School Effectiveness and Inclusion: Cases of Selected Secondary Schools in the Free State, South Africa

The promulgation of the White Paper 6 in 2001 has laid the basis for the implementation of inclusive education in South Africa. However, South Africa has both effective schools which are known of quality teaching and learning and also less effective schools with poor teaching and learning. School effectiveness is mostly thought to be at the heart of effective implementation of educational practices including inclusive education. Therefore this paper examines the relationship between school effectiveness and the extent to which it impacts the practice of inclusion in secondary schools. The study was generatively qualitative and assumed a case study research design wherein data was collected by means of face to face interviews with secondary school principals and focus group interviews with school governing bodies and school management team members. Data was then analysed using constant comparative analysis within an inductive analytical framework. Among the finding of the study was that effective schools had effective leadership, well informed School Based Support Team and high collaboration among management leadership which were instrumental in enhancing inclusive practices within an effective school.