Browsing by Author "Botha, Thozamile Alfred"

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    Practices of School Management Teams in managing learner attendance: A case of three rural high schools in the King Williams Town Education District
    (University of Fort Hare, 2015-01) Botha, Thozamile Alfred; Mavuso, M.P.
    The aim of this study was to investigate the practices of School Management Teams (SMTs) in managing learner attendance in three rural high schools in King Williams Town District of Education. A qualitative research approach through a case study design was used and a sample of 12 participants was purposively drawn from the three selected high schools. Semi-structured interviews (face-to-face and focus group), documentary analysis and semi structured questionnaire were used to collect data. The results of the study indicated that there is a problem of learner non-attendance in the three rural high schools. The data showed that socio-economic factors such as poverty, lack of parental involvement, and distance learners have to travel to school were causes of learner non-attendance. It emerged from the data that in most cases, SMTs had no clear strategy of managing learner attendance in schools as in some cases learner would slip out of school without being noticed. SMT members did not seem to be proactive in dealing with issues of learner attendance and the principals were regarded as the only persons who should deal with learners who transgressed national learner attendance policy. SMTs seemed to rely on the School Nutrition Programme (SNP) as a way of combating absenteeism in schools. The issue of dealing with problems related to causes of learner absenteeism was regarded as the responsibility of the Life Orientation teacher. The data also revealed that SMTs focused on control rather than devising strategies to combat learner attendance and this was manifested by the regular marking of class registers. However, there were no indications that the information obtained from the marking of class registers helped the SMTs to effectively manage learner attendance.