Friday 30 December 2011

27.5 Hours per week, one of the key numbers for Principals

We have very few definitive numbers in education, especially in the schooling system in South Africa.  For example, if I register my child (say in grade 6) in your school, and ask you as the principal of the school, How many hours of teaching and learning can I expect my child to receive from your school?, what would be your response (lets quickly do the calculation???)  It is extremely frustrating when you engage in a conversation with educators, officials and others, and the conversation is based on everyone's opinion about something that 'could and/or should be'.  EVERYONE'S OPION IS AS IMPORTANT AND SPECIAL AND VALID AS EVERYONE ELSE'S OPINION.  How can one management, which is about monitoring and evaluation, anything in education when there is no precise, specific, highly contested, unclear indicators in education?



Scratching through a myriad of education things, and for this conversation, I want to focus on the 27.5 hours per week (23 hours for grade R-2 and 25 hours for grade 3) teaching and learning time that is promised legislatively to all learners from grade 4 - 12 learners - and yes I know about the additional 30 minutes, but that opinion for another blog.  This PROMISE is specific, clear, with no REINTERPRETATION needed if learners are not given these hours - it will need serious investigation as to the cause of it, and what needs to be done to correct this INJUSTICE.  This is how serious we need to take every class and learner within our education system, who is given a DEAL less than the mentioned hours.  Almost like the way we will react when someone is given us less petrol, etc. when we pay for the mentioned.  If we bought say R500 worth of petrol, and the petrol attendant only throw in half of the petrol, but still take (or even expect) the full amount of R500.  Or if someone is showing us only half of the movie, therefore not getting the FULL picture of the entire story (How valuable would half of the story be?).  What and How would we react when people do this to us?  Even the mildest people will be unhappy and clearly express their unhappiness about the situation.  Well, what should I do if it happens to me?  Certainly not sitting back and doing NOTHING!

In a strategic session with a circuit team, I advised the circuit manager that possibly her first quarter of every year should focus on principals accounting to her, EVERY WEEK, on the 27.5 hours of teaching and learning time, and to what extend they HONOURED that commitment to the learners.  If not, they will have to explain what happened especially if the hours are less, and how they will make up these hours.  It is not good enough to discover this problem after June holiday.  This must be verified every week.

From the position of the principals, and for them to be able to account for this number, they will have to put together some systems to ensure that they KNOW, by the end of the week, what they are accounting on.  The number of 27.5 hours (1 650 minutes) is made up of and even 5.5 hours per day (330 minutes), or an uneven distribution of hours over the week that will make up 27.5 hours.  So, the head of departments and/or senior teachers must take responsibility and guidance to ensure that teachers honour every minute promised to the learners - Yes, every minute.  We, as teachers, can't make a big deal when they underpay us on our salary bill, but we are okay with not honouring every minute to which that salary is connected to.  Otherwise, the number are not adding up!

Improving our education system, and in particular the learner achievement and success in South Africa, is not located in TEACHER DEVELOPMENT, or CHANGING THE CURRICULUM, or ADDING ANOTHER 30 MINUTES FOR GUIDANCE, or any other.  Lets ensure that all teacher are teaching their FULL hours of 27.5 hours per week (and here I am not talking about being at school for those hours), of the 34 teaching and learning weeks per year, and we will see miracles. 

Wednesday 21 December 2011

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.