Abstract:
This study analyzes the role of the School Development Plan in the Management of Primary Schools in the
municipality of Matola with a focus on the “new” paradigm of participatory school management in
Mozambique.
To this end, the research adopted two approaches, the predominant one being qualitative based on responses to
interviews with teachers and members of the School Council. However, due to the need to collect quantitative
data, the survey also adopted a quantitative approach based on a questionnaire applied to school’s managers and
a manager at the level of the supervisor at the Ministry of Education and Human Development.
For the data collection, the research was based on three instruments consisting of the interview survey,
questionnaire survey and observation guide, which allowed the results that embody the final findings of the
study.
From a simple random probabilistic sampling, the fieldwork was carried out in eight schools in the three urban
and peri-urban Administrative Posts in Matola City, involving eight school managers, one responsible for the
National Directorate of Primary Education, in the Ministry of Education and Human Development, twenty four
teachers and eight members of the School Council.
The results of the research show some divergence in relation to the methods used on the management of schools
and the development of the School Development Plan, as school administrators argue that there is a democratic
and participative management while teachers and community members in the School Council, in general, take a
contrary motion and divergent position from their respectives school’s managers.
Furthermore, the responses of a considerable part of this segment of the school community have shown that
there has been a weak involvement of teachers and members of the School Council in the school management
process and in the development and implementation of the School Development Plan, which is why it is
considered irrelevant for the respective schools. Another finding of the research is related to the lack of feeling
of belonging of the school by the parents and guardians, as they consider it as a patrimony only of the state or of
the government.
