Stakeholder views of educational governance after a change in ownership of independent schools

Abstract

Independent schools became part of South Africa in 1994. The new educational system contributed to the freedom of the choice of language medium of education as well as the freedom of religion in education. In the last 10 years, many independent schools have become part of corporate companies which have invested in small, sometimes poor, independent schools including them as part of a larger business organisation. This corporate company investment has resulted in a change from educational governance to corporate governance in these schools. One of the concerns relating to this change is that the focus of governance could move from educational development to the increase of profit. The purpose of this study was to understand the views of some stakeholders when their schools changed from not-for-profit governance to a profit-driven governance. The primary question addressed was: What are the views of stakeholders in formerly independent not-for-profit schools of governance after a change of ownership to a listed organisation?

A multiple case study design was used. Semi-structured interviews were used to try to understand how the stakeholders viewed this change. The King III Report (2009) presented certain characteristics of good governance: responsibility, accountability, fairness and transparency. These characteristics were used as a conceptual framework to obtain sufficient information on how different stakeholders viewed the change in governance. The stakeholders mentioned changes that were not anticipated beforehand and the differences in experiences regarding the different stakeholders were inevitable.

This thesis recommends that changes from not-for-profit governance to profit-driven governance need to be planned, monitored and supervised very carefully. Governors need to know and acknowledge that a school is a community. Compassion and empathy need to be shown to all stakeholders of the school. Attention needs to be given to communication with stakeholders, especially the teachers and parents. Relationships of trust take time to develop and need to be established between stakeholders. The psychological effect of a transformation like this on all stakeholders, including the children and their families, needs to be addressed. Key words: Independent Schools, Governance, Corporate Governance, Stakeholders.