School governance in the Limpopo Province

D.Ed.Limpopo Province, in line with other provinces in South Africa, adopted democratic school governance in public secondary schools. Since the inception of this system in 1997 hopes ran high that eventually the culture of teaching and learning in secondary schools will be improved and subsequently schools will be transformed. Contrarily, there has been a mismatch in terms of the provincial education objectives with what is currently happening in secondary schools in the province. Conditions of school governance in secondary schools as regards the physical, social, moral, economic, and academic problems are deplorable albeit democratic school governing bodies are in place. The 1998: 35.2%; the 1999: 37.5%; the 2000: 51.5%; and the 2001: 59.5% matriculation pass rates could partially be attributed to ineffective school governance. Consequently, communities are concerned about SGB's who are not accomplishing their role and functions as mandated by the SASA of 1996. The focus of this research is on democratic school governance in the Vuwani district in the Limpopo Province. The objective of this research was to probe perceptions of the different members of the SGB's regarding diverse aspects of school governance as mandated by the SASA of 1996