The School Cluster System (SCS) reform was introduced in Namibia from 1996 under the auspices of
the Basic Education Project. The SCS entails the organising of schools into groups for educational,
management and administrative purposes. In the framework of the SCS policy schools are grouped
according to their geographical proximity and the curriculum they offer in order to work together as a
collective network, one school in the group being selected as the core school, or Cluster Centre. There
are varying goals for the promotion of the SCS policy depending on context, but close examination of
the international literature reveals that the most widespread arguments for this policy are based on
assumptions that a SCS seeks to enhance education quality through localised decision-making,
interschool cooperation and community participation in education. One of the key assumptions of the
SCS reform is that it seeks to achieve cost-effectiveness by allowing schools to pool educational
resources. The focus on the SCS policy in the last two decades, in particular in the developing
countries, appears to be closely linked to the ongoing efforts of achieving the internationally set goals
of the 1990 World Declaration on Education for All (EFA) within a context of financial austerity.
In this study, the purpose was to investigate how educational professionals perceive and understand
the goals and the implementation of the SCS policy in the Caprivi region of Namibia. The study
aimed to explore the views and experiences of the case study participants regarding the effectiveness
of the SCS in relation to the goals of decentralized management and local support for rural schools.
The study examines the views and experiences of implementers of the SCS in a rural context,
including the challenges faced by the implementers in the process of implementation.
Data for the study was collected through extensive analysis of official documents, reports and
interviews with various individuals involved with the implementation of the SCS. Qualitative data
analysis techniques, mainly labelling and coding, were employed during the data analysis process.
One Circuit Inspector, three principals, one Head of Department and eight teachers from a rural
Cluster in the Caprivi region were interviewed.
The study found that, in practice, the strength of the SCS policy lies in the promotion of a democratic
ethos in the form of local decision-making and devolution of management tasks to the Cluster Centre
Principal (CCP) and to the Cluster Management Committee. On the other hand, cooperation among
teachers in the interests of improving teaching and learning, within the framework of the SCS policy,
is at times hindered by certain contextual factors, such passive resistance on the part of teachers, or
lack of expertise and experience in subject support groups. The study concludes that, in the context of
globalized education reform, the focus on the democratic values of decentralization has many positive
outcomes but often conceals the fact that innovations like the SCS transfers financial responsibility
for implementing and sustaining the reform from the central government to the local schools,
communities and parents, the supposed beneficiaries of the SCS.