Enhancing learning environments through partnerships in an attempt to facilitate school effectiveness

Abstract

[EN] South Africa (SA) is a developing country struggling to address educational transformation inherited from a previous apartheid regime and created by the current democratic government. Education is an area which is struggling within a SA context. Many schools in disadvantaged communities are faced with inadequate infrastructure and lack of resources yet the expectation is for schools to show evidence of effectiveness irrespective of these challenges. This context prompted an investigation into the development of the school learning environment utilising a participatory action research design at a disadvantaged primary school in the Western Cape, SA. The major findings included that the school learning environment was influenced by the unique challenges and pressures in the school context; that collaborative efforts between stakeholders contribute to school effectiveness irrespective of context through acknowledging the school as an organisational system which requires the principal, educators, parents and community to effectively collaborate through open channels of communication in order to facilitate optimal teaching and learning environments which contribute to school effectiveness. The community component in the school learning environment needed to be acknowledged as the validation of the experiences of educators, learners, parents, principal and community is important in the South African context.