Change the system

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday June 13, 2022 06:00

Here are some key areas requiring swift and immediate attention. The first port of call is to create an enabling environment in which teachers and students can thrive. The role of governance in the overall health of schools and acceleration attainment of improved learning outcomes cannot be overemphasised. Every known high performing school is endowed with a rare breed of top-notch leadership. The Ontario School Leadership supports this claim. The framework has established an intimate correspondence between governance and academic outcomes and the welfare of students. It is against this backdrop that the issue of governance cannot wait. It is an urgent issue requiring urgent panel beating. The system should audaciously consider going shopping in the open market to recruit and pay well the ablest educators to come and man public schools. There is no harm in taking leaf from private schools, which endeavour at all times to recruit the crème de la crème.

Private schools in line with the Ontario School Leadership Framework do not leave matters of school governance to chance. Doing things the unusual way by going on a shopping spree for exceptional school leaders might not be a popular decision because it may ruin careers for under achieving school governors but it is a move that would do away with complacency and encourage both serving and aspiring principals to raise the bar while taking care of the best interests of students. Once the schools are in the hands of best, tried and tested principals, the central office would be relieved of the trouble of micro managing schools from a distance.

There would be no need to continue the culture of issuing directives from HQ to help schools find their bearings. The central office would then expend its energies on policy matters, as worries over operational matters would have been scaled down. There are so many advantages of having on board top class educators at the helm of schools.

The best principals understand the value of leading change from the front. They understand too the risk of outsourcing the process of change. Top-notch principals never take their eyes off the ball. Their eyes are always fixated on the classroom factory where results are made. But even good principals need a conducive environment, which includes among others some modicum of flexibility and autonomy.

If the buck stops with them and then the principals deserve some breathing space to manage schools in a manner consistent with their vision of academic success. In line with his or her vision of success, a school principal just like a football head coach, should have a greater influence on matters of recruitment and deployment of both teaching and non-teaching staff.

Hitherto recruitment and deployment of staff is the sole prerogative of the central and regional offices and the practice is not entirely helpful. Big positive changes could accrue from an arrangement where those on the ground would have an upper hand in determining the calibre of staff they need to champion the cause of raising academic achievement levels. Greater control over staff would allow principals to develop a deployment plan that would suit their circumstances and peculiar needs of the schools they lead.

The one size fits all kind of deployment is not serving the system well and the persisting culture of academic underachievement bears testimony to this. The system should swallow its pride and take lessons from private schools. In the private sector where academic excellence is standard practice, even the most senior members of staff including the school principals are deployed in the classroom to teach. To them, classroom issues are second to none and all capable hands are therefore needed on deck. In public schools administrative responsibilities keep school managers and their lieutenants completely insulated from the classroom. The practice of making the classroom to look like a no go area for managers should be reviewed because it has robbed students of the services of the most able and experienced classroom practitioners. If change is to come, all classroom practioners regardless of their positions should retrace their steps back into the classroom.

This won't be a popular move but it would do instruction and students a world of good. There should also be a paradigm shift regarding management of school finances. Presently schools have little say on how best they can utilise their budget allocations. The financial votes system is very restrictive and therefore suffocates innovation. Sometimes schools are allocated more funds in votes, which do not have direct impact on learning outcomes and such monies run the risk of returning to the treasury unused. Once they have received their share from the treasury, school principals should have the autonomy to see how best they allocate finances in line with their priorities.

For instance, schools could choose to channel more money into teacher professional development to address identified instructional gaps or to increase a budget for rewards and incentives in cases where organisational objectives have been fulfilled. There are cases where best practices are not reinforced and encouraged not because there is no money but simply because the money could be sitting in a wrong vote.