Abstract:

South Africa has undergone significant and major political, social and economic changes since the advent of democracy in 1994. Within this broad context of transformation, education has not been overlooked. Public spending on education has gone from being highly unequal on the basis of race under the apartheid regime to being well targeted towards poor children under the democratic government. In spite of this positive trend, a cause for concern is the low quality of education within the historically disadvantaged parts of the school system.

Education in South African public schools is marred with high enrolment rates and increasingly poor Senior Certificate Examination results every year. Schools in South Africa cannot improve until communities improve and it is amidst this backdrop that parents are becoming disillusioned with their children’s education in government schools. Many parents view the public school system as ineffective and dangerous and are thus voting with their feet in exploring other educational options in the form of Private and/or home schooling. Pockets of functional schools exist amidst the mass of dysfunctional ones depicting a growing gap between the two. This gap specifically refers to the quality of education the different schools are able to offer and there exists a social responsibility to narrow this gap since education affects the future prosperity and economy of any country.

Quality in the context of education is not an easy concept to clarify. The need therefore to thus explore school choice in the context of access, equality, and opportunity in establishing how schools promote themselves as quality providing institutions was thus a focal point in the quantitative study. A questionnaire to this end was administered to school principals with respect to their behaviour in terms of promotional mechanisms for school marketing and their perception of quality providing organisations.

Often differences in South African schools at present reflect not only differences in clientele but in the ability of the state to provide adequate schooling for its citizens. The results of the research point to a number of challenges concerning the promotional capacity of principals in the effective, efficient and economic management of their schools. Among others it was found that a paradigmatic shift in the thinking of school principals is required. From the empirical research it was found that current principals do in fact have clear attitudes and beliefs re quality education, which implies their ability to engage in promotional activities, however, this is not converted into a reality. The provision of quality education to all South Africans is crucial, not only for ensuring a well-educated population, but also because a quality education is inextricably intertwined with notions of freedom and upward mobility.

Keywords:

Education, quality, school principals, management, marketing.