Integrated quality-management systems in selected schools : King William's Town Education District

The Integrated Quality Management System is a national policy that was introduced in 2003 by the Department of Education – with the aim of improving the performance of educators in teaching and learning. The policy integrates three programmes, namely: Developmental Appraisal, Performance Management and Whole-School Evaluation, which ought to complement one another, and run concurrently. The introduction and implementation of the Integrated Quality Management System is based on the premise that the quality of education in South African Schools would improve if the processes of the policy were used to evaluate and reward educators, and to institute corrective measures where necessary. The aim of the study was to evaluate the implementation of the Integrated Quality Management System for improving the quality of teaching and learning in schools. The study focused on schools in the King William’s Town Education District. Qualitative and quantitative research approaches were used to elicit the perceptions of educators, Senior Management Teams and District coordinators, with regard to the implementation process of the policy in the local schools. The findings indicate that the Department of Education needs to improve the processes of educating the educators in the implementation of the Integrated Quality Management system – in order to increase the possibility of achieving the objectives of the policy