Strategic management framework for collaborative reources sharing between schools for sustainable learning environments

English: Many historically black schools are faced with a challenge of producing quality education with limited resources. Considering the historical backlog on resourcing and the current financial constraints, it does not seem that equity with reference to resourcing will be attained soon. Even notwithstanding the situation as depicted, there seems to be little evidence of schools taking own initiative to engender sharing of limited resources among themselves. Recorded instances of resources sharing between schools seem to be those initiated by government alone, government and business as well as government with donor countries. The collaborative sharing of resources between schools is not sustainable due to the perception of it being an imposition due to top-down approach by the powers that be and the challenge of funding. The perceived top-down and lack of funding seems to thwart initiatives from the side of the schools to come up with own initiatives to share limited resources among themselves. It thus became critical to use a research strategy that would motivate and enthuse those affected to do something about their situation. This participatory action research, conducted within the critical emancipatory theoretical framework, formulates a strategic management framework for collaborative resources sharing between schools such that it is sustainable. In terms of participatory action research, research is not done on people but with them. It was against this background that I formed a team to facilitate engagement, interactions and participation of the affected schools in the study. In laying the foundation for the study, the team engaged the participants in coining the vision, doing SWOT analysis, setting priorities, evaluating legislative mandates and engendering collaborative planning. The critical emancipatory research objectives and principles that underpin the relationships between participants as well as the language used became handy in opening the communicative space among the participants. The communicative space that allowed free discussions was further enhanced through that application of the free attitude interview technique. The technique allow the use of the preferred language of the participants. The involvement of the affected participants helped to address the research objectives namely, the need to establish strategic management framework for resources sharing that is sustainable, determining the components on which the framework is pillared, determining the conditions that ensures success, the threats that hinder successful implementation and testing the applicability of the framework. The interactive engagement between the participants helped to generate data that were used in the study. In order to make sense of the volumes of date generated, the critical discourse analysis was used. This method allows those handling data from discourses not to take it at face value but to dig for deeper meaning. In this way knowledge creation becomes possible from what may seem everyday conversations. Knowledge created from planning of activities and priorities, their implementation, monitoring, observations and reflections was used to confirm or negate what was learnt from related literature study. Furthermore this knowledge was used to close the gaps that existed in the models or frameworks studied from other countries and local. In this way it became possible to design the framework that has build-in mechanisms that make it to be sustainable and thus engender sustainable learning environments. The active participation of people from diverse backgrounds as equals, as coresearchers, as creators of knowledge helped the study to present a strategic management framework for collaborative resources sharing such that it is sustainable. The experiences that unfolded during the whole process from inception to actual presentation of the framework, informed the observations, conclusions and recommendation that round off the study in the last chapter.