INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP IN A TEACHING AND LEARNING CONTEXT

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CHAPTER 3 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) AS A DRIVER TO ENHANCE QUALITY ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN THE SCHOOL

INTRODUCTION

In the previous chapter, the focus was on instructional leadership in the teaching and learning context. The aim was to focus on the expectations of an instructional leader, namely the principal of the school; it also included the role of principals as educational leaders as they should be experts in teaching and learning, and should be aware of what happens in classroom situations.
This chapter explores total quality management as a driver for enhancing effective instructional leadership by ensuring the implementation of quality assessment practices at school level. The chapter further focuses on TQM in education to bring about excellence in producing the results, adding value to the educational objectives and experiences to advance the goals, specifications and requirements in education.

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT FOR SCHOOLS

The role of the leader is to guide, educate and support colleagues so that they focus on the intended results. The effectiveness of a school within the TQM paradigm will therefore, depend on its guiding philosophy, values beliefs and particular purpose as noted by Aokland (2000:22), depending on the extent to which role-players do their duty in moving towards the common vision and objectives defined by the school as an organisation where they teach. In fact, in this context quality management becomes a process by which information is provided in order to keep all functions on track, the totality of the activities that increase the probability that the planned results will be achieved. Davies (2003:93) conducted a study and found that the requirement for school improvement and commitment to strive for is one of the strategies for creating continual change. In view of the latter, this study explores the TQM phenomenon in relation to quality management practices as a means to support and advance assessment practices at the school.
Emanating from the above statement, it follows that it is the responsibility of the principal as an instructional leader to manage and implement curriculum changes. The principal as an instructional leader should be informed about these changes and manage, support and provide assistance to educators to see that all curriculum changes are implemented.
Moreover, Davies (2003:1993) notes that leadership in schools should foster an environment for resourceful and enterprising behaviours where all stakeholders are considered to be important in the achievement of their personal, and the school’s, quality of teaching and learning. The principal should play a leadership role in ensuring that there are resources for all educators so that teaching and learning takes place effectively. Furthermore, Harris (2004:13) argues that collective leadership is very important because all educators work together to create a TQM framework, in which the principal as a leader develops educators in totality so that they can perform well. The following terms are discussed as part of TQM in schools: TQM culture and TQM vision.

TQM culture

Culture denotes values that bind people together. Moreover, Bonstingl (1995:8) notes that real leadership helps people to understand their own feelings. Peterson and Deal (1998:28) concur and add that TQM cultures reflect the values, norms, beliefs, traditions and rituals that are developed over time as people work together. The principal as an instructional leader should resolve problems and confront challenges with a view to building the school. Leaders must focus on establishing the context and creating the environment in which learners can best achieve their potential.
On the other hand, Sallis (1993:37) considers culture to be concerned with ethos observed, behavioural regularities, management style and about minimising the control role those in leadership positions play, while gaining energy from everybody’s achievement and sense of ownership.
Emanating from the latter, Aokland (2000:25) mentions that the understanding and the ability of leaders to motivate others towards the realisation of the vision and goals is the construction of quality culture. Quality improvement starts with a real commitment on the part of school leaders for the quality process to be successfully implemented.
It is the responsibility of a principal as an instructional leader to build a successful school so that all educators are motivated and well developed.

TQM vision

In summary, it is very important that the principal as an instructional leader promotes the vision and mission statement of the school among all educators. Davidoff and Lazarus (1997:46) state that there is no school without a vision or mission statement; the principal as an instructional leader should see to it that the vision of the school is accomplished. Vision allows the stakeholders of the school to express ideals and harness their unique qualities towards the realisation of the vision.
Davidoff and Lazarus (1997:46) further state that vision is a creative strategy that recognises the cardinal principles of school governance and capacity building, including the sharing of values. It is the responsibility of the principal as an instructional leader to share hopes and dreams, understanding environmental trends, constraints and possibilities of the human resources available in a school. On the other hand, the school management team (SMT) must also assist the principal as a leader in this regard.

TQM principles and pillars

Prinsloo (2001:17-19) describes eight principles of TQM that the principal as an instructional leader should subscribe to for the betterment of the school. The principles are outlined as:
Establishment of mutually beneficial relationships;
Leadership;
Learner focus;
Commitment to continuous improvement;
Involvement of role-players;
Adoption of a factual approach to decision making;
Adoption of a system approach to management;
Adoption of a process approach.
Studying these principles suggests that the right school is meaningless without the proper leadership, in this case meaning that the principal as an instructional leader should lead in the curriculum and assessment of the school, so that there is effective teaching and learning. There are five pillars of TQM; according to Creech (1994:6), they are product, process, organisation, leadership and commitment. These pillars as part of TQM for the school could be used to support the school leadership as a means to show commitment, leadership, process and product in the school by working together with other stakeholders.

TQM FOR A SCHOOL’S CHANGE

In brief, as an organisation the school is to promote teaching and learning. Schools should work according to specific norms and values with learners, parents and the school community. School leaders should concentrate on the whole picture of the school and keep it at the forefront of people’s thinking. Moreover, Sahney (2004:162) notes that TQM will work in education provided that its adoption is part of the strategic planning process that has TQM as purpose and is customised according to specific contexts. On the other hand, the researcher’s opinion is that the principal as an instructional leader should develop a strategic plan that will help the school produce the desired results through assessment strategy. Davidoff and Lazarus (1997:46) also add that such a process ought to be a creative strategy. This means that the principal as an instructional leader, in the context of this study, should develop a creative strategy for the improvement of results at school; for example, for principals to produce good results, they should develop an assessment tool that will help educators improve the desired results.
To this Barnett, Mccornmick and Conner (2001:4) contribute that principals need to drive the adoption and implementation of customised TQM philosophy in schools by communicating the objectives and policies and by modelling commitment to quality culture. Principals are accountable for producing learning and they must make sure that teachers are committed to quality teaching.
In support, Grant, Mergen and Widrick (2002:11) assert that TQM becomes a management responsibility; this means that the principal should implement and facilitate the achievement of TQM goals. The principal is the school leader and manager, but this has to be seen as a shared function, rather than as emanating from a single powerful person.
Matthews (2001:52) states that one of the objectives of effective education is to encourage a change within the school that will be regarded as valid if it improves teaching and learning. The principal as an instructional leader should be accountable to bring about change to the whole school, structures, relationships and the way people think and feel.
As Van der Linde (2001:535) identified, the key task of a contemporary school is to stay ahead of change; this means that principals must not neglect personal transformation. They should establish a norm of striving for increased personal competence. Complimented with openness, co-operation and peer coaching, this will result in substantial instructional improvement.
Indeed, change in South African schools was seen when we moved from the apartheid system to a democratic one; hence the proposition that TQM be considered as a way towards the continuous improvement of South African schools and especially the teaching and learning culture in dysfunctional schools.
Banwet and Karunes (2004: 146) declare that the purpose of TQM is learners’ satisfaction, which means that the principal as an instructional leader should strive for good results and quality services. In addition, principals should communicate vision and purpose to their staff.
Quong and Walker (1999:5) point out those schools can no longer maintain their traditional structure and its accompanying approaches to managing, learning and teaching, if they are to become providers of quality learning. Therefore the principal should empower staff and have a high level of tolerance for ambitions.
Willis and Taylor (1999:5) are of the opinion that schools should accept that they are in the business of providing service and that their primary customers are learners. This suggests that principals at schools should do what is right for the benefit of the learners in the context of TQM without compromising quality.

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TQM IN SCHOOLS

The implementation of TQM in schools is the responsibility of a principal, the SMT and school governing body (SGB). They should be totally committed to the continuous improvement of schools. The leadership focus should be learner-centred, with the ideal to produce responsible citizens who display balanced attitudes and awareness of moral and best practice for the best quality of life. Leadership should be committed to efforts of elevating schools towards academic excellence, with a view to create and improve quality teaching and learning. Managers must know what they have committed themselves to and what action has to be taken.

Determine the school’s formal strategy for the implementation of TQM

Loewen (1997:24) identifies the following reasons for strategic quality planning in schools. They are to:
control the future of the school.
focus the role-players’ defined tasks.
develop leadership skills within a school.
improve communication and encourage commitment.
focus on the learners’ abilities to improve product and services.
The principal and SMT are concerned with how the strategy is formulated by analysing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) to determine the appropriate strategy for the school. In view of a SWOT analysis of the school, it is the responsibility of the principal as an instructional leader to improve communication and develop leadership skills so that the school has a direction towards quality education.
Aokland (2000:62) states that the role of a principal is to find new ways of increasing performance excellence in the school by looking at education management, which involves strategic planning.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT VS QUALITY MANAGEMENT

The concept of scientific management

The concept of scientific management is based on the factory model, which deals with the mass of marketable goods. Schools can be compared with this model, because schools also deal with the masses of learners who are the production of the schools, expected to be produced at the end of the year. In short, top management is responsible for training the quality improvement process.
Scientific management was popularised by Taylor (in Van der Westhuizen, 1999:65-67), an American industrial engineer. Taylor taught industries that workers should be hired to perform a small number of tasks in a repetitive, mechanistic fashion. They should not be hired to think about the work that they do because thinking was the rightful role of management. Factory owners were to plan the work process and hire managers who would direct the workers. Workers, largely uneducated and untrained for the job, were urged by their supervisors to continuously work harder and do their best.
Emanating from this, it means that in schools, the principal as an instructional leader should be responsible for the results of the school; the principal should know that a school is a business, and should therefore work as a production line.
Taylor’s scientific management philosophy viewed the entire production process mechanistically. Workers were thought of as interchangeable and replaceable, rather like equipment. Taylor viewed the line worker as a cog in the giant industrial machine, directed by appropriately educated managers and adhering to a set of rules. Tasks on the assembly line were simple, repetitive and boring. Workers’ compliance with management’s dictates was censured by a hierarchical, top-down structure. Quality of work was not a consideration for most workers. Inspectors at the end of production line were entrusted with quality control. The ideas of this philosophy of management soon found their ways into the American schools. At the beginning of the twentieth century the mass education movement took as its model the American factory, complete with the philosophy of scientific management.
At the University of Chicago, Bobbitt [Bonstingl, 1992(a):8] took on the task of translating Taylor’s principles into a form that could be used by educators. He believed that efficiency depends on the centralisation of authority and definite direction to workers (teachers), who had to be kept supplied with detailed instructions as to the work to be done, the standards to be reached, the methods to be employed and the appliances to be used. The industrial model is a top-down, authoritarian structure that discourages workers from considering ways of working more effectively and efficiently. It is based on compliance, control and command. There is little scope for front-line workers to create, monitor and control their own work processes, and little participation by workers in the governance of the organisation. More attention is paid to end products than to the processes essential to increasing productivity.
It is therefore imperative that the principal as an instructional leader should set standards of achievement at school. He/she must put forward a benchmark of results for the school to achieve so that everyone else knows what is expected.
Emanating from this, it indicates that in schools, the product is the expected results to be produced by learners at the end of the year. This is the responsibility of the principal as an instructional leader.

Quality management

Early work by Deming (1986) developed the management approach, which later became known as total quality management. This management model was developed in a business environment, but is radically different from the scientific model. Covey (1992:261) contends that TQM “represents the century’s most profound, comprehensive alternation in management theory and practice”. Daresh and Playko (1995:20) also added that, “If here is any single movement that epitomizes management philosophy development in the past ten years, it is clearly the concept of Total Quality Management”. As an engineer, Deming became engaged in the national planning and reconstruction of Japanese industry after World War II. The quality of Japanese manufactured goods was at that time shoddy and the label “Made in Japan” became synonymous with poor quality. Deming’s answer to the Japanese problem was simple: concentrate on achieving compete customer satisfaction. What Deming proposed to Japanese industrialists was tantamount to a total onslaught on inferior quality. Deming’s fourteen points constitute the essence of the TQM approach, and he is widely honoured as the father of the quality movement.
As with scientific management, TQM also had its origin in a manufacturing context where the focus was on the production of goods and quality control. The philosophy of TQM, however, differs from the traditional management approach in the following respects.
More specifically, in schools we expect quality education for our learners. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the principal as an instructional leader to lead in this regard. In schools, TQM encourages quality. It is essential that our education should be managed so that it is best for our learners and promotes the standards of our country where we should have learners who are developed in totality and who are able to read and write.
The philosophy of TQM, however, differs from the traditional management approach as indicated in Table 3.1 below.

CHAPTER ONE ORIENTATION OF THE STUDY
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
1.3 THEORETICAL FRAME WORK UNDERPINNING THIS STUDY
1.4 FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEM
1.5 AIM AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
1.6 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.7 METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
1.8 CHAPTER DIVISION
1.9 DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
1.10 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER TWO INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP IN A TEACHING AND LEARNING CONTEXT
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 THE PRINCIPAL AS AN INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER
2.3 LEADERSHIP ROLE OF THE PRINCIPAL
2.4 THE LEADERSHIP STYLES
2.5 THE SERVANT LEADERSHIP MODEL
2.6 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF AN INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER
2.7 PERFORMING THE ROLE OF AN INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER
2.8 THE EXPECTATIONS OF AN INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER
2.9 WHOLE SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT, CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION AND LIFE-LONG LEARNING
2.10 EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP
2.11 THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER
2.12 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER THREE TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) AS A DRIVER TO ENHANCE QUALITY ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN THE SCHOOL
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT FOR SCHOOLS
3.3 TQM FOR A SCHOOL’S CHANGE
3.4 THE IMPLEMENTATION OF TQM IN SCHOOLS
3.5 SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT VS QUALITY MANAGEMENT
3.6 THE RELEVANCE OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT TO SCHOOLS
3.7 DEMING`S FOURTEEN POINTS APPLIED TO SCHOOLS
3.8 CHARACTERISTICS OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN SCHOOLS
3.9 THE IMPLEMENTATION OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IN SCHOOLS
3.10 THE INTEGRATED QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOLS
3.11 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT TEAMS
3.12 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER FOUR IMPLEMENTING ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN ADVANCING EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 ASSESSMENT AND THE NEW CAPS CURRICULUM
4.3 TYPES OF ASSESSMENT
4.4 TYPES OF ASSESSMENT IN THE ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING
4.5 ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING
4.6 PRINCIPLES OF ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING
4.7 ASSESSMENT OF LEARNING
4.8 KEY ELEMENTS IN THE PROCESS OF ASSESSMENT
4.9 ISSUES IN ASSESSMENT
4.10 ASSESSMENT AS LEARNING
4.11 TYPES OF ASSESSMENT IN ASSESMENT AS LEARNING
4.12 MANAGING ASSESSMENT PRACTICES IN ASSESSMENT
4.13 ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
4.14 PRINCIPAL’S ROLE IN ASSESSMENT
4.15 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER FIVE RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 RESEARCH PARADIGMS
5.3 PARADIGM LANGUAGE
5.4 THE QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
5.5 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
5.6 ETHICAL ISSUES
5.7 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER SIX PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESEARCH RESULTS
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 DESCRIPTIVE QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
6.3 CONCLUSION OF FINDINGS OF QUANTITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
6.4 QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS
6.5 Theme # 1
6.6 Theme # 2
6.7 Theme # 3
6.8 Theme # 4
6.9 Theme # 5
6.10 Theme # 6
6.11 Theme # 7
6.12 Theme # 8
6.13 Theme # 9
6.14 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER SEVEN SUMMARY, DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
7.1 INTRODUCTION
7.2 SUMMARY
7.3 DISCUSSING OF FINDINGS
7.4 STRATEGIES FOR THE PRINCIPALS TO IMPLEMENT  QUALITY ASSESSMENT
7.5 RECOMMENDATIONS
7.6 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER EIGHT A PROPOSED INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP FRAMEWORK TO ENSURE EFFECTIVE AND QUALITY ASSESSMENT PRACTICES AT SCHOOL LEVEL
8.1 INTRODUCTION
8.2 POLICY IMPERATIVES AS DIRECTIVES FOR ASSESSMENT PRACTICES
8.3 CLASSROOM-BASED ASSESSMENT FOR STUDENT LEARNING
8.4 PRINCIPAL’S ROLE AS AN INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER IN ENSURING ASSESSMENT AT ALL LEVELS IN THE SCHOOL
8.5 EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES FOR QUALITY ASSESSMENT AT SCHOOL LEVEL
8.6 CONCLUSION
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