Promotion of educators as an aspect of educator management : implication for whole school development

M.Ed.This research project on the promotion of educators as an aspect of educator management is part of a group research project on whole school development. This particular study focuses on managing educators in schools. Its objective is to make prospective and practising school managers aware of the wide range of activities covered by the term promotion of educators and to present the best current practises available on promotion of educators. Educator management is meant to bring about improved student learning. Decisions relating to the selection, placement, evaluation, development and promotion of educators should be made with that outcome in mind. Present and future educators as well as school principals and prospective principals, will find the material of this mini-dissertation to be relevant. When a principal interviews an applicant for a promotion post, plans a staff development programme for the school, or evaluates an educator's performance, he or she is engaging in personnel management. The importance of the principal's role in personnel management is increasing as schools move towards wider implementqtion of site-base management and the decentralisation of responsibility to the school level. However, no aspect of educator management is the exclusive terrain of a single, administrator. It is a shared enterprise that involves administrators at all levels of the regional hierarchy and with all types ofjob responsibilities. All administrators are members of some or other team and to the extent that they all understand the importance of good personnel practices, the region will be able to achieve its instructional objectives and so contribute towards whole school development. Many personnel decisions have a direct impact on the quality of instruction occurring in schools. When a decision is made to employ one applicant rather than another, or when an educator evaluation plan is implemented, there are likely to be implications for the quality of learning in the schools affected. The impact of these and other personnel decisions should be taken into account at the time the decisions are made. In this research a structured questionnaire was used to collect data on the perceptions of the respondents to the items posed in the questionnaire. In this research project 79 items were designed to probe the perceptions of educators on various post levels as to the extent that they agree or disagree with certain statements relative to the management of educators within the context of whole school development. The structured questionnaires were distributed to a convenient stratified sample in seven ofthe nine Provinces in South Africa. Based on the information gathered using the questionnaire each item relevant to this particular research project was analysed and discussed. After the factor analytic procedure the factor mean scores ofthe various groups were analysed and explained. In the view of the findings resulting from this project, further research is recommended. This should occur in areas like the methodology and research of the results of the numerous unique applications that this project recommended. Motivation at group level and the relationship between the experience of stress and those factors that increase or decrease the likelihood of a stress-related illness also need to be thoroughly investigated