A strategic management framework for sustainable academic performance

Improvement of academic performance in schools, especially among communities of low socio-economic status, has mostly been the responsibility of experts - teachers and learned officials. This notion perpetuates power relations where other crucial participants - parents and learners - are marginalised. This study is about the design and implementation of a systemic strategy for a sustainable learning environment towards the enhancement of high learner academic performance at a school. The nature of this study necessitated the use of critical emancipatory research as a theoretical framework. The collaborative and participatory nature of the project guided it into participatory action research which coincides with critical emancipatory research at interrogation of power and emancipation of the powerless. Critical discourse analysis made it possible to understand and show reciprocity that exists between academic performance and community cultural wealth.