The importance of management training topics as rated by school managers in South Africa: Implications for training

Abstract

Training is regarded as a key HRM function necessary for achievement of organisational goals. Continuous
management training is important for management renewal, and even more so in today’s ever changing
environment. Without it, even the most well resourced organisation may soon become like a “rudderless
ship” in the waters where the tide is ever changing. The objectives of this study were four fold. To: (i)
determine the importance that school managers in two South African education districts attach to selected
in-service school management training topics; (ii) determine the relative importance of topics for each
management level; (iii) make generalisations concerning school managers’ training needs for the whole of
South Africa; (iv) make generalisations concerning selection of training topics for management training in
general. An extensive review of related literature preceded the empirical study. Thereafter, stratified random
sampling was used to select 88 participants. 69 completed questionnaires were returned yielding 78.4%
response rate. The results show that respondents regard all the training topics as important and ratings of
the importance of topics differ significantly based on: level of education; experience; school type; and
management level. Implications of the findings discussed and suggestions for further research are provided.