INFORMATION COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY’S COMPETENCIES BY THE LIMPOPO’S SCHOOL PRINCIPALS: EVALUATION STUDY OF SCHOOL LEADERSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME IN SOUTH AFRICA

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) was one of the fundamental modules of School Leadership and Management Development (SLMD) programme that was rolled-out by South African Education Ministry in collaboration with the Institutions of Higher Learning. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the impact of the Advanced Certificate in Education-School Leadership and Management (ACE-SML) programme on principals’ ICT competencies. Mixed methods research design facilitated the adoption of a survey and a case study. A total of 150 questionnaires were randomly distributed to survey’s participants whereas 20 case schools participated in interviews. The findings reveal that ICT competencies learnt in ACE-SML programme encouraged the majority of participants to further their studies and that they are succeeding using on-line registrations, retrieval of study materials, submission of assignments and retrieval of assignments feedback. Apart from programme’s derived opportunities there were challenges that were identified. The capturing and retrieving South African School Administration and Management System (SA-SAMS) data were major challenge to majority (79%) of participants because they claim that they were not trained on the use of this new system. Furthermore they indicated a lack of school resources and internet connectivity as impeding factors towards collaborating ICT into curriculum implementation and disseminating their skills to teachers and learners in teaching and learning. We therefore recommend that ICT should be rolled-out as short courses to school principal and adequate resources. For further research we recommend that a large scale survey should be conducted to establish ICT literacy level and emerge with an appropriate model to carter for needs and demands of principals, schools and department.