Experiences regarding education policy changes in leadership and management roles of senior primary heads of departments : a study of two rural primary school in Umvoti Circuit.

Abstract

This study is focused on documented experiences of senior primary heads of departments regarding their changed roles as a result of education policy changes in leadership and management. There are three key concepts that are the main focus of this study. They are leadership including instructional and transformational leadership; management and middle management. The study followed an interpretivist paradigm with the qualitative research methodology. Two primary schools were purposively sampled and participants were interviewed using semi-structured interview format. The primary sources of data in this research were the HODs, Principals and Post level one educators. The research questions guiding the study are as follows: • How do the HODs in the two primary schools manage the changes in the curriculum? • What factors influence the strategies that they use in coping with policy changes? • How do HODs' experience educational policy changes regarding their leadership and management roles? The interviews were tape recorded and transcribed by the researcher. Tape recording helps to keep accurate voices and prevent misinterpretation by the researcher. The collected data was coded and the organised into themes. Raw data was manually analysed and no soft ware was used in the analysis. The findings of this study show that HODs in the sampled schools experience a number of challenges in the areas of curriculum planning. They also experience other challenges in performing leadership, middle management and classroom teaching roles at the same time. It has become evident that it is extremely difficult to perform management and multi-grade teaching functions at the same time. Another issue is that one of human and material support. There is lack of LTSM, there is lack of support from district officials and HODs do not have time to provide capacity building and support for the staff.