| dc.description.abstract | The research seeks to suggest the use of negotiations as a managerial task
of the school principal with learners to eliminate or at least limit unrest
practices like violence, intimidation of learners by principals and intimidation
of principals by learners, suspicions, vandalism, strike actions and class
boycotts which destroy and negate the culture of learning and teaching
services. All these destructive practices, lead to poor production of matric
results in schools in South Africa in general and in the North West Province in
particular.
The purpose of this study therefore was to determine by means of a review of
literature and an empirical investigation, the nature of negotiations in schools
and the skills needed by practising principals in the discharge of their
management tasks. The empirical study was also aimed at determining the
most important and the least important of the negotiation skills.
Chapter 1 deals with the statement of the problem, aims of the research and
the methods employed in achieving the purpose of the study. This includes a
discussion of the population and sample used for the empirical research and
an outline of the chapters.
The second Chapter highlights on the nature of negotiation in general and in
schools in particular. Explanation of the concept negotiation was given and
terms closely related to negotiation were defined and all shown to be different
from negotiation. Models of negotiation were identified, causes for
negotiation were mentioned, effects of negotiation on school performance
were discussed a:; well as approaches and attitudes to the use of negotiation
in schools.
In Chapter 3, the focus was on the context of negotiation and skills needed in
successful negotiation in schools.
The negotiation climate, elements of negotiation and legal aspects or basis of
negotiation were discussed under the context of negotiation. Listening,
timing, empathy, trust, questions, needs, patience, politeness, as well as
other skills like stamina, tolerance, confidence were discussed as negotiation
skills. Negotiation style and strategies were treated under skills needed in
successful negotiation.
The empirical research design, administrative procedures, population and the
systematic sampling as well as statistical techniques were discussed in
Chapter 4. The duly completed questionnaires returned by principals as
respondents were empirically analysed and interpreted in this chapter.
The last chapter, Chapter 5, throws light on the summary of all the chapters,
research findings and recommendations based on the research findings
derived from the previous chapters as well as a final remark.
It was found that all the respondents recognize that listening is essential to
any relationship and therefore listening was the most important negotiation
skill practised by principals. Again, it was revealed from the empirical study
that most principals do not succeed in building trust with learners by making
wild promises. Principals therefore seldomly make wild promises to learners
as a negotiation skill. Finally based on the research, a negotiation skill
training programme for principals was recommended for future research. | en_US |
