Browsing by Author "Ngcobo, Thandi"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Key dimensions of effective leadership for change: a focus on township and rural schools in South Africa
    (SAGE, 2010) Ngcobo, Thandi; Tikly, Leon Paul
    The article identifies key dimensions of effective leadership for change in historically disadvantaged, township and rural schools in South Africa. It is based on original case study research in 13 schools in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Although the sample included mainly township and rural primary and secondary schools it also included a smaller sample of historically advantaged formerly White, Indian and ‘Coloured’ schools. All schools were selected on the basis of high academic achievement and success in implementing change. Effective leadership styles were found to be contingent on context. Rather than providing a fixed set of characteristics the dimensions provide a framework against which the nature of effective leadership in the sample schools is analysed and compared. It is argued that although many aspects of effective leadership are similar to those reported in the wider international literature, they assume a specific form and emphasis related to contexts of disadvantage in South Africa.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Towards leadership for school cultures associated with good academic performance in South African township secondary schools: the ‘power’ of organic emergence, diversity and service
    (2008) Ngcobo, Thandi
    The South African government has over the past fourteen years been introducing numerous efforts aimed at improving the academic performance of schools who have been struggling in this regard for some time now. However, these efforts are not having the desired effect. Indications are that this may be due to their power-coercive and rational-empirical underpinnings. Such leanings ignore findings that have been been pointing to normative reeducative underpinnings as being more foundational for bringing about ,and/ or maintaining, change than is the case with the other two frameworks (see, McLaughlin, 1993, for example). Thus, the purpose of this article is to contribute towards a better understanding of school leadership that is related to school cultures that are associated with good academic performance in the stated context. This is informed by findings in an ethnographic study in which I explored the relationship between academic performance, school culture and leadership in two ‘African’ township secondary schools of varying academic performance. One of the major findings in this study was that school cultures that, in this context, have the potential of enabling participation in activities that are associated with good academic performance are those that are communal in nature but embrace ‘societal’ negotiations for their common understandings. In turn, the type of leadership that was concluded as being linked to such school cultures was that which emerges organically from within the African township secondary schools. The power of such emergence was found to be in the related diversity and service.