MENTORING EXPERIENCE OF STUDENT PRINCIPALS IN SOUTH AFRICAN SCHOOL LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME

The paper reports on the evaluation study that was conducted on lessons learnt in the implementation of school leadership and management programme by universities in Limpopo as part of doctoral qualification. Mentoring was found to be a significant component of the programme because its role was to provide guidance and support to student principals on the school sites. It was used to blend theory and practice. Questionnaires were distributed to 250 randomly sampled student principal, whereas unstructured interviews were conducted with 30 student principals. Findings indicated that funding was inadequate to secure and sustain services of competent mentors and provide adequate mentoring services to student principals. The study concludes that inadequacy in funding rendered mentoring function ineffective. This study recommends that funding allocation should consider the significance of mentoring function to school leadership and management programmes. Furthermore, it is recommended that funding model be revisited and reviewed; and consultative processes that are open and transparent be adopted when rolling out future school leadership and management programmes by universities of Limpopo and Venda.