Against a backdrop of optimism, rapid change, and profound unresolved challenges, South African society continues to struggle against the dark cloud of apartheid. While education is seen as the key to both economic and social progress, South Africa's principals face staggering responsibilities with scarce resources, fragile support systems, and a pressing need for leadership development.
Disadvantaged students—often concentrated in particular communities—low educational outcomes, sexual violence, and health issues further complicate the work of South Africa's principals, who face daunting statistics. Among 139 schools in 2006, fewer than 20 percent of the learners passed grade 12.
At this critical juncture in its development, school management is considered by many to be the basic weakness in South African education. The absence of standards for principals and the means to forge standards has long been a missing element in the professionalization of the principalship.
In an attempt to address these challenges, the South African department of education has acknowledged the need to reform how principals are prepared and supported. Building on its 2004 Education Leadership and Management Policy Framework, the department approved as policy the 2006 South African Standards for Principalship. This policy framework affirmed the importance of leadership in the process of school improvement and established the qualities and expertise required of principals.
Research confirms that effective principals are the lynchpins of school improvement. They directly affect the implementation and sustainability of reforms focused on improving learning and teaching. They lead change; inspire teachers, staff, students, and parents; leverage resources to make improvements happen; and bring community members into the process of change.
The new South African policy framework is at the core of a broad effort to help retool principals and to find ways to improve student performance in many schools. This framework focuses on coordinated and sustainable training, technical assistance, and support systems for South African principals. It includes the Advanced Certificate of Education and National Curriculum Statement; incorporates new research and theory about how higher education can best support school leadership; and makes strategic use of the experience and expertise to be shared among peers.
This requires dedicated partnerships between government, the higher education community, and others. It requires commitment to effectively equip and offer incentives to school leaders to deliver on the government's mandates. Furthermore, it is clear that decisive and bold action is needed to transform dysfunctional schools into successful and effective institutions focused on learning and teaching.
Recently, a team comprising representatives from the Harvard University School of Health, the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development held preliminary conversations in South Africa with colleagues from the National Department of Education, the Eastern Cape Department of Education, the University of Witwatersrand School of Education, and the University of Fort Hare School of Education. Participants explored a collaboration between South Africa and the United States to develop new models for the preparation and support of school leaders and managers.
This collaboration provides an opportunity for South African and U.S. researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to develop sustainable strategies to prepare school leaders for current and future educational challenges in both countries.
Robert Quinn, author of Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within (1996), focuses on the story of the hero's journey that involves individual transformation and change of identity. Through this transformation, Quinn says, paradigms change and the individual aligns with the surrounding environment.
This new journey, which principals in South Africa are preparing to take, is not unique to their part of the globe. It is a journey that principals in every country—including the United States—must make as they face their own rapid changes and unresolved challenges.
