| Summary: | The purpose of this study was to examine the role of the North West
Department of Education in the induction of primary school principals.
This study was ,guided by four primary research questions namely:
What constitutes the nature and characteristics of induction?
What are the induction strategies that the Department of Education
employs in this exercise?
How effective are the induction programmes in the North West
Province?
What are the challenges of induction in the North West Province?
The review of the literature focused on the recruitment of principals, the
various models of the induction programme for principals and how these
impacted on the preparation of principals in the management, the
governance, the administration and the instructional leadership within
the school.
Questionnaire served as the sole data collection instrument, and it
comprised 44 items. The sample population consisted of two hundred
(200) primary school principals selected randomly from the four districts
of the North West Province. The data was collected using a Lickert 5
point scale. The following areas were covered in the questionnaire:
The nature and characteristics of the induction
The challenges of the induction
The strategies of the induction
The effectiveness of the induction.
The findings revealed that the Department of Education does make
efforts to ensure that novice and seasoned principals in the North West
Province are not faced with the 'swim or sink' dilemma in the
management of schools. The data further revealed that new principals
are trained upon assumption of duty. However, data revealed that
quality assurance mechanisms are seriously lacking and that there is no
variety in the strategies that are being followed in the induction of school
principals.
In conclusion, the study recommended further research into the
implementation of the induction system as well as a further
benchmarking of the best practices beyond the province to establish
how the North West compares with other provinces. === Thesis (MBA) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2011
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