A framework for managing human resources in secondary schools for improved educational perfomance

The concept of human resource management (HRM) comes into education as a result of a series of reforms meant to improve the quality of education for all, worldwide. These reforms have encouraged many countries to rigorously engage in initiatives that are meant to improve the quality of their educational governance and management structures. More emphasis was put on managing the crucial human resource during the teaching and learning process, which is the teacher. Evidence from literature has shown that a collective teacher-quality has a positive impact on learners' performance, however, the management of these crucial resources has been an unintelligible hollow in the educational management which in this study is the management of human resources in a high-performance public secondary school in Lesotho. My ultimate aim has been to develop and recommend a framework for use in the effective management of these resources in secondary schools that are unable to procure sufficient educational resources. I have adopted critical theory and the participatory inquiry research paradigms in my methodology, in order to emphasise inclusiveness, respect for human dignity and empowerment for the research participants. I further have used a combination of the ethnographic research methods that include unstructured interviews and observation techniques and analysed the data through the critical discourse analysis method. From the findings I have identified two. sets of respondents whose inputs I value equally as the managed (teachers who do not hold managerial positions) and the managers (teachers who occupy managerial positions). The information I obtained from these respondents has revealed two distinct sources of meaning that motivate at least eleven different interactional spaces within the case study school's HRM structures and processes. These are the sources of meaning for the school and for teachers respectively. It is within these social interaction intercourses that the HRM strategies at the case study secondary school are used. From the analysis of the impact that they have on the specific interactional spaces at this school, I was able to develop a framework for managing human resources at the public secondary schools that would be applicable to other schools within similar educational settings.