Principals’ experiences in implementing the National Code of Professional Conduct in Khomas secondary schools, Namibia

Abstract

The study investigated the experiences of secondary school principals in the Khomas Region of Namibia in implementing the National Teachers’ Code of Professional Conduct, officially called the Code of Conduct for the Teaching Service of 2004. The said document sets minimum standards and expectations that teachers are expected to meet. The responsibility to implement it in schools naturally rests on school principals as custodians of schools. Teachers’ conduct, however, was regrettably not consistent with the document’s stipulations at the time of the study. There was therefore a need to explore Khomas Region secondary school principals’ understanding of the document; their implementation strategies; the challenges that they faced in implementation, and how they dealt with them so as to suggest a better implementation model. The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory guided the study which was carried out through a qualitative approach with interpretivism as the research paradigm. A case study design was employed in order to collect rich data on the phenomenon. Sixteen Khomas Region secondary school principals were subjected to semi-structured interviews, and a thematic analysis was used to present, analyse and interpret data. The study generated the following findings: (i) School principals understand the document to be both aspirational and deontological meant to guide and discipline teachers; (ii) many school principals do not conduct fully-fledged, formal induction and/or continuing professional development (CPD) on the document, (iii) the disciplinary process is long and flawed and sometimes the Regional Office does not act on disciplinary cases referred to it (iv) NANTU defends non-compliant teachers, (v) school principals are not adequately trained to counsel non-compliant teachers; (vi) they do not compel HODs to enforce the National Teachers’ Code of Professional Conduct, (vii) school principals’ own weaknesses such as having scant knowledge of the document impede the effectiveness of implementation, (viii) it is difficult to evenly apply the document since schools are complex organisations comprising teachers with diverse personalities and values and, and (x) teachers’ lack of love and passion for teaching trigger disregard for the National Teachers’ Code of Professional Conduct.