The work ethic of the principal as an aspect of management.

• Main Author: Hariparsad, Ishwarie Devi
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: school principals; educational leadership; school management and organisation; professional ethics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/891

The inception of democracy in South Africa required that all the people of the nation be integrated into a single society. This implies that people brought with them their individual, cultural and normative values into the integrative process. The education system is one such area that has felt the impact of this diversity. In his State of the Nation address to parliament on 25 June 1999, President Mbeki outlined the critical priorities for the nation (Dept of Education, 2000: 6) and questioned whether our education system was fulfilling the purpose of preparing people for citizenship and nationhood. The success of society, according to President Mbeki is dependent upon people working together to build the success of the nation. The Minister of Education in his attempt to ensure that education aligns itself with meeting the national agenda, presented the strategic plan for the Department of education, embraced symbolically in the word “Tirisano”– meaning to work together to build a better nation. The critical factor for success seems to be the need to take action together towards an agreed upon purpose. When formal state structures had to undergo change, symbols (such as Tirisano) were often adopted to rally people around the ideal of a traditional society. People could be unified through pure and solid values (Rose, 1985). It appears that to a large extent, the success of the nation depends upon all people engaging themselves in purposeful labour (or work). Unemployment, or the lack of work, has been cited as a depleting agent in society. Whenever we work, our central life values infiltrate our actions, inextricably colouring our behaviours. The values we associate with work represents a large part of who we are as individuals (Furnham,1990). It would appear that people tend to group together when similar values pertaining to work can be identified as common to all. By the same token one could find people grouping because the characteristic feature is the lack of work. === Prof. B.R. Grobler