Chronicling school principals’ experiences on school management in the context of COVID-19 stringency

Babawande Emmanuel Olawale,Bonginkosi Hardy Mutongoza,Busiswa Mzilikazi

doi:10.46303/ressat.2021.35

Babawande Emmanuel Olawale, Bonginkosi Hardy Mutongoza + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.46303/ressat.2021.35

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic experience has brought to the forefront the importance of leadership as institutions across the world are now trying to emerge from hibernation and rebuild broken academic practices. As such, this study sought to examine school principals’ experiences on school management in the context of COVID-19 stringency in four rural schools in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Underpinned by a qualitative research approach, the study employed a case study design in which semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from four rural school principals who had been purposively sampled. Findings of the study revealed that in order to combat challenges associated with teaching and learning, school principals engaged among other things, in mobilization of resources, engendering a technological culture among teachers, ensuring effective delivery of content. We further ascertained that although hamstrung by resource inadequacies, school principals in rural schools promoted school safety by ensuring transparent and effective communication, striving for the provision of safe and adequate facilities, among other things. Finally, our study also revealed that rural school principals ensured clear and consistent communication with staff, provided psychosocial assistance to staff members, and adapted performance and workload expectations.

Highlights

Introduction and backgroundIn order to save lives and contain the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, many countries were locked down – this meant that along with other sectors, business activities closed, and most education institutions were closed (Gautam & Gautam, 2020)
To examine principals’ experiences on school management in the context of COVID-19 stringency, participants were asked: “How have you as a school principal in a rural school sustained teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic?” Research findings revealed that schools have moved from the traditional method of contact-based learning to a more blended form of learning which involves remote learning, the lack of access to online resources still poses a challenge for rural schools
To ascertain the school management experiences of principals in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, participants were further asked, “How have you as a school principal in a rural school promoted safety during the COVID-19 pandemic?” Our findings revealed that hamstrung by resource inadequacies, school principals in rural schools promoted school safety by ensuring transparent and effective communication in cases of risk, enforcing government COVID-19 protocols, striving for the provision of safe and adequate facilities for teaching when contact learning resumed, and developing disaster preparedness plans which are aligned to the pandemic

Summary

Introduction

Introduction and backgroundIn order to save lives and contain the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, many countries were locked down – this meant that along with other sectors, business activities closed, and most education institutions were closed (Gautam & Gautam, 2020). In order to rescue teaching and learning during the COVID-19-induced disruptions, education institutions worldwide were forced to abruptly adopt online learning models (Muhuro & Kang'ethe, 2021). The impact of this abrupt transformation was most acute in the developing world where institutions and communities were underprepared owing to the lack of infrastructure that is essential for online pedagogies and a lack of financing for this transformation (Dube, 2020; Mncube et al, 2021). Mahaye (2020) contended that in Africa, South Africa ranks fourth in terms of numbers of learners affected by the COVID-19 pandemic This reveals that the COVID-19-insprired disruptions have brought to the fore the need for effective education leadership, which is geared towards improving teaching and learning outcomes, especially in the developing world

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