Since 1994 the government’s transformational agenda for education has centred on equity and redress: to improve the content and quality of education provision for all learners and to increase choice of, and access to, schools.
In the document titled South African Standard for School Leadership, dated February 2006, the department of education states that it will ‘build upon the quality of leadership and successful outcomes observed in the best of schools within the context of their communities and address a concern with poor leadership and inadequate outcomes of schooling in others”.
But for this to happen, a significant change must take place in the practice and culture of schools. Only then will the department’s intention to provide for the present and look to the future, as proposed in Leading and Managing South African Schools in the 21st century, become more than rhetoric.
Are the problems of, and for, school leadership in this country the same as those for other countries striving for ‘world-class” education provision? And, if some of those countries striving to be ‘world class” are in the developed world — where we might have assumed that they had achieved this status — what are the lessons for South Africa?
There is a tendency in South Africa to assume that it is unique in its transformational goals because of its segregated past. Obviously this factor compounds the problems of transformation in ways that do not affect other countries.
But research and practice strongly indicate that the transformational issues and reforms of education systems internationally, and the leadership implications for the schools within these, are problematic and by no means easy to define or address.
Constant policy shifts and ‘about- turns” contribute to unease, dissatisfaction and demotivation among teachers generally and school leaders in particular: the latter increasingly being held accountable for the performance of the school. Clearly these are major concerns for all educationalists which resonate strongly with the issues facing South Africa.
Many developed countries have introduced major reforms in the past 30 years and yet are still grappling with the poor performance of learners, problems with equity and diversity management, dysfunctional schools, particularly in inner cities, and problems in teacher and head teacher-principal recruitment.
The extent of this international debate on school leadership and school improvement was evident at a recent international conference held in England and organised by the British Education Leadership, Management and Administration Society (Belmas). The conference drew practitioners, academics and departmental officials from countries across the world, including South Africa, Nigeria, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, China, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
The conference, themed Innovation in Educational Leadership and Management Practice and Research, addressed issues of transformation, school culture and innovative means of changing the practice of school leaders in response to major reforms for school improvement.
The presentations and debates reinforced the need to recognise that schools are highly complex organisations that require skilled, professional leaders and managers. These leaders must be well prepared for the challenges they face, particularly in regard to global changes and influences, societal changes in their own countries and in their school communities.
At the heart of the debates and of international research was the overwhelming evidence that school leadership and learner achievement are inextricably linked. To ignore that evidence in the development of professional training programmes for school leaders, and principals specifically, would be to perpetuate the achievement gap between disadvantaged and advantaged learners and their communities.
This evidence has influenced the changes in leadership development programmes in, among others, the United Kingdom and the US. Professor Ellen Goldring, head of the department of education policy and leadership unit at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, emphasised that learner-centred leadership is now at the heart of the provision for the professional development of leadership practitioners in the US.
Leadership behaviours and practices, specifically in meeting the challenges of providing excellence and equity in urban and inner city public schools, must take account of the need for school leaders who effectively guide instructional improvement: the management of teaching and learning.
Goldring presented issues from recent research on the decline of the original Magnet schools (centres of specialism in a learning area/s) and the move to charter schools in urban centres in the US. The latter type was linked to the re-emergence of ‘neighbourhood” schools, the subject of new policies on desegregation and parental choice.
Whatever the merits of these new policies, there was strong indication of the need for the principal to take positive action to bring the school and its wider community together in raising the expectations and achievements of students and their families. In this context it is not perhaps surprising that the US, in a federal move far removed from the norm of local control, has initiated the ‘No Child Left Behind” policy.
A similar debate is taking place in the UK. The government has implemented a new initiative, termed ‘Every Child Matters”. This is linked to the policy to extend the use of schools, beyond the school day, to the community (extended school movement). It can also be seen in the context of the latest name change of the UK’s ministry of education — from the department for education and skills to the department for children, families and schools.
Parallel to this is the introduction of ‘academies” in the UK: purpose-built government schools part-funded by private sponsors to physically replace failed inner-city schools. This highly controversial government measure aims to address the challenges of excellence and equity and the lack of achievement of learners in these disadvantaged urban areas.
The initiative purports to build upon, and possibly replace, the relatively recent ‘specialist” secondary schools and the now defunct ‘City Technology Colleges”. The specialist schools — ‘schools of focused learning” — are still subject to question over the standards of attainment of the pupils and the effectiveness of the leadership in managing teaching and learning.
The conference clearly showed that, whatever the perceived merits or disadvantages of policies for the reform of education systems and schools, the headteacher/principal, the leadership structures and changes in professional practice are all critical to successful transformation. The link between what happens in each classroom and the overall leadership of the school is too strong to overlook.
Has South Africa anything to learn from these debates on school leadership and education transformation? Yes. Most importantly, the professional development of current and aspirant school leaders must focus on their crucial role in the management of teaching and learning.
South Africa can learn from those developed countries which, despite — or because of — years of school reform and transformation in striving for ‘world-class” education, have succeeded only in widening the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged learners.
South Africa’s transformation agenda for schools includes much that is positive and achievable for leaders and leadership structures in all schools. However, as Minister of Education Naledi Pandor ‘affirms excellence and challenges mediocrity”, she also acknowledges that, despite the good intentions of her department’s many transformation measures, very little has changed in many schools. The resonance of this with many of the developed countries on which South Africa has modelled its reforms is too strong to ignore. The government should now look at what didn’t work elsewhere and work out why: the lesson might be that plus ça change, plus ça même chose (the more things change, the more they stay the same)?
Caroline Faulkner lectures on educational leadership and management at the Wits School of Education, in the division of education leadership and policy studies. She is the coordinator of the new Advanced Certificate in Education programme in the School of Leadership, which Wits will be delivering from 2008 as part of the department of education’s national initiative for the professional leadership development of principals and deputies.