Knowing your Numbers

In a recent conversation with one of the leading district directors in the country, our focus centred on the importance of 'knowing the numbers' you are working with.  Any job or work will have a certain amount of numbers which will be crucial for the successful performance of that work.  This could be the time you start working, and the time you stop working.  The amount of hours, days, weeks and months you have to work during a particular year, etc.

The convenience of 'numbers' is that they are quantities which we have very similar or exact meaning to when look at them.  Obviously we are excluding those individuals who would want to dispute almost everything in the system, and wanting to having a different or alternative meaning and/or perception.  Like, is 5 minutes past the starting time still ON TIME, or should it be regarded as BEING LATE, etc.  We are not talking about this last group of people.

Numbers, or quantities have the potential to build up clarity, to ensure adherence to the same, to work toward a common goal. While 'opinions' or what is regarded as the qualitative things in education, which could have various and varied interpretations and perceptions.  It is far better to sort out the 'personal perceptions and opinions' in qualitative interpretations when we have build up some relationship and/or reputation of agreeing on quantitative issues.

I therefore would like to argue that it is important that different people at different levels of the education system should know their numbers.  For example, if I am a principal, I should know at least the following:

• how many learners (girls and boys) do I have in my school?;
• how many of them are part of a child headed family, and whether they are the head?;
• what are their dreams, aspirations and expectations (each one of my learners)?;
• what do they want to do, after they leave school, in order for me to assist them to be ready when they leave my school?;
• how many learners in my school go to bed hungry, and how often, so that I don't solve that problem but rather know and influence it?;
• how many hours of teaching and learning will be offered to each and every learning in my school, during this particular academic year?;
• in order to achieve the hours of teaching and learning for year, how do I manage the process in order to ensure that every period, day, week, month and semester contribute to the total number of hours I promise (as it is legislated in law to be 27.5 hours for secondary school learners per week) them?;
• Etc.

These are just a few of the 'knowing your numbers' exercises I do with principals when assisting them in turning around their schools.  It is important to first get your numbers (quantity) right, before you move to the quality of teaching and learning.  In South Africa, we have just adopted this strategy 'the other way around' - focusing on quality before cementing quantity!  We often fail our learners in the 'small stuff'!

I would therefore like to invite you to share with me your numbers (muavia@mweb.co.za).  The aim is to put together a comprehensive 'dashboard' for everyone in the chain of education delivery (from the highest official in the system to our teachers in the classroom), as a yardstick to measure our effectiveness in delivering the best, by knowing what is going on.