The Identification of Cultural Diversity Factors in Swaziland’s Public Schools

Abstract

Swaziland is a small country situated in-between South Africa and Mozambique towards the southern tip of Africa. A former British colony Swaziland has a history of colonial education based on colonial interests and built on diverse education in the past. This study focuses specifically on cultural diversity in the Swaziland education sector and the management thereof. In doing so the cultural diversity factors that prevail in the Swaziland education sector are identified based on theoretical and empirical research. Swaziland achieved independence in 1968 upon which history documents its educational policy reform to a more inclusive, equal and progressive education regime. The present Swaziland education sector has evolved in shape and size and the current teacher workforce profile in Swaziland consists of both local and regional (African) teachers. This in itself creates an atmosphere of diversity: in this case cultural diversity. Success in managing teacher provisioning, development and management and evaluation of education provisioning requires an acute sensitivity to many managerial elements including that of cultural diversity. Five cultural diverse management factors have been identified. They are Cultural bias, Cultural tolerance, Cultural association, Cultural Inequality and Cultural minorities. These factors explain a satisfactory cumulative variance of 55%, but have a lower order reliability as measured by Cronbach Alpha (<0.60). The factors also do not correlate significantly with one another, indicating that the factors identified are individualistic in nature and should be managed as individual factors. The results are of value to education managers in Swaziland (and elsewhere), academia, and to future researchers.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p540