Abstract:

South African public school learners perform poorly in both national standardized tests and international evaluations. It was in this context that two universities, one local and one of international repute, partnered to develop and execute an intervention program. The program used leadership development as a leverage for systemic change in order to build leadership capacity. Systemic change is concerned with fostering change at multiple schools throughout a school district, province or state simultaneously; rather than targeting change at an individual school level. The intervention program was implemented over a period of three years in one poorly performing school district. Evaluation research of a qualitative nature was used to describe and evaluate the program in its natural setting. Research methods that were employed included participant observation and individual interviews. The evaluation approach used in the study focused mainly on the process of implementation of the program. However, a conceptual framework based on systems theory was developed which was used to interrogate whether the program had the potential to initiate systemic change in the school district. It was found that the strengths of the program included its flexible program design, interactive pedagogy and the expertise drawn from the partnership between the two universities. An implementation challenge was the transference of what was gained by the educational leaders in the program to the school and classroom levels. A threat to the program's impetus for systemic change at the district level was the absence of collaborative structures such as professional learning communities and networking between educational leaders within the school district. Systemic change was further impeded by the absence of buy-in from key stakeholders, such as the district office and teacher unions, prior to the roll-out of the program.

Keywords:

Leadership development program, systemic change, partnership, program evaluation, systems theory, educational change, educational leaders.