The study reported herein examined the influence of school contexts on leaders' leadership practices in South Africa. To this end, deputy principals were put under the microscope to scrutinize the relationship between their leadership practices and the school contexts in which they operate. The narrative inquiry - a qualitative methodology - was…

Education leadership literature indicates that relatively little attention has been given to the specific duties and responsibilities of South African deputy principals in comparison with other leadership and management positions in schools. As a result, their roles and responsibilities remain vague. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to…

The contexts in which people immerse themselves, as well as the people they interact with, contribute immensely to people's understanding of self. As a person grows, lives and operates in different contexts with different people, he/she develops a self-concept or a particular understanding of oneself. This understanding constitutes an identity…

The use of information and communications technology (ICT) is gradually increasing in South African schools. In the Gauteng province, the Department of Education has prioritised the provisioning of electronic textbooks (ebooks) to public schools since 2014. However, to this day, there seem to be multiple barriers that hamper the adoption and use…

The development of critical skills for deputy principals is a matter which deserves attention, owing to the critical role which deputy principals are expected to play in school management. However, this area of research is neglected and has received limited attention in the literature that focuses on school leadership development. In this vein,…

This manuscript reports on the role of the instructional leadership practices of secondary school principals on learner academic achievement. A phenomenological research design under the qualitative research methodology was utilised to explore this phenomenon. The study was conducted in the Capricorn District, Limpopo Province in South Africa.…

This qualitative interpretive study explores issues and challenges influencing school improvement opportunities for Science and Mathematics in selected South African high schools through a systems leadership lens. Unstructured interviews were conducted with 13 participants comprising a principal, deputy principals, heads of department (HODs) for…

The South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 requires school governing bodies (SGBs) to take responsibility for the management of school finances. However, research in this field of study revealed that many SGB members lack the necessary knowledge and financial skills to effectively and efficiently manage schools' finances. This has resulted in more…

This paper explores methodological insights from a mixed methods study that aims to understand how school leaders promote literacy development in their schools. The study findings consider both the complementarities and the challenges of the qualitative and quantitative approaches to measuring leadership practices and their linkages with learning…

This article reports on the design of the Professional Development Needs Analysis Questionnaire for Deputy Principals (PDNAQ) to measure the problems they experienced and the skills they needed. In the literature, no validated questionnaire to measure the problems experienced and skills needed by deputy principals in South African schools was…

Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) are being utilised at a rapidly increasing rate, especially in distance education (DE). As a medium of instruction they allow the presenter to simultaneously interact with numerous students at different centres across the country. This study is unique in the sense that a collaborative learning community is created…

I analysed school facilities maintenance, a school governance function in South Africa. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 principals and three deputy principals as coordinators of this function at their schools. The interviews were purposively and conveniently selected to gather data regarding school facilities maintenance and gain…

This article explores the notion of leadership identity construction as it happens through a leadership development programme. Influenced by a conception that leadership development is essentially about facilitating an identity transition, it uses an intersectional approach to explore school leaders' identity construction as it was shaped and…

After ten years of a democratic education system in South Africa , the demographic realities should be better understood in educational planning. The fragmented nature of the pre-democratic education system has led to undesirable perceptions about quality education and has subsequently influenced the demographic imperatives present in the South…