Challenges faced by the selection committees during the selection process and recommendation of the appointment of educators, particularly to promotional posts, in rural schools.

Abstract

The study examined the challenges faced by the selection committees during the selection process and recommendation of the appointment of educators particularly to promotional posts in rural schools. Through my working experience in the rural schools for the past eighteen years, I have realised that rural communities are characterized by a cocktail of social ills, such as, poverty, poor hygiene, dreadful diseases and illiteracy. From the verbal discussions with my colleagues and members of the community, it has become evident that rural schools are faced with many challenges. I have also realized that some members of the School Governing Bodies (SGBs) encounter numerous problems in performing their tasks. A School Governing Body (SGB) was constituted in terms of the South African Schools Act (SASA) No.84 of 1996. According to SASA; the SGB has many functions to perform. One of these functions is to form a selection committee to interview candidates and make recommendations to the Department of Education for the appointment of the selected educators. However, existing literature and studies revealed that the selection and appointment process in some schools is fraught with many problems. Some of the problems emanate from the nature and the way the selection committee is composed. For instance, in certain rural schools there is a low level of education amongst some parents and some members do not have conception of what is required from educators in order to qualify for employment or promotion. Subsequently, their ability to interview and select educators is questionable. The findings of the study suggested that there are also underlying factors which affected the selection process. These factors ranged from favouritism, subjectivity and biasness, impact of the Post Provisional Norm/Model (PPN/M), selection and scoring criteria, lack of expertise to manipulation by members during the selection process. Recommendations were made on the basis of these findings, however, the results of this study may not be generalized to all the rural schools in South Africa because of a few number of participants who were involved.