School principals mediating change : the case of religion in education

Abstract

It has been the desire of the ANC government ever since it came to power in 1994 to develop a unity of purpose and spirit that cherishes and celebrates the diverse nature of the South African population in terms of culture, language and religion and to transform existing inequalities that are deep-rooted in South African educational history and religion in particular. In order to satisfy this desire, a whole plethora of legislation and policies was developed. Amongst the developments entailed in these laws and policies were religious rights and freedoms guaranteed to all South Africans as well as the establishment of democratic structures vested with powers to govern schools while school principals manage them. In terms of education legislation, one of the functions of the governing body of a school is to develop and adopt a school policy on religion (as per the study) which is accordingly implemented by the school principal. It is in the policy implementation stage that the school principal is expected to play a mediating role and resolve possible conflicts erupting due to different religious interestThis study is based on the assumption that the management and leadership training they received and the position they hold as school managers and leaders, enabled participating school principals to mediate the implementation of new religion policies. The research question driving this study was “How do school principals deal with implementation of the National Policy on Religion and Education in schools?” Informed by this question the focus of the study was to explore “how principals describe and experience their mediating role in implementing the religion policy within an existing religious context in schools”. Following a qualitative research approach a phenomenological research design was employed in order to understand and describe the meaning of the lived, felt and narrated experiences of school principals. Data were collected by means of narrative interviews where twelve school principals pursuing postgraduate studies with the University of Pretoria and who have been in education for at least ten years, told their religion in education stories. These stories were subsequently transcribed, analysed and interpreted to determine the impact of principals’ past religious experiences and their management training on their implementation of religion policies at their schools. This study found that in dealing with the National Policy on Religion and Policy (2003) implementation in schools, participating principals ignore the policy in preference of maintaining the status quo. When faced with conflicts related to religious interests, they partially sub-contracted into the policy. They did not seem to consider transformative mediation as a possible leadership strategy for conflict resolution in the existing religious context of schools. The study also found that amongst these principals, there were those who displayed a confident attitude, values of openness, generosity and integrity and had used their past religious experiences to transform the quality of conflict interaction in schools. My recommendation in this regard would therefore be threefold. One, Higher Education Institutions should provide appropriate training by introducing suitable courses that will yield adequate knowledge, skills and opportunities for professional attitude, value attainment and determination for continuous learning and development to principals as key change agents. Two, there is a need for these organizations to re-evaluate and re-organise existing courses for better recognition of transformative mediation as a leadership strategy to conflict resolution in schools. The provincial departments of education need to provide appropriate training for prospective principals as part of professional development programmes to address the essential needs pertaining to policy implementation that could create conflict in schools. Training in mediation of conflict would therefore be essential.