Browsing by Author "Ncokwana, Zamokwakhe Thandinkosi."

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The dynamics of leading in rural contexts: narratives of primary school Principals.
(2020) Ncokwana, Zamokwakhe Thandinkosi.; Naicker, Inbanathan.
The South African public education system, is a two-tiered education system, comprising the poor schools and the least poor schools. The former are ranked quintiles 1, 2 and 3 while the latter are ranked quintile 4 and 5. Quintile 1 schools, in the main, are found in rural locales. Quintiles 4 and 5 are mainly located in urban areas. Primary schools located in rural contexts contend with a myriad of challenges including poverty, unemployment, constrained resource and poor infrastructural capacities aggravated by their geographic landscape. While contending with these adversities, they are expected to perform at a similar level as their counterparts in urban contexts. Given these challenges, these schools are expected to be dysfunctional and perform poorly. However, there are pockets of schools which are functional and able to perform at more or less the same level as schools in other contexts. This study explores the lived experiences of school principals leading primary schools in rural contexts. The study sought to narratively understand the dynamics of leading in rural contexts. It is positioned within the interpretivist paradigm. Methodologically, the study employed narrative inquiry. Four primary school principals leading in rural context were purposively selected in the Ilembe District. Life story interviews, artefact inquiry and collage inquiry were used to generate field texts (data). Research texts were thematically analysed. The key findings of the study revealed that the leadership practices of school principals are influenced by who they are which is characterised by multiple identities. Therefore, who they are prescribes how they think and what they do. The school principals draw on their personal and professional meanings and understandings of selves to inform the leadership practices that they enact. The school principals’ personal and professional selves draw from each other in the process of constructing meanings and understandings. The interplay between leadership and rural context shapes and reshapes the school principals’ leadership practices. To this end, leadership practices are context-laden. Clearly, leadership discourse can no longer relegate context to the peripheral ranks. The study generated a model of leadership called Cross-cutting and Multi-agency Leadership (CML).
A leadership tale of two school worlds : experiences of principals in fee paying and no fee paying schools.
(2015) Ncokwana, Zamokwakhe Thandinkosi.; Naicker, Inbanathan.
There are multiple school categorisations in the South African schooling system. One such categorisation is the fee paying and no fee paying schools. There is a dearth of scholarship on the experiences of principals leading in these school categorisations. This study therefore explored the leadership experiences of principals in fee paying and no fee paying schools and how these categorisations influenced such experiences. Principals in these schools contended with different leadership realities which impacted on the execution of the schools’ primary mandate of the delivery of quality public education. This study involved examining the leadership challenges of these principals in fee paying and no fee paying schools and how they alleviated such challenges to ensure that the teaching and learning processes were minimally or not compromised. To do this, I drew on the Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT) as the theoretical lens. Methodologically, a qualitative approach was employed. Four schools in Umlazi and Pinetown Districts of the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education were purposively sampled and four school principals were interviewed. Two principals were from the fee paying schools and two were from the no fee paying schools. I also utilised document reviews to supplement data generated from interviews. The documents that were reviewed included the minutes of staff and School Governing Body (SGB) meetings. The findings of the study revealed that the budgetary constraints emanating from either inadequacy of funding or unsteady flow of school fee revenue or both filtered through to various facets of school operations. This was mirrored in the resourcing and infrastructural capacities of these schools and the quality of education that they claimed to provide for their learners. Consequently, the principals employed a diversified cocktail of mitigation strategies which were tailor-made to respond directly to their unique school realities. It is recommended that the Department of Basic Education re-models or modify some sections of its funding policies, particularly of fee paying and no fee paying schools, so that they uncompromisingly address the unique leadership realities in these schools. Such a process may also ensure that these policies remain relevant to the plight of some learners in public schools and the ever-changing realm of educational practice.