85,000 educators. Lack of water and electricity, safety and security, malnutrition, learner violence, educator professionalism, HIV/Aids and decaying or non-existent infrastructure are just some of the everyday problems faced by many of these schools.

Above all, KZN’s Grade 12 pass rate in 2009 was 61.1% with only 39.2% and 44.6% in science and maths respectively. The implications of this are all too obvious.

There is of course no simple solution to these enormous challenges and to its credit the KZN DoE has been trying over the past years to put a range of measures in place to address some of the of the more crippling aspects of the crisis.

In the recent period, much discourse in the education field has begun to focus on the school principal and management of schools themselves. This discourse has been informed by extensive international literature which has established that there is a close correlation between successful leadership and effective schools (Bush 2006).

This issue has been recognised by President JGZuma who has, on a number of recent occasions, made it clear that while recognising the problems they confront, there will be an increasing focus on the performance of school principals. The Minister of Basic Education, Mrs A Moshekga has also made it clear that in her view “a school stands or falls on its leadership … school principals are critical to the improvement of our levels of learner performance … (they) are a key weapon in our arsenal to turn underperforming schools around.”

The Education Roadmap of the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) (2008) specifically recommends ‘a scaling up of practical management courses for principals, deputies, HOD’s and district supervisors (ward managers). This, it is recommended, “will help to achieve strengthened management capacity to ensure working districts and schools ……”

It was against this background that PSA entered into discussions with senior political figures in KZN and officials of the KZN DoE as well as with potential funding organisations in 2008. The intention was to look at developing a management skills programme which would rapidly up-skill existing school principals to be able to manage their institutions more effectively and thereby enable these schools to produce better results and reduce the administrative load being carried by the KZN DoE.

The basis of these discussions was the ‘college training’ and coaching methodology which PSA had developed in its work in the private sector which had produced very rapid skills transfer at management levels and had thereby impacted positively the on performance of the companies concerned. The intention was to transfer this methodology to the public sector and to the school environment in particular.

A draft programme was developed and private sector funding was sought. This came in the form of the J&J Development Projects Trust and later the Development Bank of South Africa who agreed to fund a pilot programme with parallel funding from the KZN DoE.

The programme was extensively discussed with all stakeholders in KZN including all educatorunions and certain modifications were made. Thereafter having been endorsed by all concerned, the Principals Management Development Programme (PMDP) was launched in the second half of 2009.

1. Methodology

As indicated in the preceding section the intention was to develop a short course which would address the basic requirements for running a school effectively. It was to be aimed at existing school principals and to focus on upgrading their basic management skills in areas such as curriculum management,planning, financial, resource and people management.

It was required of the programme that it be highly applied and that the outputs from the modules be fully aligned with the actual outputs that were required by the DoE from their school principals and therefore that these outputs should take precedence over unit standard alignment in terms of the NQF. However it was agreed by all stakeholders that the programme should be registered as a short course at the University of KZN and that it should be submitted to SACE for the purpose of being accredited to provide professional development points.

In its development, it became clear that the programme should be targeted at more than just school principals. It was recognised that effective school management was a function of the successful interaction of school principals with their ward manager (external) and their school management team (SMT) (internal). This is indicated in Diagram 1 below.

Being the first line of contact with the DoE the Ward Manager’s role in supporting individual school development can be critical in the life of the school principal. Where the ward manager is ineffective, school principals have been forced to ‘work around the system’ or have just opted ‘to go it alone’. Internally the SMT is the principal’s vehicle to manage the school – when SMT’s are dysfunctional it is very difficult for principals, other than in very small schools, to make a meaningful impact on the educators and learners alike.

It was therefore decided at an early stage to include ward managers into the design of the programme and to ensure that the school principals had to work with their SMT’s through the course of the programme.

The ‘virtual college’ and the train-coach methodology which had been pioneered in the private sector with very impressive results was the foundation on which the programme was based. In practice this meant that ‘colleges’ were established in each of the three districts selected. Within each district there were two wards selected and from each ward there were approximately 8-9 school principals chosen with their ward manager – so each ‘college’ consisted of approximately 20 persons.

These participants met together on a Friday evening and Saturday morning once every 3-4 weeks and they would share their experiences in implementing the past module and would then be trained in the following module. Approximately two weeks later the coaches would then go out to each school and meet each principal to support him/her with the outputs for the module which they had just been through. In total each principal had to develop a portfolio of 24 applied outputs in consultation with their SMT’s – each output then had to be signed off by their respective coaches.

In the case of the ward managers, they were required to produce a set of 10 outputs which were determined in consultation with their coaches. These outputs consisted of activities to build their relationships with the principals and to enhance their own coaching skills. In this latter respect each ward manager was required to coach one principalunder the guidance of the external coach.

Looking forward, colleges were essentially designed to lay the basis for ‘learning networks’ across wards which would be supported by the ward managers after the conclusion of the programme. Each ward manager was therefore required to submit a learning network plan for the participating schools and others in their wards for 2010 and beyond.

Over 60% of the total budget was allocated to coaching at school level because this was regarded as the key factor to ensure that the outputs which were produced were real to the school itself and not mere theoretical constructs or examples of what could be applied. In the comments received from participants during and after the programme it was evident that this was the defining feature of the programme which set it apart and delivered the most perceived value.

The focus of the programme was management rather than leadership skills. This was a deliberate design choice not made because leadership skills were regarded as unimportant but rather because, in a context of limited time and resources, getting the basics in place was regarded as more important.

It was however intended that through the coaching process leadership behaviours would be modelled with the principals and ward managers which they would be asked to apply in their interactions with their school management teams and SGB’s.

In addition, in the final college a short session backed by audiovisuals was introduced with a view to encouraging discussion on leadership issues as part of the programme. The thinking was that going forward in the rollouta ‘leadership discussion’ could be held at each college so as to stimulate thinking and behaviours in this regard. In their plans for learning networks for 2010, ward managers were also asked to include key leadership issues for discussion and thought.

The PMDP was not developed to compete in any way with academic professional development programmes like the ACE being run through various universities throughoutSouth Africa and targeted at future school principals. While it was developed in close consultation with those involved with the ACE and certainly has elements of synergy, the PMDP has a different rationale i.e. getting the basics in place and applied skills transferred to existing school principals in a very short space of time. Some within the academic establishment have been sceptical about whether this is indeed possible and can be sustained – in our view there are more than ample international and local case studies to make this case overwhelming. In the case of the PMDP we are happy to let the results be the arbiter.

As regards sustainability, it should be evident that the intention is to build the internal capability of ward managers to be able to run the programme effectively and to develop ‘learning networks’ out of each of the colleges which will ensure that principals continually get together and learn even after the conclusion of this programme. A small supplementary programme has been designed to support ward managers to get the programme extended and their learning networks established after the conclusion of their own training.

The PMDP should have a limited life as an independent programme. Once all ward managers have been through the programme and are capable of undertaking the training, coaching and support, the PMDP should be taken over and run in its entirety by the KZN DoE.

A final point on methodology. The development and delivery of the programme was underpinned by an ‘appreciative enquiry’ approach which meant that its focus was not on the ‘crisis – the gap – the goal’, but rather on ‘what works’ and how can this be built on.

The shift in mental models is an important one – it essentially moves participants from the enormity of ‘deficit thinking’ to the more positive place of ‘what I am getting right and how can I build on this’.

The approach has huge potential for wider application than just the PMDP. Through focusing on opportunities and current good practice, both participants and observers are able to see their way through a landscape which, viewed in traditional gap analysing terms, is littered with insurmountable obstacles at every turn.

The very heartening element of a project of this nature is just how many participants are indeed trying to get it right and how many do in fact succeed in producing high pass rates in situations in which poverty, crime and poor infrastructure are so prevalent.

4.Participants

Details of the 50 schools which participated in the PMDP are indicated in Table 1 below. In addition, as indicated, ward managers from the six wards also participated and were a critical part of the programme.

The selection of participants was made partly on the basis of the ‘college’ methodology which determined that all participants had to be within reasonable access of a ‘virtual college’ and their ward manager had to accompany them. A ‘virtual college’ could of course operate wherever there was infrastructure and could accommodate around 20 persons at a time.

The selection criteria developed by the DoE stakeholders including the educator trade unions were as follows:

• Predominantly peri- and deep rural
• Quintiles 1 and 2
• Majority of primary schools
• Inclusion of LSEN schools

The Table below provides some detail on the 50 schools which were selected:

As is evident from Table1 abovemore than half the participating schools have no piped water and a third have no electricity.

40% of the participating principals were women and their average length of service was approximately 10 years as indicated in Table 2 below:

5. Results

A series of performance measures were developed at the outset of the programme against which it was intended to measure its impact and success. There was extensive discussion about whether assessment results at the end of 2009 should be taken into account given that the programme only commenced in June 2009 and continued right up to the final assessment period.

It was eventually agreed that both the 2009 and 2010 assessments would be considered in the case of secondary schools and in the case of primary schools only the 2010 assessments because one of the key deliverables of the programme was to ensure that there were a proper set of standardised assessments conducted at primary schools in 2009 which could provide a reliable baseline going forward.

The set of performance indicators agreed by stakeholders are reflected in Table 3– each of these outputs is dealt with in more detail below:

• A standardised literacy and numeracy assessment is in place at every primary school
• Grade passes in senior schools improve over 2008

• Project timeframes are met and quality standards are achieved
• The full budget is raised and budget parameters are complied with

5.1Completion of Outputs

95% of participants completed their portfolios and were accredited in the Award Ceremony which was held in December 2009 at the University of KZN. Those not accredited were given the opportunity to satisfactorily complete their outputs during the course of 2010 whereafter their portfolios will be reassessed and considered for accreditation.

5.2 School Results

In the case of secondary schools the schools in the project achieved an average improvement in their Grade 12 assessments results of 12.3%.

This is an extremely encouraging result when one considers that the average increase in KZN was 2% and that it was the only province in which there was an improvement over 2008. If one excludes the two worst performing schools participating in the programme, the improvement over 2008 was 16.9%!!

The top six most improved schools in the programme were as follows:

These dramatic improvements were in many cases off very low bases and in some cases the levels reached are still a long way from satisfactory. Nevertheless these schools are certainly headed in the right direction.