The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi Education Panorama
WHY have schools become centres of conflict?
How many times have you heard that teachers, parents or SDC s are up in arms against each other or a headmaster or mistress over this or that issue?
I know many schools, too many to mention by name, where everybody else, sometimes including the students, are like members of opposition parties against one ‘‘ruling party’’ leader called headmaster or headmistress? They have not one good story to tell about him or her.
Why are schools growing into professional hot-beds characterised by backbiting, intriguing and mudslinging — worst cases culminating into death traps and ideological hell? War zones if you like?
Let us begin with the man or woman at the helm? Where do these leaders come from? How do they get to this office? Are there special educational and professional qualifications that determine the rise of one to such heights of administrative responsibility?
Are there special schools or colleges, universities perhaps, where school heads are trained? Why not? I have asked myself this question for many years during my days of mainstream teaching, obviously motivated by some heads’ levels of administrative incompetence. I remember one of them whom I did not particularly admire or like, he obviously did not like me much either.
He managed this school I was unlucky to be at, like some Zunde raMambo — a typical rural village home community where he administratively depended on gossip, rumour-mongering, backbiting and backstabbing. He was not one of his kind.
Some school heads, many of them in these troubled schools, behave like the hard MaShona Afrikana bull that terrorises every little bull and mounts all cows in the kraal. I remember one she-school head whose preoccupation was wanting everyone, especially male teachers, to know that she was a ‘‘boss’’, empowered, anointed and crowned. “I was not voted into this position. I was appointed, not elected. I am qualified. Ndini nditoripo panyanga. Saka munotoshanda nezviripo kusvika mavepowo panyanga.” That was her business day-in-day-out; bragging and flying without wings.
Are these not some of the reasons most school heads are unpopular with literally everyone? They are hand-picked blue-eyed boys and girls whose idea of leadership verges on the sublime and ridiculous?
All other CEOs and managers receive special managerial or leadership training to captain various ships of industry. Why does the education sector rely on promoting and recycling officers? Why is there no special headmasters’ training? Are school heads not managers of a special industry?
If they are managers, where and when do they acquire managerial skills? In donor-funded workshops? There definitely is need for a serious rethink on this issue of school heads’ professional capacity. While some of them deserve awards and accolades for administrative competence, a lot of them are part of the problems schools face than they are part of the solutions.
This argument cannot be complete without mentioning teachers.
Why are there so many teachers hanging around the school heads’ necks like albatrosses in these schools? That is another question? Some teachers believe that opposing the head’s ideas and administration is a sign of intelligence? They become loud and aggressive attention-seekers in their pursuit of ‘‘democratic’’ freedom. They turn left at every point the school head turns right. Some youthful university graduates which the system seems to prefer as shown by their upgrading way above teaching cronies, join schools in order to create these ‘‘opposition parties’’. They are influenced by radical university ‘‘politics’’ which is refusing to go away. Sheer immaturity and cheap attention seeking!
Whatever are the reasons for this growing lack of co-operation between the head and teachers, there is need for serious address of the anomaly.
SDCs are another source of discord in the schools.
We all know the existence of these committees is supported by a special statutory instrument whose intentions and purposes are very clear.
We also know the composition of these committees is not determined by special guidelines. Some of the members of these committees have no idea how school are or must be run. They are big or hot-headed loud mouths power hungry to the extreme; sheer square pegs in round holes! They think they are above the school administration and are in schools to guide school heads and show them what they must do or not do.
Whatever the good reasons for the establishment of these SDCs, it is the belief of this writer and many who invest in education that there is need to review the function of these committees to ensure schools of effective governability.
The task is overdue.
We also know that a few of these SDCs have assisted school administrators to improve governability and standards at their stations. These know what is their job and many of them are developmental experts in some area or another. Well done! Objective criticism does not paint everyone with the same brush.
However, important questions still stand. Instead of adding fuel to the fire in the form of a spat of recent restrictions in the running of schools (I am referring to the noises surrounding incentives, holiday lessons and other sanctions), is it not wiser for those with the powers invested in them to establish administrative unity and co-operation in respective stations?
Will more strife help to make schools more functional? How do schools whose heads and teachers work in different directions or pursue different objectives function? Does anybody know the causes of these administrative discords and is there effort from anyone or any organised power to address this silent war?
The purpose of this discussion, introduced as it was in the form of a question spiced by many others in its development, is to engage, provoke constructive debate. The writer has written.
The speaker has spoken, if you like. What is your take on the disturbing question and many unanswered ones that follow? Wisdom is distilled through sharing ideas and perceptions. Let us talk.
You are welcome to respond both to the question and the writer’s views in any mode of communication convenient to you. Address your responses to MM ON EDUCATIONAL PANORAMA preferably via email: [email protected]
