FOREWORD

A PRINCIPAL’S PERSPECTIVE – THE VALUE OF AUTONOMY

A shortened version of a speech given by Mike Thiel, Headmaster of the Dominican Convent, Belgravia, Johannesburg at the HSRP Colloquium “Encouraging Educational Excellence: What Makes for Effective Schools” – August 2008

If we look back at our education system over recent time it is clear that we have had much success precisely in the areas that have embraced a diverse opinion and allowed it to be run by passionate people to ultimate success. Unfortunately the converse is also true. Our schools have faced incredible tests, both institutionally and for the individuals working in them, as they battled first with integration, alongside curriculum change at breakneck speed, bureaucratic straitjackets and societal stresses spilling over into schools, all with funding difficulties running alongside. So, why then do we generally regard some schools as effective and some schools as dysfunctional today?

The role of a school principal is to nurture tomorrow’s individual perspectives, to encourage them to be unique, to help them to question and ultimately to destroy the sacred cows that too often form public discourse. Here is where autonomy fits in. I walk a path of challenging youngsters and enabling teachers to keep debate as the central part of the educational process. Herein lies the core – namely that what makes for effective schools is the people that are part of the process and the support they are given.

I have been Head of three schools, all independent, all old, all with a distinctive mission, but all three with very different backgrounds and different motivations for being at this particular time. My success obviously has many facets but most importantly it is due to the level of autonomy that I have been given to enable that school environment to be effective.

Now while all principals like to think that they can run a school without interference, the truth as in all spheres of life is that those different perspectives come into play no matter what school you are running. There is always someone to answer to: the department, whoever that might be on any given day; the governing body, board or school council; or it could be a parent body, it could be the past pupils; and then there is the public. How can a school be autonomous?

If there are to be these diverse perspectives all running a school, can any school ever be effective? The value lies in what that school is trying to achieve. For the historic schools we know what they achieved in the past, and we know that if we put the right people in place, guided by a core ethos, amazing things can be achieved. But why in these specific schools rather than in every school? As I teach resilience to children, we focus on the core – I encourage them to be clear as to what they are trying to be and to use their past experience to guide and help them. The same message would apply to a school. Having an historical base to be proud of gives the first element of that core and the first step to success.

The core of any successful school lies in their ability to get buy-in to the values they espouse. Too many South African schools forget to say who they are, or they adopt a generalised mission that places them in an amorphous mass of South African schools that all achieve at the average level. I am a strong believer in devolving decisionmaking to the lowest level, to challenging people to take responsibility. Where they know what your mission is, then they will deliver. Allowing autonomy within a structure that knows what it is trying to achieve not only allows your core message to be realised, but in turn stimulates the progress of those involved.

Perhaps where South African schools fail most is that we have created a culture of expectation in our schooling system; not the expectation that we all have excellence as our potential, but one of expecting others to provide. In spending too much time on telling people what they have to deliver, we have stifled progress in that people no longer use their initiative to achieve progress. No wonder tertiary institutions are saying that the young people we are sending them are not equipped with the skills to search for answers, the ability to debate and the resilience to cope with adversity.

Our school system is too big, too centralised and spends more time on controlling than on stimulating. If we were to allow small pods of excellence and creativity, we would see these filter through to every part of society.

I meet regularly with a principal of a Soweto school in a relationship that allows us to discuss our management structures, the challenges we face and the day-to-day difficulties. We have both changed aspects of these and grown in what we have achieved. At no time are we being forced into a mould and all the time we are searching for ways to do things better, given our different core missions, our different histories and our different personal styles. At each interaction I know that we have absolute autonomy, yet also an enabling environment of support. Valuing the diversity that our different contexts bring means that we are learning all the time.

This project of rejuvenating the historic schools is a special one because the core mission is there, the history is there for children to identify with, and the potential is there for leaders to make significant differences. I am not forced to operate in a formulaic way, I am not judged on the thousands of differing perspectives that are the stake-holders of any school, but rather on whether I have stimulated the core mission of the school I am leading by creating an enabling environment. Out of that comes an effective school.

We must preserve the historic schools’ core mission and use it as the common unifying trait. In every other respect we must stimulate progress by creating a support structure where peers talk the hard issues and walk the support together, always allowing autonomy to interpret the unique perspectives that face specific schools. That will lead to effective schools.

Inanda Seminary students sing the national anthem.