It is important, therefore, to avoid at all costs a state where a school loses its spark and relegates to a desperate level of becoming synonymous with hopelessness. A school seeking to stay afloat and intentionally rooted on its purpose should frequently sharpen and upgrade its instructional and governance practices. The role of school principals and oversight entities in keeping a school on its lane cannot be over emphasised.
The processes and practices defining a good school should be relentlessly monitored and fine tuned to keep a school on course. Experience has shown that complacency has brought about the downfall of many schools, which previously served students well. Since recovery may appear insurmountable in a completely broken school, no school should be permitted to degenerate and deviate fundamentally from its core mission of serving each and every child. Interestingly, schools that do not perform never run short of reasons justifying under achievement.
When a school has given up the hope of recovering, more time is spent on justifying failure rather than coming up with reforms geared towards recovery. In my view, no circumstances, no matter how difficult, should render a school impotent and completely unhelpful. The sight of a school should be synonymous with hope. A school building should carry the dreams and aspirations of the community in which it exists to serve. However, it should not be much of a surprise, when once in a while failure can visit a school. Even a school that has its eyes fixated on rendering a quality teaching and learning environment can accidentally slip and experience a slow or sharp decline. It is normal. However, it should be a source of grave concern when a school is plagued by what seems to be an interminable and perpetual culture of under achievement. Failing students should be a rare occurrence, an exception rather than a norm. It is relatively easy to mobilise resources to navigate a shocking and unexpected phenomenon considered alien to a system. But when a negative phenomenon becomes a permanent characteristic feature of a school, permitted to thrive and prosper for a prolonged period of over 10 years, it may stubbornly resist change or refuse to go away.
To stay on course or close to its purpose, a school should fight tooth and nail to avoid slipping into a situation where failure becomes a permanent feature. Any school worth its salt should, with confidence, treat failure as a temporary setback. The attitude of staff towards issues bedeviling their school can make or break a school. Maintaining a positive tone in the face of adversity is important in the turnaround process.
Also treating every member of staff as an important pillar in the turnaround mission inspires everyone to rise to the occasion. No one should be left behind in the rebuilding phase. Those left behind can out of desperation sabotage noble initiatives aimed at making a school better. It is no doubt that a school turnaround process requires a champion - a king pin. This is why all schools should be led by trained and passionate school turnaround champions who believe in a world of possibilities.
Turnaround champions make students and teachers see, nothing but possibilities. Nothing about a school should be left to chance. Turnaround champions are rugged creatures that keep their heads up when the chips are down. They never surrender but keep on injecting a positive energy, each step of the way. They plan with their teams the road to success and know how to carry everybody on board.
Sadly, as things stand, there are far too many schools (overwhelming numbers) in our jurisdiction that are caught up in a quagmire of a failing culture. Some schools continue to suffer from the indignity of being permanently wedded to a continuing culture of under performance. This negative culture could be as old as five to 10 years. The story is one of hopping from one season of disappointment and frustration to another. Further compounding the situation is that such schools do not seem to have any known clearly defined school improvement plan giving any hope for positive change. What is saddening is that year in and out the schools, offering no hope, continue to absorb new students. A spirit of no hope is evident when bad results are announced and the schools appear unmoved. Some of them do not deeply interrogate their performance to determine what could have possibly gone wrong. Life continues as if nothing happened. New students come and suffer the same fate as their predecessors. This is sad. Their only contribution lies in the capacity to improve access to education and not the ability to provide knowledge and skills relevant to improved livelihoods.
Such schools if you ask me, have no reason to exist. Sending students to schools that may not positively alter the lives of students is tantamount to condemning schools to an inevitable doom. This should be discouraged. Before opening its doors to students every chronically low achieving school should be required to present, as a prerequisite, a robust turnaround plan with time lines detailing the what, when and how. There should be consequences for non compliance with opening requirements. In the business environment, threatening a business with closure or actually closing a business, which fails to comply with basic requirements, is paying dividends.
Threatening a school with a possible closure could demonstrate the high premium attached on the promotion of quality education. Failure should be declared a repugnant culture, which cannot be tolerated. Of course, a turnaround programme may not take off without a corresponding budgetary provision. Even in the midst of austerity measures, there should be some degree of leniency towards schools.
There should be a budget set aside to support a school turnaround agenda. To achieve meaningful changes, school principals should enjoy some degree of autonomy on finance matters. Mobilisation of critical inputs should be handled within the school. While belt tightening should have general applicability, schools should be spared because of the delicacy of the work of preparing a sustainable future for the children. Schools should never lack critical teaching and learning inputs. Working without tools is a frustrating experience.
