Effects of school leadership in enhancing learners' achievement in South African schools
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Date
2020
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Abstract
Introduction: School leadership has increasingly been gaining attention from
educational policymakers, and the entire educational society. Research has also
confirmed that school principals are essential for developing and maintaining effective
school systems. The role of school leadership in schools is highly complex and dynamic
such that strategies are needed to change underperforming schools. This article
reported on a small scale exploratory qualitative study that investigated the effects of
school leadership in enhancing the learning outcomes of a cohort of schools in a rural
setting in South Africa.
Purpose: The purpose of the study was to analyse the role of principals in enhancing
learning achievement in schools.
Methodology: The study took a qualitative research approach with an interpretive
epistemological and constructivist ontological perspective. Qualitative evidence was
collected from six schools in the same district through semi-structured interview
question with educators and school principals. Purposive sampling techniques were
used to select information-rich cases from the schools and in selecting the schools.
Results: Grounded in the accounts of our study participants, results from the study
indicated that school principals are the cornerstones of achieving quality teaching and
learning through motivating educators, training and providing distributed leadership
Recommendations: From the study findings, it was recommended that there is need
to improve the basic unit of the educational institution which include structural, cultural
and agential conditions to enhance the effective operations of school principals. There is
a need to motivate and enhance existing forms of agency in ways that expand learners’
achievement.
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Citation
Shava, G. N., & Sibanda, L. (2020). Effects of school leadership in enhancing learners’ achievement in South African rural schools. Journal of Educational Research in Developing Areas, 1 (3), 202-213. https://doi.org/10.47434/JEREDA.1.3.2020.202.