Exploring ethical leadership in schools: a case of four rural schools in the Zululand district, KwaZulu-Natal.
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Date
2017
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Abstract
Given the prominent ethical crises and scandals that have rocked basic education in South Africa recently (such as the selling of teaching and management posts, intimate relationships among staff members and learners, embezzlements of school funds, etc.,) the importance of empirical research on ethics in educational institutions seems obvious. The image of the education system continues to suffer as a result of poor quality learner results—both in the National Senior Certificate (NSC) and the Annual National Assessments (ANA)—alleged group copying in NSC Examinations, abuse of the leave system by some teachers and many other corrupt and unethical practices by teachers, school principals, school governing bodies and other officials in the Department of Basic Education. The afore-mentioned people are entrusted with the leadership and management of schools and are expected to act in the best interests of the schools and learners and ensure that professional ethical standards are set and adhered to. This qualitative case study aimed to explore the conceptualisations, practices and experiences of school principals, school management teams (SMTs) and teachers about ethical leadership in four rural schools in the Zululand District, KwaZulu-Natal. It employed social constructivism as a research paradigm. A school principal, one SMT member and two PL1 educators were conveniently selected from each of the four schools to generate data. Theoretically, the study is framed by a combination of two theories, namely: Shapiro and Stefkovich’s (2005) Model of Ethical Leadership and Khoza’s (2011) Attuned Leadership Model (African Humanism – Ubuntu). The findings reveal that poverty and lack of knowledge in rural communities was a contributory factor to unethical behaviour of school principals and educators. The findings also indicate that most school principals were selfish and did not care about their schools. They were running their schools as private property and spent most of the time absent from work; hired their own companies to work in their school; received bribes; they sometimes exchanged teaching posts for sexual favours and money, and engaged in general nepotism. The findings also reveal that some of the unethical practices seemed to originate from the District/Circuit offices, especially from circuit managers. Based on the findings and conclusions, this study recommends that the Department of Education, over and above the interview process, when recruiting the school principals, must also design an assessment tool to assess the character and the integrity of the potential school principal. Further, Ethics education should be made compulsory in Higher Education teacher training institutions. In addition, SACE should be de-politicised, decentralised, made more visible and play its developmental role more than it is currently doing.
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Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.