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Job involvement and organisational commitment
According to Steers and Black (1994: 87), there are two job attitudes that need recognition, namely: job involvement and organisational commitment. Job involvement is explained as referring to the extent to which an employee shows an interest in and commitment to all the tasks that assigned to him/her; while, organisational commitment is about the strength of an individual employee in identifying with the organisation. The inadequate provision of training and development leads to ineffective implementation of the well-drafted policies, such as the new curriculum, NCS, 2002, in the Limpopo Department of Education. This is a practice that could be interpreted by some in the organization showing a lack of organisational commitment and co-ordinating curriculum activities. Where there is no organisational commitment, employees‟ interest in carrying out their job-related tasks is compromised. In responding to the question on how curriculum activities are co-ordinated in the Vhembe District and the circuits, responses from the curriculum advisors were the
following: ”… subject co-ordinators at the District levels dictate to curriculum advisors at circuit levels without their inputs”; “curriculum co-ordinators at the District bypass circuit managers” and “… curriculum advisors at circuits may have their plans, but their plans are always derailed by the District co-ordinators who fail to provide good co-ordination and participation by all the curriculum advisors…”. All the above given responses show a serious lack of proper co-ordination and involvement in curriculum activities by all the curriculum advisors in the Vhembe District. Policies need commitment from both senior and middle managers to draw good plans, indicating thereby the appropriate course of action to be followed that would render the new curriculum to be effectively implemented, so that theory is brought to practice. All these plans should be provided with the necessary resources that would help execute the plans efficiently and effectively. For this to happen there has to be a high level of commitment and competency shown by management, which is a cause for concern by the Limpopo Department of Education.
For those curriculum advisors and trainers who indicated in the first question of their questionnaire on whether they had received „training on the new curriculum, the NCS, 2002‟, their response was: “Yes, but it was inadequate” and “I was never trained on NCS“. One could well argue that the failure to provide intensive training and development to curriculum advisors has, to some extent, compromised the effective achievement of the set training and developmental objectives. As a result, this ultimately affects organisational commitment as the confidence level is affected negatively. Any lack of organisational commitment will ultimately have a negative impact on the provision of quality education in the Limpopo Province. For example, the 2009 dysfunctional schools in the Vhembe District (schools that obtained less than 40% pass rate), such as Ozias Davhana (Soutpansberg East Circuit), Dzwaboni (Sibasa Circuit), Vhudzani (Vhuronga 1 Circuit), Malovhana (Hlanganani North Circuit) and Vhusendeka (Nzhelele East Circuit) comprise a joint indication of school managers and their school management teams (SMTs) who do not give themselves time to assess and evaluate those factors that contribute to the poor performance and low morale of the educators in their schools. It is, therefore imperative, for the Principals and their SMTs to show commitment to their organisations by becoming involved in the execution of their management tasks. Part of their job involvement is conducting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analyses of their schools, so that would then be able to draw up their turn-around strategies that would help improve their performance. In this way, learner performance could also be increased. The turn-around strategies that the Principals and the SMTs develop should outline the intervention strategies that would, through their commitment, help achieve the departmental objective of quality education.
Resistance to change
A well-planned and correctly implemented training and development programme is an important tool in bringing quality procedures and performance improvement to an organisation. Training as a process is all about change that is visible within an organisation through its outputs in the form of quality goods and services. According to the responses that some educators gave for the reasons why… some educators resist change‟, the response was that: “They think that the new curriculum will threaten their work”; and that, “They are more …comfortable with what they know … than with what they do not know”.
The employees who honestly and seriously receive training become change agents of their organisation. According to Van der Waldt and Helmbold (1995: 98), people are naturally doubtful of change for different reasons; for example, whether they will be required in the future, whether their skills will be appreciated, and whether they will be able to keep up with the demands of the new issues to be implemented. If these questions are not adequately answered, it could lead to poor performance. Ornstein and Hunkins (2004: 305-306) explain this theory of change, as: People finding themselves in environment composed of competing forces: driving forces and restraining forces. These restraining forces are factors that hinder change in the organisation.
CHAPTER ONE A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND TO THE NATIONAL CURRICULUM STATEMENT (NCS)
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Background to the development of the South African education system
1.3 Motivation for the study
1.4 Problem statement
1.5 Research question
1.6 Research objectives
1.7 Concept clarification
1.8 Framework for the research
1.9 Conclusion
CHAPTER TWO RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Public Administration and qualitative research
2.3 Rationale for qualitative research
2.4 Qualitative instruments
2.5 Conclusion
CHAPTER THREE THE POLICY ENVIRONMENT SUPPORTING TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT AS IT RELATES TO EDUCATION
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Policy environment for training and development
3.4 Training and development techniques or methods
3.5 Conclusion
CHAPTER FOUR EDUCATOR TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGES
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Department of Basic Education’s perspective
4.3 Educators’ perspective
4.4 Conclusion
CHAPTER FIVE CONCEPTUAL SYSTEMS MODEL FOR THE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATORS
5.1 Introduction
5.2 A systems approach for training and development models
5.3 The Open – Systems model
5.4 The Nadler’s critical events model for training and development planning
5.5 The conceptualised systems model for training and development
5.6 Conclusion
CHAPTER SIX RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Summary of the study’s findings
6.4 Conclusion
LIST OF REFERENCES
