Inbanathan Naicker

Instructional leadership practices in challenging school contexts

AbstractThere is growing scholarship that links high quality leadership of the school principal with positive learner outcomes. In South Africa there is a growing cohort of disadvantaged schools, which, despite the socio-economic challenges they face, display a great degree of resilience and perform at levels comparable to the advantaged schools. The purpose of our study was to explore school principals’ instructional leadership practices in high performing schools in challenging contexts. In order to do this we drew on theories of instructional leadership. Methodologically, we employed a qualitative approach. We purposively sampled the Umlazi District in the province of KwaZulu-Natal where we interviewed the principals at five schools. In order to triangulate the data generated from the school principals, we also interviewed the circuit managers of the selected school principals. The findings seem to indicate that a distributed form of instructional leadership is prevalent in these schools. There is stro...

School leadership practices that work in areas of multiple deprivation in South Africa

This paper reports on evidence from five school principals regarding leadership practices that work in multiple deprived contexts. The South African educational landscape is complex, often described as a cocktail of first and third world institutions. Looking at the schooling system on a continuum, on the one end there are first class schools which can compare favourably with the best in developed countries. On the other extreme there are dysfunctional schools. However, along the scale there are few schools in multiple deprived areas which display high degrees of resilience and perform at levels comparable to first class schools in terms of Matriculation examination results. This paper draws from a study based on the proposition that leadership was the greatest factor to explain such performance. The study was then informed by a quest for knowledge regarding the nature of such leadership. Such knowledge is needed as the country fights to turn around the many dysfunctional schools there are. While there is a corpus of scholarship that ‘speaks’ to this matter internationally, there remains need for home-grown insights in that regard. Two theoretical lenses (servant leadership and the asset-based approach) were applied. The study employed a qualitative approach involving individual face-to-face semi-structured interviews with five purposively selected school principals each representing their school. Findings suggest that the schools in question adopted inside-out development approaches involving the philosophy that they were masters of their own destiny. Time, commitment, and accountability were some of their greatest assets, things that did not have to come from outside the schools. Internal success paved the way for stronger and more fruitful synergies with the ‘outside world’. We conclude that schools in areas of multiple-deprivation need leadership that moves them away from notions of victimhood and deficit thinking towards asset-based approaches.

Leadership development: School principals' portfolios as an instrument for change

Abstract This paper uses principals’ portfolios to examine how they learnt, sought to learn and can learn leadership. Leadership development has become a topical matter in education. However, there is still much debate about what constitutes effective leadership development. In South Africa, the Department of Education in conjunction with higher education institutions introduced the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) (School Leadership) programme to capacitate school principals and other education managers in developing skills, knowledge and values needed to effectively lead and manage schools. As part of their course requirements, school principals were expected to develop a portfolio to demonstrate change on their part regarding school leadership and management competences. This paper explores the portfolio as an instrument for change in school principals’ leadership learning. Working within an interpretive research paradigm and employing a qualitative methodological approach, a sample of 18 portfo...

'Walking our talk' : exploring supervision of postgraduate self-study research through metaphor drawing

The authors of this article portray their learning as a group of eight academics who met to examine the roles and relationships of supervisors of postgraduate self-study research. In the article, they represent how through a metaphor-drawing activity they were able collectively to rethink their experiences and understandings of becoming and being supervisors of postgraduate self-study students. They used a metaphor-drawing activity to gain further understanding of self-study supervision, while also learning more about how visual methods can assist in self-study research. Significantly, in their drawings the supervisor was portrayed as a partner working with the student during the supervision process, rather than as a provider of expert knowledge. Through collaborative interactions and sharing of their personal images of supervision of postgraduate self-study research with critical friends, they were able to reconsider their practices in a reflexive manner that provided insight into possibilities for enhancing their supervisory roles and relationships.

Learning about Co-Flexivity in a Transdisciplinary Self-Study Research Supervision Community

In South Africa, every postgraduate (master’s or doctoral) student is usually assigned one academic advisor, known as a supervisor. “The traditional model is the apprenticeship model of individual mentoring. This model is usually supplemented by informal and ad hoc support programmes” (Academy of Science of South Africa [ASSAf], 2010, p. 64).

Does Mentorship Add Value to In-service Leadership Development for School Principals? Evidence from South Africa

Abstract Leadership development has become topical as a means towards growing future leaders. However, what pedagogies and learning methods produce effective leaders remains contested. In South Africa, the National Department of Education has rolled out an Advanced Certificate in Education in School Leadership targeted initially at practising school principals. It combines a content and process rich programme involving work-based learning and employs mentoring as a development tool. In this paper the researchers report on a study of mentors’ experiences of their role as leadership developers and through this evidence explore the potential that mentoring has as a leadership development strategy. The researchers adopted a qualitative methodological approach involving semi-structured interviews with six purposively selected mentors. The data was analysed using Krueger’s ‘framework analysis’. Findings suggest that mentoring practising school principals is a valuable but very sensitive matter requiring careful selection of the mentor and mentoring approaches.

Chronicling the Barriers to Translating Instructional Leadership Learning into Practice

Abstract This paper presents and discusses the barriers that some school principals experience when translating instructional leadership learning into practice at their respective schools. The paper is based on research that was conducted among school principals that had completed the Advanced Certificate in Education: School Leadership at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Weber’s model of instructional leadership for school leaders was utilised in trying to understand the principals’ leadership practices. Qualitative questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to generate data. Krueger’s’ framework analysis was used as a tool to analyse the data. The results show that the barriers to translating instructional leadership learning into practise comprise educator apathy, high workloads, lack of support from various stakeholders, poor parental involvement, challenges in leading and managing change, teacher unionism and lack of resources.

Self-Knowledge Creation Through Collective Poetic Inquiry: Cultivating Productive Resistance as University Academics

We explore how using the literary arts-based methodology of collective poetic inquiry deepened our own self-knowledge as South African academics who choose to resist a neoliberal corporate model of higher education. Increasingly, poetry is recognized as a means of representing the distinctiveness, complexity and plurality of the voices of research participants and researchers. Also, poetry is understood as a mode of research analysis that can intensify creativity and reflexivity. Using found poetry in the pantoum and tanka formats, we provide an example of a poetic inquiry process in which we started off by exploring other university academics’ lived experiences of working with graduate students and came to a turning point of reflexivity and self-realization. The escape highlights our evolving understanding that collaborative creativity and experimentation in research can be acts of self-knowledge creation for nurturing productive resistance as university academics.

Developing School Principals in South Africa

Developing the leadership and management capacities of school principals in South Africa is seen as an important ingredient in improving school quality. This chapter looks at two initiatives aimed at professionally developing school principals. One initiative is the Advanced Certificate in Education: School Leadership (ACE: SL) and the other is the Principals Management Development Programme (PMDP). A brief background on school principalship including the minimum qualifications and experience required to be appointed to the post of school principal in South Africa is presented followed by some initiatives in the training and development of school principals. Accounts on the genesis, aims and roll-out of both the ACE: SL and PMDP are then presented. An examination of the content of the programmes and methods and approaches employed in the development of school principals is presented. An evaluation of both the programmes brings this chapter to conclusion.

Composing Object Medleys

Object Medleys: Interpretive Possibilities for Educational Research follows on from a 3-day international research symposium held in Durban, South Africa in February 2016, organised by Daisy Pillay, Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, and Inbanathan Naicker.