Management of time banditry in public senior secondary schools in Botswana

Abstract

The purpose of my study was to investigate how school principals of public senior secondary schools in the North-west, North-east and Central Districts of Botswana manage time banditry in their schools. The time banditry model as proposed by Martin, Brock, Buckley and Ketchen (2010) was adopted as the conceptual framework for this study. A qualitative approach was used, while interpretivism was employed as a research paradigm. Fifteen school principals from the three districts mentioned were interviewed. The computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) called Atlas.ti version 9 was used to identify and code quotations. It further analysed and synthesised these to form higher themes, some of which emerged to address the research questions. The findings indicate the prevalence of banditry behaviours of technological time banditry (cyberloafing), classical time banditry and social time banditry. School principals indicated that time banditry practices paralysed them administratively, as it affected not only teaching and learning processes in terms of syllabi coverage but also their schools’ extramural activities. Moreover, to mitigate this negative result of time banditry, school principals employed both positive and punitive measures to reduce the practices of time banditry in schools. For instance, they endeavoured to motivate teachers by promoting their educational and professional growth and discourage their misconduct. The reasons advanced by school principals in managing time banditry were to improve teachers’ effectiveness and wholeheartedly devote themselves to their work which in turn would improve students’ academic performance.To this end, coach and mentor of teachers was put in place, in the hope of achieving personal and professional development, effectiveness, efficiency and productivity in the workplace. By curbing time banditry in this way, school principals hoped to improve the schools’ performance.