The policy-practice interface of principalship in South Africa: a study on public primary school principals.

Abstract

This study explored the interface between policy and practice in the work of a school principal. The study was motivated by a knowledge gap, namely, the nature of that interface in school principalship and what informs it. To understand what the interface is, the study explored three research questions: i) what does the policy-practice interface of school principalship in the selected public primary schools look like? ii) why is the interface the way it is, in the selected schools? iii) what are the implications of the nature of the interface and the reasons thereof for improving the work of a school principal? The study adopted Transformational Leadership Theory and Management Functions as the theoretical lenses. The study is qualitative in nature, couched within the interpretivist research paradigm. Five public primary schools and five primary school principals were purposively selected as research sites and participants respectively. Data was generated through in-depth, individual face-to-face interviews. The findings reveal that, while the policy for school principalship lists many fundamental functions or requirements a school principal must perform, the participant school principals faced difficulties in implementing several key areas and fared well in only a few. There was persistent conflict among learners, teachers, and school principals and their SMTs. However, surprisingly, school principals related and worked well with their SGBs. The school principals’ poverty in instructional leadership was evident from the reported low teacher morale. The findings suggest that all the participant school principals were transparent regarding school financial matters. However, regarding cultural leadership, the findings show limited understanding of cultural diversity and how it could be embraced in day-to-day school lives. The school principals were reportedly largely excluded from the recruitment and appointment of staff and this seemed to negatively impact on the subsequent working relationships. The participating school principals seemed to face huge difficulties regarding managing and utilizing data through the SASAMS system. Finally, there seemed to be very limited school community partnership across all the schools in question.