The instructional leadership role of primary school principals

Abstract

AbstractThis study explores the instructional leadership (IL) role of primary school principals from the perspective of South African principals and their understanding of IL within their own context of schooling. Using semi-structured interviews with six school principals, this study found that most principals experience great difficulty in balancing their administrative responsibilities with their instructional responsibilities. However, the majority of the principals demonstrated innovative means of resolving challenges that blocked them from being leaders as learners. They remain mired between the old and new paradigms of instructional leadership, yet understand the impact instructional leadership can have even in incremental steps for creating learning communities and fostering the learning of their teachers, themselves and their students. The study shows that the traditional role of principals as managers has been expanded to instructional leaders. The manifestation of IL varied amongst the principa...