Can Transformational Leadership Lead To School Improvement And School Effectiveness?

A ZBTE article on the importance of transformational leadership in schools.This article examines the link between transformational leadership and collaborative school cultures, in promoting school improvement arid school effectiveness. The author seeks to highlight the importance of transformational leadership with teachers, parents, and school heads " cooperation as critical factors in school improvement and school effectiveness. The author's main argument is that, transformational leadership can make a difference in terms of school improvement and school effectiveness. This will depend however, on what people value, effective school-community partnership and collaborative leadership. Transformational leadership can be achieved not only in developed countries, but also in third world countries where traditionally, leadership has tended to be hierarchical and autocratic

Gender Differences in Managing Organizational Conflicts: The Case of Women Primary School Principals in Zimbabwe

The study focused on the educational leadership experiences of a selected group of women school heads (contextualised in male-dominated societal and organisational structures) in Zimbabwe. The research is critical in understanding how women primary school heads strategise to minimise conflict in educational settings. A qualitative methodology was used to gain an understanding of the dilemmas in educational environments and how they were resolved. Continuous dialogue and interaction were identified as strategies for identifying gaps and challenges in schools as well as negotiating and mobilising resources and transforming the school community and in the process, creating a peaceful and conducive learning atmosphere

Children's learning in the diverse sociocultural context of South Africa

Children develop in several interlocking systems in the context of their family, and within the interaction of such settings as home, school, and church (Russell, 2011). In South Africa, children's diverse backgrounds within families, neighborhoods, and sociocultural environments provide them with varied experiences and opportunities to learn. Whether the children are growing up in urban or rural communities, belong to a specific race and ethnic group, or are poor or rich, all are exposed to cultures, lifestyles, amenities, and living conditions that differ in marked ways (Makoe, 2006). For example, the racial and ethnic heterogeneity of South Africa translates into a complex mix of languages: English, Afrikaans, nine indigenous languages, and five Indian languages (Reagan, 2001). Children from diverse backgrounds come to school with different experiences, and the schools struggle to meet their assorted educational needs. The poor performance of learners in South Africa reflects the continued use of an instructional model that emphasizes school-based learning with abstract outcomes, and that evaluates pupils on the basis of constructs and concepts that ignore what children know and learn outside the school environment. In the context of South Africa, much attention centers on improving achievement rates within a framework whereby knowledge is treated largely as objective (Shisana, 2011). Such perceptions of education and achievement ignore other forms and sources of knowledge and seek to fi t learners into existing frameworks of formal learning.