“Underprepared” Principals Leading Curriculum Reform in Lesotho

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the views of six Lesotho primary school principals regarding the in-service training they received to implement the integrated curriculum. Purposive sampling was used to select participants who met the inclusion criteria in Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho. A document analysis of the integrated curriculum was conducted, and open-ended interviews were audio-taped, coded, and analysed using the thematic interpretive approach. Findings show that the participants were partially trained to lead the implementation of the new integrated curriculum. The participants reported that their training was shorter compared to that of the teachers. Furthermore, teachers were trained before the principals, compelling the principals to rely on the teachers for implementation information and strategies. The unique finding emerging from the current study is that principals in Lesotho had to learn the dynamics of implementing the new integrated curriculum from the teachers they were supervising. We conclude that having insufficient knowledge about curriculum reform disempowers school principals and holds potential threats to the implementation of new curriculum initiatives, not only in Lesotho but in many other centralised education systems. We recommend that policy reformers and curriculum supervisory authorities should adopt a renewed approach to empower principals with appropriate curriculum reform leadership skills.