DISTRICTS AS DECENTRALISED SUPPORT CENTRES

The context in which quality management occurs differs from country to country. It is either centralised or decentralised. However, in South Africa like many other countries the state decentralises this work to district offices. Throughout the growth of the education system, many countries have been preoccupied with the increasing distance between supervisors and schools. Districts were created to close that distance and supervision and support personnel were established at district office level (de Grauwe and Carron, 2007). The establishment of district offices was to improve efficiency and effectiveness in terms of teaching and learning (Effron and Concannon, 1995). Before looking into how district offices support teaching and learning in schools, it was necessary to give a brief summary of decentralisation as it is the context in which support for teaching and learning in South Africa occurs.

30 Decentralisation can occur in different forms, that is, deconcentration, devolution, delegation and privatisation. In a devolutionary system, the central ministry transfers most of its obligations to the local authority and decision making for that particular obligation is taken by a local body. This includes making decisions about any operations of the obligation in its area of jurisdiction, funding of institutions and salaries of personnel (Florestal and Cooper, 1997). Delegation involves assigning of responsibility and accountability for a specific outcome or achievement to a specific individual or unit or organisation. Delegation does not entail giving tasks to be done or telling people what to do rather it is the explaining of the expected outcomes. The delegated people should find ways of achieving the specified outcomes. Privatisation is understood to mean the transfer of the partial or complete control of a state activity and related assets to a private investor or investors. Privatisation may concern a public monopoly or a state enterprise operating in the private sector (Ibid, 1997). The form of decentralisation under which the education system operates in SA is deconcentration because the administrative and professional staff at provincial and district level are still accountable to the central ministry. The aim of deconcentration is to improve effectiveness of the management and the quality of operations and visibility (Development Portal, 2012). Since teaching is the key service delivery responsibility of the DoE this study adopts deconcentration as one of the concepts under which it is pinned.

The concept deconcentration is one of the requisite concepts of the decentralisation philosophy (Gershberg and Winkler, 2003 and Utomo,2009). Deconcentration is the concept that is mostly used to define the administrative arrangement of government systems. It is used to illuminate how government departments operate and the way they are structured. It was therefore relevant to use this concept as teaching and learning support services in the district offices are located within the organisational structure of DoE at district level. Teaching and learning activities like other functions in the DoE are administered and organised at district level. Deconcentration is defined as a form of administrative decentralisation in which the local authorities of the central government

31 deal with financial and administrative issues of the central government without making any local inputs (Joint UNDP-Government of Germany, 1999). As indicated earlier ‘Quality Assurance’ is a planned process of assuring that actions and structures of quality management are in place (Cuttance, 1995). This study looked at how district offices in the Eastern Cape plan, organise and administer their activities of supporting for teaching in schools. However, it was also relevant that literature that deals with other countries on issues of quality management is reviewed to establish how support for teaching and learning in the context of decentralisation is viewed. Deconcentration, refers to a transfer to lower-level central government authorities, or to other local authorities who are upwardly accountable to the central government (Yuliani, 2004).

It can be seen from the above discussion that central government authorities decentralise their power to the local government level which remain accountable to central government authorities. This study sought to establish how quality management initiatives are organised and administered at district office level in the Eastern Cape.

Although there is no unanimous definition of decentralisation, most writers confine the definition of decentralisation to the context of government (Narsee, 2006). Decentralisation is the system in which the central government transfers or outsources its basic functions and responsibilities to the provincial or district level of government (Gershberg and Winkler, 2003). The basic function of the DoE is supporting teaching and learning in schools. In South Africa as in other countries, this function is decentralised to the level of the district. Some writers do not consider deconcentration as a form of decentralisation. For instance Fesler (1968) in Utomo (2009:13) believes that:

Deconcentration is not a type of decentralization at all. In his view, deconcentration does not require any decentralization of power since it usually does not provide the opportunity to exercise substantial local discretion in decision-making.

32 The basic question here is how do district offices support quality teaching and learning in schools in the context of deconcentration.

In countries like Mali and Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (Bauopaoa, 2011) the education system is decentralised within the system of deconcentration where local education offices are accountable to the central authorities. It was important that literature relevant to the deconcentration model be reviewed, as district offices in education in South Africa administratively and pedagogically operate within the context of deconcentration. Deconcentration was relevant in that whatever form of pedagogical support is done to schools by district officials is planned, organised and coordinated at district office level. Since this study concerns how district officials support teaching and learning, it was necessary to understand how support to schools is conceptualised and how teaching and learning support planning processes are initiated, organised, controlled, coordinated and implemented at district office.

2.4 DISTRICT SUPPORT FOR SCHOOLS: EVIDENCE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES