'Teacher leadership made visible' : a case study of three teacher leaders in a semi-urban secondary school in KwaZulu-Natal.

Abstract

South African schools during the era of apartheid were characterized by hierarchical and bureaucratic management structures that, for the most part, stifled the leadership potential of all those within the organization. With the onset of democracy in South Africa in 1994, there has been a radical shift in education policy and legislation which propagates making schools democratic organizations in which distributed leadership practices and collaboration is the norm. Within the distributed leadership framework, leadership is not synonymous with the work of those in formal management positions but rather the work of leadership involves multiple individuals. As such there is now a platform for the definitive engagement in the promotion of teacher leadership in South African schools. However, despite this enabling policy framework, teacher leadership practices are not embedded in the culture of many South African schools. This could be attributed to teacher leadership being its infancy stage in South Africa and the notion of teacher leadership not being valued.