The Republic of South Africa has a population made up of different racial groups. The differences are far reaching. There are differences with regard to the geographic location, wealth, educational levels and quality etc. amongst the racial groups. This has been the case for many years.

A new democratic government came into being in South Africa in 1994. The advent of the democratic rule brought along a number of changes. The big change has been the observed concerted effort by the government to improve on the quality of life of the lot of the previously disadvantaged people of South Africa. This effort is observable in almost all spheres of government. One of the areas where such attempts are being made is in education. Several programmes have been put in place to improve the educational level and quality of the majority of the previously disadvantaged people. Much money, effort, time and energy are put into these programmes. The main question is whether these programmes are yielding the results that were intended.

In this study, I tried to evaluate the impact of one such programme. I chose the TOPS school management programme as an example of these programmes. The programme was operational in eight areas of the Republic of South Africa. Its activities ended in 1996. I chose the case study approach in this study. The evaluation is summative in nature. One school which participated in the programme was chosen, to see what impact the programme had on its effectiveness. A second school that had not participated in the programme was brought into the study for purposes of comparison.

The conclusion I reached is that school management programmes have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the schools that participate in such programmes. This became very clear in the study. The school that participated in the TOPS management programme was found to be very effective. The school met quite a number of requirements for effectiveness. The performance of the programme school was found to be much better than that of the comparison school.

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