THE ROLE OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS IN SUPPORTING UNDERPERFORMING SCHOOLS IN SOUTH AFRICA: A CASE OF GAUTENG PROVINCE

Education districts are the link between education sites and the Provincial Education Departments. The districts are responsible for ensuring that education needs are understood and addressed, and that national learning objectives are realised. In addition, they provide direct services to schools, educators and learners. These services include: curriculum support, institutional development and support, human resources development, education-support services, and sport, culture and values in education. Yet, literature reviewed shows that urban school districts have persistently failed to demonstrate the ability to support their constantly low-performing schools, leaving thousands of children with unacceptably poor education.

This study investigated how school districts in South Africa support the underperforming schools. It was conducted within the qualitative research approach. Semi-structured interviews and document analysis were used as data collection methods. On the one hand, the findings show that school districts provide support in the form of National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP), Scholar transport, “No Fee Policy”, and Secondary School Intervention Programme (SSIP) to address the problem of poor learner performance in schools. On the other hand, the research findings suggest that there are number of factors that impede school districts to provide support to underperforming schools. These include, amongst others; lack of government vehicles to be used for visiting schools; unions denying district officials opportunities to observe teaching and learning; and wrong ranking of schools into quintiles. The findings of this study provide an empirical foundation for understanding how school districts support poor performing schools in a fairly new democratic country. It is critical that unions undergo training regarding the importance of school districts in schools. In addition, National Department of Education should make resources available to enable school districts to provide support to schools.