| Summary: | This study had two major purposes: (a) to investigate and compare the
perceptions of District Education Officers, principals and teachers about the
management of secondary school effectiveness in Zimbabwe and (b) to
probe contextualised secondary school management initiatives that could
trigger school effectiveness in Zimbabwe.
The study is divided into six interlinked chapters. In the first chapter, the
problem of intractability in the management of school effectiveness in
Zimbabwe's secondary schools is focused upon. The second chapter
attempts to highlight the resource, social, economic, political and cultural
realities of secondary school life in developing countries (including
Zimbabwe) from which any theories of school management and school
effectiveness must derive.
The third chapter, explores different ways to understand and interpret the
realities described in chapter two. To do this, the chapter focuses on ways in
which "modern" and traditional" practices intersect in secondary school in
Zimbabwe to produce bureaucratic facades. The fourth chapter, which is
largely imbedded In the context theory, emerges from chapters one, two and
three and focuses on the methodology and methods used in this study.
Chapter five, which subsequently matures into a suggested framework for
managing secondary school effectiveness in Zimbabwe, contains perceptual
data which were obtained from 16 District Education Officers, 262 secondary
school principals and 5 secondary school teachers drawn from 8 provinces, 4
provinces and 1 province respectively. Factor analysis of the existing
situation In Zimbabwe's secondary schools produced 7 major variables that
were perceived to be associated with secondary school management
intractability In Zimbabwe:
• lack of clear vision about what should constitute secondary school
effectiveness;
• management strategies that lack both vertical and horizontal congruence;
• inappropriate organisational structures;
• rhetorical policies and procedures;
• inadequate material and non-material resources;
• lack of attention to both internal and external environments of secondary
schools; and
• inadequate principal capacity-building.
These perceptual data, subsequently crystallized into the following suggested
management initiatives:
• establishment of goals and outcomes achievable by the majority of
learners;
• establishment of clear and contextualised indicators for secondary
schooling goals and outcomes;
• establishment of democratic and flexible organisational and secondary
school management processes; and
• replacement of ''ivory tower", rhetoria~l policies and procedures with
contextualised ones === Teacher Education === D. Ed. (Education Management)
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