Abstract
Professional development of South African school leaders has emerged from a history of inadequate specialised support, where priorities in education were not on elaborating and enriching the role of principals. As a result, ineffective leadership and management practices in South African public schools, especially those in previously disadvantaged and low-income communities are prevalent. Post-1994, democratic election laws driving democratic education were instigated, where professional development for education leaders became defined. Key tasks for school leaders were identified which included the principals’ role as a transformational leader where the focus would be on systematic changes and comprehensive leadership. Secondly, school principals were to serve as drivers of academic excellence, leading curriculum outcomes, implementing outcome-based curriculum policies and ensuring learners thrive by encouraging positive attitudes and focusing on skill and content knowledge development. Now more than ever, professional development of school leaders had become necessary in order to produce principals that could execute the newly defined responsibilities.
Various professional development initiatives were put in place to drive the professional development of principals; initiatives such as advanced certificates for school management, in-service training by universities, third-party providers and NGOs and school-based initiatives by universities. After a decade, it was observable in the early twenty-first century, that these initiatives for developing professional skills for principals were not effective – some were reported to have vague generalised standards while others did not support principals in improving their leadership practices. Communities of practice for school leaders were introduced by the Department of Education in 2010 as a response to the inadequate capacity development initiatives for principals post-1994 which led to continued unsuccessful leadership practices at schools and had an impact on school performance in terms of academic results and school functionality. Communities of practice were identified as a theory of change towards development of essential competencies for principals as well as hubs to provide principals with necessary support where collectively principals would collaborate to determine their own professional development journeys and improve their leadership practice.
This study, therefore, set forth to examine principals’ perceptions of the effect of communities of practice in enhancing their professional practice. To gather the participants’ perceptions, I conducted a case study of a community of practice made up of five participants, where I interviewed participants, analysed documents and conducted observations of participants at sessions. From the findings, participants expressed that the recruitment process was not smooth, and they were not thoroughly consulted. Participants indicated that the activities of the community of practice were based on collaborative learning and that the issues that were
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raised at the community of practice mainly covered school leadership practice and classroom functions. Participants noted that the facilitator was supportive and professionally sound; they had a few reservations about the facilitator in some sessions, but they were able to remedy those challenges. Participants explained that they developed various solutions for their schools’ unique challenges. In terms of participants’ suggestions for improving the design of the community of practice, they suggested that there should be more consultation and support for professional development initiatives, prior briefings or introduction of fellow participants, more frequent formal sessions, collaboration with principals of other school phases, unidentified communication of challenges, rotation of facilitators from other groups and a 360-degree feedback process from their peers and facilitators. This study blended the literature’s four defining features of a community of practice which are recruitment, common purpose, methods of interaction and value of participation. The six themes from the findings were recruitment, participants’ experiences of the organisation of sessions, issues raised, the facilitator’s role, application at Schools of lessons learnt and suggestions to improve the community of practice. The study brought to light the positive implications of the community of practice as a positive framework to be used in the professional development of principals. School leaders that were developed through the community of practice were able to network, build relationships and interact for the purposes of learning and improving practices. In addition, principals who participated in the community of practice were able to reflect on their practices, identify unique challenges at their schools and develop solutions to address those challenges.
Keywords: community of practice, principal development, leadership practice