Knowledge management (KM) ensures that schools do not forfeit a wealth of tacit knowledge assets that dwell in the minds of individual members of staff. It also ensures that this knowledge is not only externalised but is also documented and deposited into the institutional memory or repository for it to be retrieved and re-used at a later stage. The quantum of this qualitative study was informed by the paucity of literature on the role of KM in South African schools. It adopted a SWOT (i.e., strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis both as a theoretical framework and an instrument to evaluate the effectiveness of KM application in two township schools in the locality of Emalahleni in Mpumalanga province. The study revolved around a sample of 14 participants drawn from populations of teachers, administrative clerks, heads of departments (HoDs), and principals. The social constructivist element of the study meant that the researcher took part in understanding participants' constructions of their realities about KM application in their schools. As far as the internal dynamics of the studied schools were concerned, it transpired that even though both schools had supportive school governing bodies, and reasonably efficient ICT infrastructure and connectivity, much of the KM weaknesses were caused by anti-collaborative knowledge-exchange practices, the erosion of Ubuntu-directed ethical undertakings, ill-treatment of administrative staff by teachers and HODs, and principals' inaccessibility to the workforce at a lower level; all of which contributed to teacher absenteeism, low staff morale, knowledge hoarding, poor communication of policies and loss of tacit knowledge. The study also presents tabulated findings of the kinds of threats that schools can guard themselves against and the opportunities they can tap into in order to leverage KM.
The article reports on the findings of a qualitative inquiry involving a sample of nine (9) teachers (three participants per school) drawn from three schools within the locality of three education circuits of Emalahleni in Mpumalanga Province (South Africa). The primary objective of the article was informed by the paucity of literature that establishes an intersection between Indigenous epistemologies of Ubuntu philosophy, instructional leadership and the sharing process of knowledge management within the domain of primary and secondary education. By eliciting teachers’ views on heads of departments’ (HODs’) curriculum leadership practices, the article attempts to narrow down the knowledge gap on the topic of instructional (herein referred to as curriculum) leadership— a domain whose preoccupation often slants towards the principal’s role at the exclusion of other key stakeholders within the school ecology. In terms of the findings, democratic (participative), autocratic, transactional, transformational and managerial (in no particular order) leadership styles were found to have been used by individual HODs alongside instructional leadership style to strengthen their curriculum leadership role. It however, became apparent that both participative and transformational leadership styles sufficiently promoted the ethos of Ubuntu in HODs’ curriculum leadership role and thus enhanced curriculum delivery processes and knowledge sharing behavior among teachers as well as between HODs and teachers. The findings of the article demonstrate how a non-adversarial intersection between indigenous and mainstream leadership practices, might add an impetus to HODs’ curriculum delivery and knowledge sharing leadership role in under-resourced schooling contexts.
Literature underscores that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) promises to bring with it a host of technical and socially oriented innovations and changes that will pressure educational institutions to incorporate the concept of knowledge management (KM) in their educational, human resource, curricular and co-curricular administrative functions. In light of the many challenges confronting township schools such as the lack of proper infrastructure, the lack of learning and technological equipment and insufficient budget, the primary objective of this qualitative study (involving a sample of 20 participants), was to draw parallels between the effective and ineffective knowledge sharing practices in three township schools in the city of Emalahleni in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. The study found that of the three schools under study, only one school practiced effective knowledge sharing, while the other two schools were found to be ineffective in their practise of knowledge sharing. Thematic analysis indicated that, in both schools, ineffective knowledge sharing was precipitated by a counter collaborative culture, top down communication and decision making, absence of Ubuntu (i.e., humanity, tolerance and mutual respect) among staff, the principals’ inaccessibility to non-managerial staff, and chronic teacher absenteeism. Based on these findings, the study proposes that best practices from the school that was found to have practiced effective knowledge sharing be emulated throughout the landscape of township schools in South Africa.
In this article, we consider the instituting of effective and ethical knowledge management in the arena of public schooling, with reference to a multiple case study involving three schools in Emalahleni Circuit 1, 2 and 3 in South Africa. Teachers, HoDs, administrative clerks, and principals (20 participants altogether) were interviewed in depth concerning their understandings of knowledge management. We explicate Nonaka and colleagues’ model of knowledge management, which they developed to apply to business and public organizations and which is considered seminal in the literature on knowledge management. It is tied to (Japanese) principles of ba – where people recognize their occupation of a shared space with others. We relate this model to a discussion on the applicability of the African concept of Ubuntu to the knowledge management practices in the selected public schools. We use these cases to consider Ubuntu-directed knowledge management as a process of developing sharedness of purpose among the stakeholders within the schools (internal stakeholders) and outside thereof (in the wider community and society). We indicate to what extent and in what ways the participants experienced knowledge management in this way
The COVID-19 pandemic was unarguably one of the most disastrous events whose detriment to the normalcy of the education and training sectors will never be forgotten. To salvage the academic year, the Department of Basic Education (DBE) encouraged historically disadvantaged schools to explore rotational learning supplemented by mobile learning (with WhatsApp Messenger as schools’ most preferred application). However, in face of the concerns that were raised by the media, educational commentators, student bodies and teacher unions about the lack of public schools’ readiness for mobile learning, this social constructivist oriented qualitative study (which drew on 12 educators’ diverse and convergent views) adopted a Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a lens to investigate educators’ perceptions of WhatsApp messenger as a supplementary mode of curriculum knowledge transfer and acquisition during COVID 19 stricter lockdown at three historically disadvantaged schools in South Africa. Participants generally deposited positive feedback regarding the benefit of using it WhatsApp messenger to engender curriculum knowledge transfer and acquisition. They however explicitly also detailed a few negative aspects of this pursuit, primarily on how for socio-economic related reasons, the process was not completely inclusive as some learners could not partake in it. Also, educators admitted that while going beyond the call of duty was necessary during the pandemic, WhatsApp mediated teaching consumed most of their leisure time. According to them, this was compounded by poor internet connectivity due to the country’s power crisis, which in some instances adversely affected the productivity of WhatsApp messenger mediated curriculum knowledge transfer and acquisition processes during COVID-19 stricter lockdown.
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