Pressure mounts on school principals

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday March 6, 2023 06:00

Four decades ago, public schools were small both in terms of physical size and student numbers and therefore they were relatively easy to govern. Seemingly founded on the principle that mission failure was not an option, most schools acquitted themselves academically. At the time, it did not matter much who led which school because of the story of success that characterised the times.

However, today’s school principals are closely watched and monitored because of the nagging and persistent culture of low student outcomes. Whenever there is a change of guard, whether it is in a chronically low achieving or top achieving school, it is always accompanied and greeted by a feeling of apprehension and uncertainty among members of staff, students, parents and other stakeholders. This is for a very good cause. Everyone now recognises the intimacy between the calibre of the school leader and learning outcomes. This is why the arrival or departure of a school principal is a big story, which can seal the fortunes of students for better or worse. The principal is the hub of a school. One cannot over emphasise the fact that for a school to tick, the principal should marshal both financial and human resources, ensuring appropriate deployment and alignment of the budget with priorities while helping the troops to find its purpose. Clarity of purpose creates a sense of unity and synergy in the team.

In the recent past, parents began to take a keen interest in the affairs of schools. They care a lot about what is happening or what is not happening in schools. They have grown weary of low student achievement levels. To support schools, some parents send their children to tutorial schools to augment what they would have learnt at school. Parents take a special interest in matters of governance in schools. They take note when principals are deployed and this is the more reason principals feel the heat. Deployment of a principal to a top achieving school while desirable, comes with challenges and risks. It cannot be an easy task for one to fit into the shoes of someone who has maintained a high standard performance.

A principal who takes charge of a high performing school has a challenge of upholding a winning culture, raising the bar higher while also running the risk of presiding over the collapse and demise of a school. No principal worth his/her salt would want to experience the indignity of erasing what was working and replacing it with what is not working. When dealing with a successful school, one must tread carefully. An overzealous approach can derail and disengage the school. It is important to avoid fixing what is not broken. The pressure associated with managing a struggling school might be a daunting one.

However, a leader must be equal to the task. Struggling schools might be apprehensive faced with a new principal who is desirous of ushering a new dispensation. Even the principal is bound to be anxious about how he will go about navigating the challenges. No matter how overwhelming pressure may appear to be, once at the helm of a school, a principal should remain calm and never lose composure. It is always advisable to remember to keep the game simple.

A good leader should be able to exploit hanging fruits by beginning with things that are easy to do. Giving leaders a pat on the back is no simple task which can have a profound impact in the morale of staff. Clearing road blocks standing on the way of learning cannot be a walk in the park. It is always a daunting challenge to get out of a quagmire. There is a challenge of inertia which is a common characteristic feature of chronically low achieving schools.

Inertia must be confronted head on. A school is described to be in a state of inertia when it is overwhelmed with the plague of underachievement to an extent where it appears to have lost the plot altogether. Everyone from the cafeteria, security, teaching and management would appear to have given up the hope of ever seeing the rise of a new dawn. Schools in this state of affairs would be characterised by frequent and rising cases of indiscipline, truancy, chaos, absence innovation, a sense of urgency and singularity of purpose. The temptation to follow the usual routine and recycle discredited initiatives without scrutiny is always strong and appealing. Repeated failures can yield a culture of despondency where a system resigns to its fate. A spirit of no hope is an admission that the challenges facing a school system are insurmountable and bigger than the school. In a situation where failure has become an accepted way of life, very little change or movement occurs to deal with issues curtailing teaching and learning opportunities. Accountability is almost non-existent in school systems caught up in a state of inertia. Everyone in the system is quick to recognise and name the challenges but what is usually conspicuously absent is an element of ownership of the problem. Problem solving begins when individuals within an organisation can readily accept their fair share of the challenges contributing to underachievement. When confronted with failure, everyone should introspect and think of the one thing one can do or change to beef up the school’s student support system. Problem solving begins where their collective ownership of the issues inhibiting performance. There is so much comfort in doing nothing. Many broken schools may not harbour any ambitions and consequently may not fancy chances of ever getting better.

This attitude is wrong and must be discontinued because it cannot carry a school anywhere. No school system is entirely useless. Even with a school that appears weak and hopeless, there could one or two best practices that are worth keeping. It is important to quickly examine good practices that are worthy of praise and reinforcement. For instance, where there is an element of collaboration it must be sustained.

When dealing with an underachieving culture, it is also important to demonstrate a fearless approach by talking about things that may be uncomfortable. Tampers may flare but a principal should never accept anything which is not good for students. Excuses usually stand on the way of progress. A principal should be able to channel the energies of his team to issues which are within the control of his school. Working hard on matters of policy which are outside the jurisdiction of the school is best defined as a waste of energy. The business of a school is to refine the practice environment to accelerate student learning outcomes.