Educator Engagement: Key to High Performance of School Operational teams in South African Secondary Schools

The school educational system in South Africa needs to improve the level of percentage pass rate in education. Therefore, the premise of the study reported on was to examine the key enabling factors that promote a high-performance school team in the operations of a co-educational secondary school in the South African context. The article further argues that by improving these school teams' operations and team skills, the result would impact positively on increasing the pass rates in the classroom. Sampling from 30 schools in three regions of South Africa, spanning different socio-economic contexts, yielded data from 409 respondents of school staff members from all different operational levels, defined as the school operational teams (SOTs). Statistical analysis of data from the survey instrument utilised Structured Equation Modelling (SEM), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The model showed a positive and significant correlation of employee engagement with both the School High Performance Work Index (SHPWI) and Team Performance Index (TPI). The results showed that employee engagement was a key enabling factor in driving high performance of SOTs.