An Assessment of the School System Planning Process for Primary and Secondary Schools: The Case of Saint George Grenada
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Date
2017-10-04
Authors
Richards, Kenson
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Publisher
University of Waterloo
Abstract
School system planning involves decisions of where to build a new school, close or expandan existing school. It is important for community members to be involved in the school system planning process so that the process will be credible, legitimate and equitable. In the Lesser Antilles of the Caribbean, school system planning seems to be silo in nature and is dominated by the Ministry of Education administrators. Likewise in Grenada, school system planning is spearheaded by the Ministry of Education administrators and the ruling government. This thesis examines opportunities and barriers for community members to participate in school system planning in the parish of Saint George in Grenada, a small Caribbean island in the West Indies. A mixed method approach was used in this thesis where a case study was the main strategy of inquiry employed by the researcher. The data collection methods include: questionnaire, semi-structured interview, document analysis and field observation. The research clearly showed that school system planning is silo, lacks community involvement and is ad-hoc in nature with no formal structure for operation. Citizens as well as government officials (participants) are willing to be part of the planning process and they are cognizant of the many opportunities that could be utilized for engagement but realized that the bureaucratic structure of the government hinders their participation. Nevertheless they unanimously stated that school system planning should be more participatory in nature as there are numerous benefits to be realized from such a process.
Keywords: Silo, Participatory, School System Planning, Community Involvement, Equitable, Opportunities, Barriers, Bureaucratic.
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Keywords
Planning