Overview of Decentralised Education Structures in Gauteng and North West Provinces
The administration of education in South Africa is decentralised, with the highest- decision making authority being the National Department of Education, followed by the Provincial Education Departments (PEDs). The PEDs are headed by Members of the Executive Council (MECs) for Education. The next hierarchal position at the provincial level is the Superintendent General, who essentially ensures that the department is efficiently and effectively managed in terms of administration. A Deputy Director General (DDG) or Head of Department (HOD) oversees the operation of the executive managers in charge of the district/regional levels.
Beyond the provincial level, the structure varies by province. In Gauteng, there are District Education Offices (DEOs) in all districts, but in North West, clusters of districts are governed by a regional education office (REO) – four in total. The decentralised structure at the provincial level is a devolution of power, whereby PEDs have full authority and discretion over most of their affairs. Beyond that level, it becomes a
168 | deconcentration of power, whereby the districts and regions remain under the hierarchal authority of the provinces.
At the time of the survey, there were 15 DEOs governing a total of 1,880 public ordinary schools, 1,617,124 learners and 47,990 educators in Gauteng province (National Treasury, 2007). In the North West province, there are 4 REOs supported by 21 Area Project Offices (APOs) that governed 2,115 public ordinary schools, 894,249 learners and 30,388 educators in 2007 (National Treasury, 2007). Due to resource constraints, the APOs are not fully established offices like the DEOs. They are smaller offices headed by a Chief Education Specialist (who serves at the level of a Deputy Director) and supported by managers and subject specialists offering direct support to schools. APOs generally provide support to a cluster of schools within a demarcated area (comprising of several districts).
Effectiveness of Sub-National Education Structures in providing Support to Primary Schools
In light of the efforts to enhance accessibility of education services and to facilitate efficiency in the delivery of these services, it is important to examine whether these decentralised education structures are effective in providing optimal services to schools. The starting point in this analysis pertains to accessibility: Are DEOs and REOs conveniently located to allow for optimal scheduled and unscheduled visits to schools? Table 7.1 below shows the location of these offices in relation to the schools within the region/district.
169 | Table 7.1 Location of District/Regional Education Offices
Descriptive Statistics
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std.
Deviation
GP How many minutes it
takes to reach closest school from office
9 1 35 10.22 11.311
How many minutes it takes to reach the farthest school from office
9 25 90 49.78 19.633
How many minutes it takes to reach a school on average school from office
9 15 60 31.22 16.200
NW
How many minutes it takes to reach closest school from office
3 1 5 3.00 2.000
How many minutes it takes to reach the farthest school from office
3 90 180 150.00 51.962
How many minutes it takes to reach a school on average school from office
3 30 60 43.33 15.275
The table shows that the REOs in the North West have a greater distance to cover to reach the average school and the farthest school, compared to the DEOs in Gauteng. Indeed, due to the large size of the province, it can take up to 2 hours to get to a school within a single region in the North West.26
Decentralising the administration of schools should ideally allow for regular monitoring and supervision of schools through regular on-site visits, for instance, and offering schools, technical support as needed, in order to meet pre-established educational goals. The study was able to examine whether district officials consistently pay on-site visits to schools. The study was also able to address questions such as, how do schools with more
26 The study does not take APOs into account as they do not provide the full range of services provided by the REOs.
170 | supervision fare in terms of education outcomes and how do schools with less supervision fare in terms of education outcomes?
Supervision of Schools by District/Regional Education Inspectors
The main purpose of district education offices is to support the delivery of the curriculum and to ensure that all learners are afforded good educational learning opportunities (Roberts, 2001). As part of their set functions, district officials periodically visit schools for a number of reasons. They include among others, periodic inspection of the premises; assessments of students/teachers; evaluation of the quality of education; attending to specific problems that have been reported by the school principal; training of teachers on new curricular; school governance and resolving management/conflict issues. The particular staff responsible for these supervisions at district/regional levels are: Institutional Development Support Officials (IDSOs) – in Gauteng Province and Area Project Officers (APOs) – in the North West Province.
While there is no theory on an acceptable quantity of on-site visits to schools in a term or in a year, one can assume that at least a single visit within a term to each public school would be expected and it would appear irregular if some schools did not receive a single visit from a district official within a school term for a quality assessment or any other reason. Therefore, for the sake of making some assessment in the absence of specific guidelines on the adequacy of the number of school visits, zero visits to any schools (whether performing or underperforming) will constitute a problem on the part of the district/regional offices. It may indicate that district offices are understaffed or lacking capacity to conduct the required inspections. It may also suggest that certain schools are
171 | not easily accessible and therefore, district inspectors do not make the effort to go there. The implication could be highly detrimental to education outcomes.
At the same time, some schools may receive numerous visits in a year. According to district officials, this happens in the context of underperforming schools as they demand more attention. Therefore, one would observe a higher frequency of visits in such schools. Although, excessive visits could theoretically overwhelm the principal, who already has competing demands on his/her time, the rationale offered by IDSOs during interviews means that a high volume of visits may be a necessary occurrence that generates positive results in education outcomes.
Table 7.2 below shows the average number of visits by districts inspectors in 2006 and 2007 in Gauteng and North West provinces. For both provinces, it is clear that some schools did not have a single visit from the district in a term. As there are four terms in a year, one would expect at least 4 visits in a year. In Gauteng, however, there are instances of only one visit in a year. In the case of North West, some schools did not see a district inspector at all during the year.
172 | Table 7.2 Frequency of Visits by District Inspectors
Descriptive Statistics
Province where school is located N Minimum Maximum Mean Std.
Deviation GP # of visits by district inspector in 2007 90 1.00 32.00 7.5222 5.56116 # of visits by district inspector in 2006 86 1.00 30.00 7.1395 5.55012 NW # of visits by district inspector in 2007 73 .00 50.00 6.2055 6.97607 # of visits by district inspector in 2006 65 .00 50.00 6.4308 7.31430 GP & NW # of visits by district inspector in 2007 163 .00 50.00 6.9325 6.24908 # of visits by district inspector in 2006 151 .00 50.00 6.8344 6.35655
Given that some schools in both provinces scarcely interact with the district officials at the school premises, it is important to examine those schools. As previously mentioned, one would expect these schools to fall within the top quintiles - which is also a signal of well performing schools and hence needing less visits.
Of the 175 schools surveyed, 44 schools (25 percent) emerged with less than 4 visits in the entire school year, as reported by the school principals. The majority of these (64 percent) were from the North West province, most especially from the Central Region. One would expect this trend to be more prevalent in the North West given the sparsely populated characteristic of the province and considerable distance of schools from the REO. However, it is worrying that up to five schools in the North West did not receive a single visit from a district official in the entire academic year.
173 | The study was further interested in knowing the types of schools that were receiving considerable or very limited supervisory visits in terms of their socio-economic status. From the group that received less than 4 visits in a year, 44 percent fell between quintiles 1 and 2 and 78 percent fell between quintiles 1 and 3. This finding shows that contrary to expectations, a sizeable number of disadvantaged schools that would require more technical assistance from the districts (be it proactive or reactive visits), did not receive this support unless these schools were generally perceived by the districts to be efficient even if disadvantaged. It may also be that these schools were remotely located which presents a constraint to the district supervisors. The major concern here is that the criteria for supervision is not clear.