| Summary: | The agency or personal involvement of the principal within a school is perceived
as being of vital importance to the success of innovations. Leadership is
necessary, not only to manage the escalating changes in academia, but more
importantly to inspire, protect and encourage educators.
One of the current trends in education is the move towards self-management
which is a decentralization of power control from the state to the school. Selfmanagement
implies choice and this enables the principal to validate the
opinions and ideas of everyone who is involved in the process of school
governance. The success or failure of an innovation usually depends on the
support of the stakeholders. Change can be stressful, and unless the principal is
part of the process, the implementation may not be successful.
The context of this study is an independent primary school which has recently
undergone many changes, most of which appear to have been initiated and
managed by the principal. Independent schools have more autonomy than
public schools as they are usually self-funded. The principal is accountable not
only to the Board of Governors, but also to the parent body which generally has
high expectations of the school.
This study investigates the impact of the principal’s agency on the development
of a multi-media centre at the school. The extent of his involvement within the
school and his leadership style was first established and then the implementation
of a new innovation, that of the media centre, was explored. Case study
methodology based on semi-structured interviews with selected participants from
within the school was employed. These participants represented different
perspectives on the principal’s leadership and management of the media centre. In addition, documents and photographs were analysed for triangulation purposes. === Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.
|
|---|
