Abstract
The Constitution of South Africa, the South African Schools Act (SASA) and a range of other education policy documents state that all South African learners should have access to equitable quality education, with equal opportunities for all. Communities and their schools, more especially in rural areas, still experience low service delivery relating to infrastructure (classrooms), deprived access to water, sanitation and electricity, no internet connections, hardly any school or community libraries. Most of these challenges are related to socio-economic factors, such as poverty and unemployment, which are directly influential on the quality of learners’ education. Rural education can be justified if the country invests in it with aim to accrue social and economic remuneration. The interpretivist paradigm was used in this study since it is believed that participants become actively involved in all phases of the research. This research adopts a qualitative research design due to the nature of the research questions, the theoretical framing and the objectives of the researcher. I will use purposive sampling to select the ten participants from different schools within Moutse West circuit. This is as a result of their geographical background. The schools are rooted in remote rural areas surrounded by farms. The study will employ open-ended questionnaires to gather data because of the nature of the research questions and research purpose and the safe delivery mode in the times of covid-19. Findings in this exploratory qualitative study discovered that district officials do not provide enough support to principals. Principals impact the value of education learners receive by mobilizing and preserving quality and valuable teachers, develop staff professionally, and maintaining a conducive school environment. It is then recommended that principals should intrinsically link their leadership strategies and incentives of staff members so as to retain quality rural teachers. Keywords: Equality, Equity in education, rural schools, the role of educational leaders
M.Ed. (Educational Management and Leadership)