Abstract
Contemporary research on school effectiveness, school change and school improvement indicates that there is a constant need to introduce new and relevant support strategies to school leaders to promote school leadership and thereby improve teaching and learning in their respective schools. According to prominent scholars in the areas of educational change and school improvement, the success of educational changes and educational reforms depends largely on the quality and type of leadership that persists in schools. In addition to this aspect, there has also been a recent tendency among scholars of educational leadership to delimit the parameters of school leadership, including school principals, to matters that pertain directly to the institution in question.
It is also widely acknowledged among different scholars in the field of school leadership that the professional and leadership roles of school principals are affected by factors outside the school as well. A school is therefore required to function more effectively and successfully as a teaching-learning organisation, while remaining relevant in the changing cultural-historical context of its surrounding community.
Many South African schools, especially in rural areas, are confronted with contextual factors such as poverty, illiteracy and modernisation in their surrounding communities, placing the schools under external pressure. The central theoretical argument of this study is that school leadership in South Africa cannot be of an acceptable quality unless school leaders, such as principals, take cognisance of the contextual influences that might have an impact on their professional activities.
In this study, the effect of external contextual factors and their impact on the professional activities of school leaders are discussed within a specific theoretical framework, namely the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), which has the potential to explain how school leaders in South Africa should respond more effectively to the cultural dimensions of educational leadership. This should lead to a more complete conceptualisation of educational leadership, as attention will be drawn to the need for school principals to take cognisance of, among other things, external contextual factors in improving their schools.
This study, based on a combination of a descriptive literature study and a quantitative empirical study in selected schools in the province of Gauteng in South Africa, contributes towards the discourse on school leadership, effectiveness, change and improvement in Gauteng schools by viewing the issue through the lens of the CHAT. This study focused on some of the external contextual influences that school leaders should take into consideration and that might have an influence on their professional activities, and recommendations for exercising school leadership based on the CHAT are proposed.
The main research question that will be explored in this study can be phrased as follows: How should school leadership in Gauteng secondary schools be managed to respond to the external contextual factors that exert pressure on schools? The main objective of the current study was to participate in the discourse on organisational leadership and change in educational institutions in a developing country such as South Africa by offering a tentative answer to the abovementioned research question.
The study focuses mainly on how the CHAT can be used to support principals in Gauteng secondary schools. The literature phase was descriptive, while the empirical study was quantitative in nature. The sample consists of 50 (n=50) principals of Gauteng secondary schools. The research instrument for obtaining data from the respondents was a themed and structured closed-ended questionnaire survey. The participants were purposively selected from secondary schools situated in a wide range of socio-economic communities in Gauteng. They were asked to complete a comprehensive questionnaire to ascertain their views on some of the external contextual factors that might have an impact on their work as school leaders, based on the CHAT.
The theoretical framework of the study is followed by a discussion of the results of the quantitative phase of the study, which is focused on the views of participants with regard to the external contextual factors that may have an impact on South African schools and their respective links with the CHAT. The data obtained from the participants were discussed according to certain identified contextual factors. The responses of the 50 (100%) principal participants from secondary schools in Gauteng were subject to statistical analysis through the use of the simple calculation of frequencies and percentages. Six contextual factors were identified as factors that might have a direct relationship with school leadership and that principals will most probably need assistance with. These six contextual factors were modernisation; the social context of society; demographics; science and technology; information as well as the knowledge explosion; and decentralisation and school-based management. The data obtained from the participants of this study were analysed and discussed according to these six contextual factors.
It is clear from the analysis of the data above that participants in this study regarded modernisation, demographics and the knowledge explosion as important contextual factors exerting a significant influence on their professional activities. The social context of society was not regarded as an important factor at all, while the majority of respondents were undecided as to whether contextual factors such as science and technology and decentralisation had any impact at all on their professional activities.
Some important conclusions were drawn from this study. It seems to be particularly important for the principals in the study to be informed about the contextual conditions that might have an impact on the effectiveness of their schools. Awareness of these conditions could ensure that schools remain relevant and are able to contribute to the growth and development of and change in their communities.
South African principals should therefore not only keep up with developments in the world, just as their counterparts in more developed parts of the world do, but they also have the additional task of taking account of both intra- and extra-institutional contextual developments that might be unique to their particular communities and situations. With this in mind, South African school principals could usefully employ the CHAT to shape a strategic plan to stimulate and to bring about development and change in their schools and communities.
Principals, as education leaders, are entering an unknown future, but they must nevertheless be clear about the outcomes that they are striving for. Understanding the contextual factors that have an impact on their future as school leaders could play a significant role in their strategy for coping with the challenges of the future.
In conclusion, it is believed that the study will support all principals in developing countries specifically in becoming more effective in their leadership practices.
Keywords: contextual factors; cultural-historical activity theory; Gauteng schools; school change; school effectiveness; school improvement; school leadership; support strategies
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