School Leadership for Democratic Education in South Africa

Perspectives, Achievements and Future Challenges Post-Apartheid

Tsediso Michael Makoelle, Thabo Makhalemele., Pierre du Plessis, Tsediso Michael Makoelle, Thabo Makhalemele., Pierre du Plessis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367639327
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000413892
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

School Leadership for Democratic Education in South Africa explores the democratization and modernization of education in South Africa, analyzing the state of school leadership in South African schools from the time of the new democratic education dispensation in 1994 to the present day.

The book maps out what the future of education in South Africa could look like and explores the most conducive educational environments for change in South African schools. It adopts a critical approach to analyzing leadership and management in the context of school governance, school effectiveness, teacher development, multiculturalism and equity in education. Contributions explore the democratization and modernization of education in South Africa through examining different perspectives, achievements and challenges, and also consider issues around access to technology, language policy and the curriculum along with new literature on selected aspects of leadership.

This book will be of great interest for researchers, scholars, and students in the fields of educational leadership, sociology of education, and teacher education.

1 Conceptualizing leadership and school leadership in a democratic South Africa

An evolving leadership perspective

Tsediso Michael Makoelle

Introduction

This chapter conceptualizes the notion of school leadership in pre-and post-apartheid in South Africa. The evolution of leadership in South African education was characterized by movement from a totalitarian, autocratic, and coercive leadership to that which is democratic, participatory, and transparent. The metamorphosis of leadership change can be divided into several stages, i.e., period of control and inspection; period of transformation and transition to democracy and current democratic era. Each stage has been informed by a different kind of leadership philosophy, styles, and method: The current chapter will unmask the underlying relational mechanism between leadership and political struggle/changes South Africa has undergone. The understanding of leadership evolution and the analysis of diverse leadership philosophies, styles, and methods used imply lessons that can be drawn in both leadership and school leadership going forward in the future.

Conceptualizing leadership and school leadership

Conceptualizing leadership in a South Africa context requires a multidimensional view. However, universally leadership has been defined to mean “an influence a person has on other people such that they may follow his/her course of thinking, behavior or actions”. According to Cambridge Assessment International Education (2017, p.1). Leadership in an education context means: “intentional influence is exerted by one person or a group, over other people or groups, to structure the activities and relationships in a group or organisation. Understood as a social influencing process, leadership concepts differ in terms of who exerts influence, the nature of that influence, the purpose for the exercise of influence and its outcomes.” On the other hand, the influence of leadership in South Africa may depend on a number of factors. The pre-1994 leadership era meant an exercise of power, force, or coercion. This era was characterized by leadership that did not negotiate nor took the voices of others into account. This kind of leadership was oppressive, punitive, autocratic, and most often than not nontransparent. The Apartheid governance system enforced this kind of leadership throughout and downward its ranks and structures.

The pre-1994 leadership era set a trajectory of duality between a political governance system and how leadership was to be understood, defined, and enacted. The duality between leadership and state governance continues to play a role in how leadership is understood albeit in a different era or period.

Past-1994 transition leadership in South Africa has been defined by mostly what we would refer to as “Mandela Magic” Nelson Mandela epitomizes the character and nature of leadership conceptualizations since new political dispensation. Participation by all was seen as the main factor that defines the post-1994 leadership philosophy in the South Africa context (Chasi & Levy, 2016). The attempt to distribute functions to lower levels of governance was the first indication that distributive leadership was to define leadership is in the new political era as governance and judicial structures were put in place to regulate use of power by those in high echelons which was aimed at ensuring the protection of the weak and marginalized. This transition has an impetus on leadership and school leadership going forward in the future; this meant less exercise of power to leadership that meant influence, caution, and exercise of humility. The significance of the “Mandela Magic” was to mobilize people through influence to be part of a social transformation compact; therefore this called for transformational leadership which required change management skills formation of effective teams and their ability to inspire those toward a common vision.

The theory of leadership in South Africa context can be explained by the duality between the leader, his/her influence to social structure, and consequently the institutions within the Social structure. The following illustration Figure 1.1 shows this duality.

Figure 1.1The theory of leadership in South Africa and duality between the leader, his/her influence to social structure, and consequently the institutions within the Social structure

The illustration means that in South Africa the leader’s influence determines the extent to which he/she can impact on social structure and consequently institutions within the social structure. If the leader does not have influence his/her ability to seek compliance by coercion is weakened because he/she is in checks by others, and therefore, can be difficult on his/her part to have a direct impact on any institution. This is true for school leaders. In the next section, I demonstrate how school leaders derive their influence and how such is translated into transformational force in schools they lead.

The notion of school leadership

School leadership in South Africa has evolved over years. The notion of school leadership is defined as the process through which a school leader influences ideas, directions, decisions, thoughts, processes, and actions so that the school can achieve its desired goals. Leadership is a process of influence leading to the achievement of desired purposes. Bush and Clover (2003, p. 18) conceptualize school leadership as follows:

Successful...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures and tables
• About the editors
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Conceptualizing leadership and school leadership in a democratic South Africa: An evolving leadership perspective
• Chapter 2: School leadership and governance in South Africa: A literature review
• Chapter 3: School effectiveness and improvement in the South African school context
• Chapter 4: School leadership and teacher appraisal, performance, and professional development in South African schools
• Chapter 5: School leadership within a unionized school environment: A structural-Marxist analysis perspective
• Chapter 6: School leadership and teacher leadership: The role of distributed leadership toward teacher leaders
• Chapter 7: Managing and leading multiculturalism and multilingualism in an inclusive school environment
• Chapter 8: School leadership and curriculum management for quality teaching and learning by school management teams
• Chapter 9: Managing inclusive schools in South African schools: A transformational leadership perspective
• Chapter 10: Leading schools as centers of technological practice
• Chapter 11: Legal framework for the status of school leaders in South Africa
• Chapter 12: School leadership and learner discipline
• Chapter 13: School leadership and financial management
• Chapter 14: School leadership and gender
• Conclusion
• Index