Management of teacher indiscipline in urban secondary schools of Kasama district.
Item
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Title
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en
Management of teacher indiscipline in urban secondary schools of Kasama district.
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Description
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en
Article
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Creator
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Daka, Harrison
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Date
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2022-09-30T08:52:32Z
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Date Available
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2022-09-30T08:52:32Z
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Date Issued
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2021
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Abstract
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en
This paper is based on a study that aimed at exploring practical ways of
strengthening management of teacher indiscipline in urban secondary schools of Kasama
district of Northern Province of Zambia. The paper invokes the Systems Theory which offers
an alternative approach to the planning and management of organisations proposed by
Ludwig Von Bertalanffy in the 1940s and fully developed in the 1960s. The study was a
qualitative research and employed phenomenology as the research design. The total sample
size was 38 of which 32 were school staff (head teachers, deputy head teachers and heads of
department), while 6 were key informants from the teaching service commission (TSC),
provincial education office (PEO) and district education board secretary’s office (DEBS).
The information gathered was analysed using content and thematic analysis according to
emerging themes. The findings showed that the prevalence of teacher indiscipline was
moderate in schools, whereas the challenges faced in managing teacher indiscipline include
too much bureaucracy and inefficiencies in processing and generating disciplinary cases.
Besides, some managers were said to hold and sit on cases while others were unskilled in
handling disciplinary issues. Also, it was established that many teachers did not understand
their profession. In addition, some managers feared to act on wrongs of certain teachers due
to fear of the unknown, especially when dealing with what was termed ‘connected, and
financially sound teachers’ who gave them undue threats. Moreover, it was noted that there
were a lot of interferences in cases of teachers and that there were numerous unnecessary
commands from top management, including unduly turning down of recommendations,
especially those made by a lower management level. Based on these findings, this paper
recommends that there is need to establish a specific compulsory full course on teacher
discipline in all teacher-training institutions and that all teachers should be signing antidisciplinary agreement forms upon deployment so that no one would have any excuse
whatsoever for any misconduct. Also, bureaucratic procedures in the processing of
disciplinary cases should be reduced to avoid unnecessary interferences and distortion of
evidence.
Key words: teacher, indiscipline, schools, management
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Identifier
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2522-9400
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Language
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en
en
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Type
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en
Article