Examining bureaucratic performance of South African local government: local municipalities in Limpopo province

A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Public Management) at Wits school of governance Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management University of the Witwatersrand South Africa 2016In democratic South Africa, power regarding the provision of public goods and services is decentralised to local government level simply because municipalities are the coalface of service delivery and are closer to the people than national and provincial spheres of government. As a result, municipalities are assigned service delivery responsibilities by the Constitution. To discharge these constitutional responsibilities and functions in terms of public goods and service provision effectively and efficiently, municipalities are, firstly, expected to have high institutional capacity to deliver and be held accountable to their municipal councils and to behave in a fiscally responsible manner. Secondly, they are further expected to be characterised by strong and powerful municipal councils to exercise their formal powers of oversight function over municipal administration. Despite huge and continuous resource investment in terms of funding and capacity building and training interventions from the centre to build and strengthen the local government capacity to fulfil its public goods and service delivery responsibilities, South African local government, with specific reference to Limpopo local government, continues to be afflicted by persistent poor bureaucratic performance in relation to water and sanitation provision as well as financial management. In Limpopo Province, there are, however, a very few pockets of good performance (e.g. the Waterberg District Municipality) pertaining to financial management. Generally, manifestation of these governance problems is illustrated by high rates of negative audit outcomes, high levels of underspending, high levels of financial misconduct, high consumer debt and increasing sporadic community protests against poor municipal service delivery. Using a qualitative research approach and methods (i.e. interviews, observations, focus group discussions, questionnaire and document review), this study has explored the determinants of bureaucratic performance of South Africa’s local government with specific reference to Limpopo local government. A multiple qualitative case study approach, consisting of five municipalities (i.e. Capricorn and Waterberg District Municipalities, and Fetakgomo, Greater Tubatse and Greater Tzaneen Local Municipalities) was, thus, applied. This multiple case study approach assisted in enhancing the validity and reliability as well as replication of the study results to the entire system of Limpopo local government. Both purposive and random sampling techniques were used to sample the above mentioned five case studies and select the research participants. The added value of this study is, of course, the new dimension it has suggested such as theory of bureaucracy and the principal-agent model to explore and analyse the determinants of municipal bureaucratic performance in Limpopo Province. In effect, these two theories have rarely been tested together in analysing local government bureaucratic performance, but, in this study, they are used together to analyse the phenomena. In spite of their commonalities and variations, the study has discovered that not all bureaucratic performance failures within Limpopo local government are related to the lack of meritocracy, especially at managerial level. In effect, the level of meritocracy is very low at operational and implementation level in municipalities. The study, for example, has found that the percentage of the total municipal workforce with university or college qualifications at National Qualification Framework level 6 and above stood at 17 percent in the Greater Tubatse Municipality as compared to 58 percent and 76 percent in Fetakgomo and Greater Tzaneen Local Municipalities respectively. At the management level, the study, in contrast, found that the percentage of senior managers with professional qualifications at NQF level 6 and above stood at more than 80 percent in all the above-mentioned local municipalities. At the district level, the study further found that the percentage of total municipal workforce with university qualifications at NQF level 6 and above, as prescribed by municipal regulations on minimum competency level requirements and qualifications, stood at 7.4 percent and 59 percent respectively in the Capricorn and Waterberg District Municipalities in the period the study was undertaken. The study, however, has revealed serious paradoxes at management level regarding the possession of university qualifications by senior managers. For instance, the study found that the percentage of section 54A and 56 managers with professional qualifications at NQF level 6 and above in the Waterberg District Municipality was 86 percent as opposed to 33.3 percent in the Capricorn District Municipality. On the matter of the municipal council oversight function over municipal administration, the study findings confirmed the initial study proposition that strong and independent municipal councils, as opposed to weak or less-independent councils, play a vital role in determining bureaucratic quality or performance of municipalities. In effect, the study found that municipal councils or their council oversight committees in selected case studies were ineffective in exercising their formal powers of oversight. According to the study, the ineffectiveness of municipal council oversight committees was attributed to the following; institutional instability that characterised these municipalities between 2011 and 2014; the influence of political parties; or the prolonged and sustained single dominance of the municipal councils by one political party. Given the parliamentary governance system generally adopted by the South African state, the study further observed that municipal councils are effectively rendered inefficient by the fusion of both legislative and executive powers in the same person, being the municipal council. In contrast, this is, however, not the case in national and provincial spheres of government where the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive is clear and unambiguous compared with the local sphere of government. The study concluded that the persistent poor bureaucratic performance of South African local government, with specific reference to Limpopo local government, is as a result of none institutionalisation and none enforcement of a meritocratic recruitment culture at operational and implementation level as opposed to that at a management level. In addition, weak and less-independent municipal councils account for persistent poor bureaucratic performance of municipalities in Limpopo Province. If Limpopo local government is to become more developmental and meet the minimum service delivery expectations of communities, the study suggests that institutionalisation of meritocracy must be enforced by well-resourced and independent municipal councils vis-a-vis mayoral executive committees.MT 201

Teacher experiences in teaching number sense in the Foundation Phase

This study was conducted in Gauteng Province and Tshwane North District. The study explored the poor performance of learners in Mathematics in the early grades. Learners’ performance is dependent on teacher input in class. Learners’ Mathematics performance is also influenced by various aspects contributing towards development such as nutrition, parental literacy which includes teachers’ knowledge of content and language in the subject taught. The poor Mathematics performance is exacerbated by lack of visual perceptual skills as the basis for learning. This study sought to investigate whether early grade teachers met this requirement. The proposed research investigated the teaching of number sense in the early grades. The research was informed by daily experience as subject advisor. The study was informed by theories of both Vygotsky and Piaget. Teaching in the Foundation Phase is mainly through group work and play and therefore this theory is appropriate. The primary research question for this study was as follows: How do teachers experience teaching number sense in the Foundation Phase? Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and observation. Purposive sampling was used to select participants for this study. Teachers from Grades 1-3 were interviewed and it was found that many lacked content knowledge and different strategies to teach number sense. Furthermore, teachers indicated that there was minimal support from HODs and subject advisors. They agreed that they needed more capacity building workshops to strengthen their knowledge and understanding of teaching number sense. The study revealed that teachers teach Mathematics in Foundation Phase without the relevant qualification. Due to the lack of knowledge and understanding of the Foundation Phase content, strategies and methods of teaching, teachers experienced challenges mainly in teaching number sense in the early grades.Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2019.Early Childhood EducationMEdUnrestricte

An analysis of the performance of the South African school system against the back ground of the right to education sec 29(i)

The continued poor performance of the South African schooling system has an effect in realizing the right to education as enshrined in the Constitution. In Juma Musjid Primary School and others v Essay NO and others 1the Constitutional Court found that government has a duty to provide basic education in terms of its obligations under section 29(1)(a).This means that unlike further education, which the government need only make progressively available through reasonable measures , the right to basic education is incontrovertible and cannot be neglected on grounds of, say, a lack of funding or other resources however this right is effectively being denied by the poor quality of education. The reason for this may be attributable to systemic challenges in the education sector as a whole, which may be causing poor performance as witnessed in the South African schooling system. The dawn of apartheid brought about many policy changes within the South African education system in order to address educational inequalities by deracialisation and compulsory schooling for all population groups.However, the South African schooling system is still characterised by unevenness and inequalities. In cases such as Basic Education for All and others v Minister of Basic Education and others2 the court found that the right to basic education is not progressively realised, and does affect performance of the schooling system.Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2016.tm2016Public LawLLMUnrestricte