Complexities of Leading Rural Schools in South Africa: Learning from Principals’ Voices

Introduction

The job of the principal or any educational leader has become increasingly complex and constrained. Principals find themselves locked in with less and less room to manoeuvre. They have become more and more dependent on context. At the very time that proactive leadership is essential, principals are in the least favourable position to provide it. They need a new mindset and guidelines for action to break through the bonds of dependency that have entrapped those who want to make a difference in their schools. (Fullan 1998, 6)

While Fullan’s claims about principalship are based on his observation of the general global educational context, it must be noted that the challenges he highlights also affect the work of principals in various contexts, and the South African rural context is not an exception. There is consensus that principals in rural schools, especially in South Africa, encounter a multitude of contextual challenges. These challenges, among others, include a lack of basic educational infrastructure; teaching technologies; large classrooms; a lack of qualified teachers and dealing with poverty-related and other social ills while ensuring that learners receive education of the same quality as their urban counterparts (Balfour, Mitchell and Moletsane 2009; Bhengu and Myende 2016; Hlalele 2012; Myende and Hlalele 2018). These unique educational challenges of the rural context suggest that principals in such context are faced with a double dilemma. On the one hand, principals are expected to ensure that learners receive quality education despite the rural challenges while also juggling the 21st-century obstacles and demands that have been seen to place a lot of strain on principals’ leadership (Du Plessis 2014; Fullan 1998). Fullan (1998) emphasises that principals are further expected to be proactive while they are in unfavourable positions to provide this proactivity. What places rural principals in unfavourable positions and blocks their proactivity is the fact that most of the challenges we highlighted earlier require specialised knowledge, which South African principals may not have because of the non-existence of specialised principals’ training in the country. Furthermore, many of the challenges encountered emanate from beyond the school premises and principals’ attempts to address them may not be sufficient.

To date, there is much research (Antonucci 2012; Butler 2014; Jean-Marie, Normore and Brooks 2009; Kemp-Graham 2015) documenting what it means to be a principal in the 21st century. This research originates mostly in the developed countries, and this leaves space for this type of research within a developing country. For example, recent studies cited above (Butler 2014; Kemp-Graham 2015) were conducted in an American context. Similarly, Jean-Marie, Normore and Brooks (2009) presented a conceptual paper on how school leaders within the American context are prepared for social justice issues in the 21st century. Although Antonucci’s study is on leadership roles, his focus is superintendents and the study was conducted in New England. It is also noticeable that much of the research does not focus on the issue of rurality as an important factor; yet, it is a well-known reality that rurality presents multiple challenges for school principals (Msila 2010; Myende 2014). While Butler (2014) looks at the recent neoliberal reforms and their effect on rural schools in the 21st century, these reforms are drawn from an American context, which is incomparable to the South African rural context.

There are some studies in the African continent on leadership and the 21st century. For example, Ekundayo (2010) explores school leadership challenges for the 21st century from a Nigerian context. In a South African context, Mestry (2017) explored how principals are empowered to lead effectively in the 21st century. While these studies are recent and relevant, like the studies from developed contexts, they do not focus on the context of rurality. Rurality as a context presents unique challenges, particularly in a developing country such as South Africa; hence, there is still a need to understand leadership for the 21st century in the context of rurality in South Africa. In this current article, we respond to this research gap by examining the complexities of leading schools in the context of rurality. We first examine what constitutes principals’ leadership and thereafter, we consider the complexities that principals encounter as they lead rural schools.

Principalship in South Africa: Troubling the Policy Context

Principalship, in the context of South Africa, is guided mainly by three policy prescripts. These prescripts are the South African Schools Act (SASA) No. 84 of 1996 (Republic of South Africa 1996); The South African Standards for Principalship (Department of Basic Education 2014); and the revised personnel and performance measures (PAM) (Education Labour Relations Council 2016). These policies provide clarity in terms of what is expected from South African Principals. For example, SASA posits that the principal is responsible for professional management of the school, which includes ensuring efficient day-to-day running of the school, organising activities that support teaching and learning and providing annual report on, among other things, the effective use of resources. In addition to these professional management roles, the principal should serve as an ex officio member of the school governing body (SGB) ¹ and provide support to the SGB in executing its governance roles. Noticeable, in the roles as outlined by SASA, is that they are more administrative and managerial in nature.

Although PAM document details the principal’s roles, it is little different from SASA, and it can further be argued that, like SASA, it focuses on a limited administrative and managerial scope of the principal’s role. The roles include dealing with general/administrative, personnel, teaching and extra and co-curricular matters and interaction and communication with stakeholders (ERLC 2016). It can be established from the roles outlined above that they are broader than those provided in the SASA. Furthermore, we contend that PAM acknowledges some features of the 21st century. Holland (2004) states that part of the principal’s role, as an instructional leader of the 21st century, is to support professional development of teachers. On teaching and personnel matters, PAM mandates the principal to ensure that teachers are developed and supported in order to deliver quality teaching and learning. This is in accordance with Holland (2004) and, therefore, in line with our argument that PAM acknowledges the criticalness of the principal’s role in the 21st century.

While SASA provides a limited scope of what principals are responsible for and PAM expands on these roles, the South African Standards for Principalship (DBE 2014) provides a detailed account of what is expected from principals. The policy is a great shift from the view of the principal as an administrator, as in SASA, and the limited scope of leadership roles in PAM. This policy is about the principal in a 21st-century leadership role. It is progressive and envisions a world-class principal, who can function like principals in developed countries. Under this policy, the principal is expected to, among other roles, lead through cultivating a culture of teaching and learning, which fosters success in learners, understand the curriculum and work towards its continuous improvement. It also involves leading their schools into the future by encouraging and facilitating the use of Information and Communications and Technology (ICT). The use of ICT plays a vital role in 21st-century developments around the world (National Development Plan 2030 (NDP), 2012). As such, the principal’s role as a facilitator of the use of technology is in line with the DBE’s vision of a 21st-century-oriented principal. The principal is further expected to be a strategic leader through in-depth planning of the best practices and frameworks that improve the school’s academic performance. In this role, the principal is also expected to engage teachers, parents and communities to support, plan and make collaborative decisions about the school.

Above we have outlined the policy context of principalship in the context of South Africa. However, there are critical issues to be highlighted in relation to our focus in this article. While Hallinger (2018) teaches us that context matter in the execution of leadership, the policies presented use a one size fits all approach which ignores the role of context in what leaders are expected to do. These roles address what all South African principals are expected to do, with no special consideration of rurality, which presents unique challenges for those who lead schools in this context. This is one of the reasons we want to understand principals’ leadership within this context, especially in the 21st century where principals in all contexts have challenging demands. We were also interested in leadership within this context because in South Africa, there is no formal training that one undertakes before they become principals but they only require 7 years of teaching experience (Republic of South Africa 1998). Bush, Kiggundu and Moroosi (2011) argue that principalship is a specialist occupation, which requires specialised knowledge. Understanding how these principals lead in a context that presents the challenges of rurality and those of the 21st century while they are not trained in these issues is important to understand.

Meanings of Rurality

There is no single, all-inclusive definition of rurality. This emanates from the great diversity of meanings that cannot be captured in one single definition (Stoop 2018). Rurality, as is understood in South Africa, differs from how it is understood in developed countries such as the North American nations of Canada and the USA, as well as other countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Hlalele 2012). The simplest definition of rurality is often attached to distance from urban areas and smaller population sizes (Redding and Walberg 2012). For example, in Canada, the definition is bound by population size (being smaller than 1000 people) and distance from main business centres (Rural and Small Town Canada: Analysis Bulletin 2001). In Canada’s neighbour, (the USA), the understanding is that rural areas are both outside big cities and are largely constituted of agricultural communities (National Geographic Society 2012).

It is important to note that definitions of rurality used in other countries, although they may be useful, may not be relevant to South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history, which led to ‘skewed demography, vulnerable political economy, and inequitable educational provision characterising rural areas’ (Moletsane et al. 2017, 76). Dominantly, in South Africa, rurality is understood within the confines of demographics such as income per capita, population growth rate and size, location or proximity between the area and the city and the type of governance that exist in the area. Starting with the latter, a rural area in South Africa is governed by traditional leaders (Myende and Hlalele 2018). South Africa also encounters rural–urban migration, which has led to ‘brain-drain’ that strips rural areas of their few emancipated community members who leave their villages to pursue a better life in cities (Howley, Rhodes and Beall 2009). Contrary to the self-sufficient, agriculturally rich areas encompassed in the descriptions used in other contexts (as outlined earlier), most rural areas in South Africa are far from being self-sufficient. Even though the majority of the agricultural contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product is attributed to rural areas, the vast majority of inhabitants are not farmers. Rather, many are farm workers, often earning below the minimum wage (Hlalele 2012). The schools considered for this study fall within this context in addition to falling under Quintile 2 of the National Norms and Standards for School Funding in terms of the South African Schools Act No 84 of 1996 (Republic of South Africa 1996). Quintile 2 constitutes mostly poor, rural schools while Quintile 5 describes well-resourced, largely urban schools. Schools in Quintile 1 to Quintile 3, because of the poverty associated with rurality in the SA context (Moletsane 2012), are exempt from paying school fees, and therefore, have no additional revenue beyond their full dependency on government funding.

The State of Rural Education in South Africa

Rural education in South Africa has been on the spotlight since the demise of apartheid. The key concern has been the quality of education offered in schools within the context of rurality and how this quality can be improved to be comparable to those schools in the urban context. The first intensive South African research that was conducted between 2003 and 2005 for the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) concluded that ‘the great majority of children in rural poor communities are receiving less than is their right in a democratic South Africa’ (Education Policy Consortium 2005, viii–ix). The research further found that the curriculum that was offered in the country at the time was inappropriate for rural schools, where there were large class sizes and limited teaching and learning resources. Recent studies (Du Plessis and Mestry 2019; Myende and Hlalele 2018) still suggest that South African rural schools still encounter the shortage of teachers while they have large class sizes (Lumby and Azaola 2011). Gardiner (2008) adds that rural schools in South Africa are difficult to reach due to the difficulties associated with reaching villages where these schools are located. The schools, according to Gardiner (2008), lack clean piped water, electricity, laboratories and computers, which are coupled with poor or no Internet connection.

While Gardiner’s report was generated in 2008, we argue that although there has been an improvement in the infrastructure development of rural schools, the quality of education in these schools is still substandard compared to their urban counterparts (Myende and Hlalele 2018). Moreover, schools in rural areas are still providing service to poor communities, which in return affects education in a number of ways. For example, due to poverty, most of the schools that are ranked within Quintile 1–3 ² are located in rural areas (Naicker and Ncokwana 2016). This implies that these schools cannot charge school fees to parents (Sayed and Motala 2012), which in turn limits their power of procuring relevant and quality educational resources. In a nutshell, these schools may not be in a position to buy critical resources such as teaching and learning technologies they need for their operation in the 21st century. Further to this challenge of resources within the school, poverty is one of the key issues affecting education in rural schools. Due to poverty, not only schools have resource challenges, but also families. This results in limited parental involvement (Matshe 2014; Modisaotsile 2012) and limited resources to learn at home. The challenges noted above relate to physical resources, but further to these, human resource deployment in South African rural schools is another challenge. For example, rural schools in South Africa still encounter the challenge of underqualified teachers and some schools, due to their small size, have a limited number of teachers deployed, which leads to multigrade teaching phenomenon (du Plessis and Mestry, 2019). Due to the challenges noted above, Ebersöhn and Ferreira (2012) and Hlalele (2012a) have argued that more often, rural schools experience failure in meeting learners’ needs. In another study, Hlalele (2012b) argued that, due to several backlogs in South African rural schools, learners’ academic attainment, especially in Mathematics and Science, is incomparable with that of learners in urban schools. The question therefore remains: How do principals lead in a challenging 21st century and in such a challenging context?

School Leadership Roles

The role of school leadership, especially that of a principal in the 21st century, can simply be defined as an ever-changing role. As Zegarac (2012) in an interview with Ken Leithwood puts it, contrary to previous decades, educational leaders today are faced with the challenge of increased accountability. In that interview, Leithwood, also adds that this accountability comes with the concern of how well students are doing and how their achievements are improving. Ekundayo (2010, 187), writing from a Nigerian context, posits that the job of principals has become ‘more complex and hazardous’. While he argues that the role of the principal is still about planning, leading, organising and coordinating (PLOC), there is a suggestion that the nature of these roles requires a set of complex professional skills. The need for complex professional skills, as should be the prerequisite for elevation to the position of principalship, can better be understood from how Ahmad and Ghavifekr (2017, 48) conceptualise leadership for recent times. They claim that leadership is ‘inclusive and distributive and it occurs at all school levels’. Schleicher (2012) and Myende (2014) also agree that principals in the 21st century need to ensure that leadership is shared among others within and outside the school.

Unlike in the past, principals in the 21st century lead teachers and learners who have awareness of their rights. On this, Ekundayo (2010) argues that principals should be able to focus their leadership on instruction in order to respond to the learners’ rights. On the same note, Jean-Marie, Normore and Brooks (2009) opine that 21st-century schools should be guided by principles of social justice, and therefore, principals should advocate for education that advances the rights of, and education for, all children. Although Ekundayo (2010) highlights the principals’ administrative roles, the issues of accountability, people performance and attitude and social justice issues suggest that principals will not succeed if their knowledge is limited to their administrative roles alone.

The literature above suggests a strong need for understanding the context under which leadership takes place. In responding to the nature of leadership required for the 21st century, Uhl-Bien, Marion and McKelvey (2007) argue that the by-product of the new context in which leadership is executed is knowledge rather than physical skills such as operating machinery. This is so because knowledge has become an important commodity to possess. Subsequently, organisations such as schools are driven to produce students and workers to meet the recent market demands. Organisations that will survive demands of the 21st century are those that will evolve with the time. Therefore, leadership expectations have also had to change (Fullan 2001). Prytula, Noonan and Hellsten (2013) note that these expectations have complicated the role of principals and demand more of their time than ever before. The roles above are general to all school leaders, and it is crucial to explore the roles that leaders play in the context of rurality.

In a comprehensive literature review on successful leadership in rural schools, Preston and Barnes (2017) have identified the key roles of leadership in the context of rurality, which include promoting sound relationships with staff, students, parents and community members. They further posit that leaders who succeed in the context of rurality balance local and district policies and they focus largely on instructional leadership. The study (Preston and Barnes 2017) emphasises the importance of relationships with the community in the context of rurality. However, it needs to be noted that the review focused on rural Canada, Australia and America. In another study conducted in Western Canada, Renihan, Patrick, and Noonan (2012) found that leading rural schools in the context of rurality is different and much difficult compared to urban schools. In their findings, they highlight the tensions around accountability that rural principals had to deal with.

The first challenge they identified relates to the geographical location of these schools, which makes it difficult for principals in these schools to establish relationship with education officials. Second, they highlight the challenge of teacher professional development. Rurality, according to the study, makes it difficult for principals to engage in teacher professional development, yet it is a necessity. The findings of Rehihan and Noonan (2012) highlight what is also similar to the South African context. For example, Msila (2010) argues that while principals are expected to wear capes and be superheroes of their schools, those working in rural context face obstacles that often prevent them from succeeding. Adding to this challenge for South Africa is the absence of training for teachers who take up principalship position despite the acknowledgement that principalship requires specialised knowledge (Bush, Kiggundu and Moorosi 2011).

While the findings from the international studies provide what works in the context of rurality, we have demonstrated earlier that rurality in the context of America and Canada cannot be comparable to South Africa. While the role of principals is extensively researched, what it means to execute leadership in rural context of developing economies remains in the periphery. Therefore, this articles attempts to address this gap. While roles of leadership have been researched, the context in which South African principals find themselves is ever changing (Myende and Bhengu 2015), and there remains a need to understand the nature of principals’ leadership in such a changing context.

Theoretical Framework

What is noticeable in the discussion on school principalship and rurality in the previous sections is that the context of rurality forces principals to be dynamic. As argued by Bhengu and Myende (2016, 1) principals need to understand that leadership practices are not fixed, but are fluid, and evolving, where leadership is not about compliance, but is about one’s ability to identify what works at a given context. Leadership is also about being aware of the societal needs. This conceptualisation of leadership sits well with complexity leadership theory (CLT), which thus forms the theoretical framework of this article.

According to complexity leadership theory (CLT), ‘leadership is an emergent event and outcome of relational interactions among agents…it is more than a skill, an exchange, or a symbol – leadership emerges through dynamic interactions’ (Lichtenstein et al. 2006, 2). The CLT’s claim about what leadership is emphasises the relationship between different agents. In the context of the school, these agents could be school leaders, teachers, non-teaching staff, learners, parents and other stakeholders who have an interest in what schools are doing. CLT claims that leadership, in a context with multiple stakeholders, is not a fixed commodity that only one person possesses, but it emerges in the relationships and the interactions of individuals. Eppel (2009) explains complexity theory well and states that it refers to many parts of the organisation working together instead of referring to something difficult.

CLT is a combination of three leadership constructs, which are administrative, adaptive and enabling leadership (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). Administrative leadership is about individuals and groups in formal managerial roles and how they plan and coordinate activities to fulfil predetermined organisational outcomes. The focus of leadership at this level is alignment and control. The important element of this level is that it represents the hierarchical and bureaucratic functions of the organisation and how they are undertaken to pursue organisational goals.

Adaptive leadership is the key source of change in organisations (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007, 6). This type of leadership emerges from ‘conflicting organisational needs, ideas and preferences’ and leads to people connecting to each other, the development of new ideas and the identification of new technologies to enhance organisational performance. One important element about adaptive leadership is its claim that leadership is not about authority but interactions of different people at different levels of the organisation (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). Having said that, adaptive leadership emerges as a result of tensions and conflicting organisational needs and preferences. The third type of leadership in CLT is enabling leadership. As explained by Uhl-Bien et al. (2007), this leadership is about addressing tensions. In this way, diverse skills, preferences and perspectives of organisational agents come together to use internal tensions to enhance performance. This is done by stimulating interdependence among organisational systems. The value of this leadership lies in creating an interdependency context into which agents are able to rise above and adapt to their differences.

This element of complexity leadership aligns well with the way leadership is perceived in South African schools and the demands on principals in the present moment. For example, as mandated by the South African Schools Act No. 84 of 1996 (Republic of South Africa 1996), principals are to ensure that their schools embrace flatter leadership and management structures (Myende 2014). Schools are further encouraged to broaden the horizons for resource mobilisation by including their immediate and secondary communities in school matters (Myende 2018). Through this process, the school becomes a complex system with multiple players within and beyond. Principals, as leaders of their schools in a time of change, are agents who must ensure that through working with all involved, the school survives and thrives through the changes and challenges. Lichtenstein et al. (2006) view the current time as a knowledge-driven era in which the commodity is knowledge. This challenges principals to see their leadership as evolving and adaptive (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007).

In the context of the school, administrative leadership is constituted by the principal, his or her assistant(s) or Department Heads who need to adapt (adaptive leadership) in a space which, more often than not, has competing needs and preferences. This adaptation suggests creating enabling space (enabling leadership) for stakeholders who do not occupy formal positions in the school to find it possible to exert influence and have their views heard. The adaptation from the side of those with no formal power or authority may mean that they also need to adapt within the context by creating an environment that enables those from administrative leadership to execute the formal expectations linked to their offices. In this process, leadership emerges, which is mainly guided by interactions of these agents from the different hierarchies of the organisation (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007).

Research Design and Methodology

This study was grounded in the interpretive paradigm, which carries the belief that when it comes to studying humans and their behaviours, there is no single reality. Reality or meaning is multifaceted and subjective (Cohen, Manion and Morrison 2011; Silverman 2013). Individuals who have been subjected to the same realities, such as surviving the holocaust, may have different interpretations of what took place. Within the interpretive paradigm, these divergent feelings and interpretations about a single phenomenon are recognised. As such, the principals who participated in the study may hold different views about what it means to lead a school in a rural context. Further, the findings of this enquiry cannot be generalised to other contexts, as each context may have its own dynamics because of the nature of multiple realities. As Creswell and Poth (2017) put it, these realities can only be interpreted from the meanings given by participants. In the context of this study, leadership and its complexities in the context of rurality can only be understood from the principals who participated in this study.

Guided by this paradigm, the qualitative research, with its focus of paying attention to understanding the feelings, perceptions and behaviours of the participants, was selected as the best approach to answer the research questions (Bertram and Christiansen 2014). Five cases were selected, which comprised five schools and their principals, who became participants in the study. The choice of case study research is based on its suitability for studying in-depth experiences in a real context (Rule and John 2011). The principals studied in this case are leading schools in a rural context of Limpopo province.

Purposive and convenience sampling methods were used to select the participants (principals and schools) (Bertram and Christiansen 2014). The participants were purposively selected because they were principals in rural schools. Limpopo is one of the South African provinces that has a large number of rural schools (Myende 2014) and because of this, there were many schools that we could select from. To limit the number to the schools we wanted, convenience sampling was adopted and schools within a reasonable distance from the researchers were than selected. As such, five principals working in a rural context were selected from one district of the Limpopo province. The schools were in the Moletjie village outside the city of Polokwane and lie within a 15-km radius of one another in the school district of Capricorn. As indicated above, these five schools were closer to one another and Moletjie village was used as it was convenient for the researchers to access the research sites during field work.

Another common thread among the schools selected was the lack of resources. Participating schools were classified as Quintile 2 as per the National Norms and Standards for School Funding (Republic of South Africa, 1996). Quintile 1–3 schools, as explained earlier in the paper, are made up of schools located in poor communities and these schools are exempt from charging school fees under the belief that they service communities with low-socio economic status (Sayed and Motala 2012). Likewise, these schools served communities with low-socio economic status as aligned with their quintile ranking. This can also be seen in how all five schools are part of the National School Nutrition Programme ³ (Department of Basic Education 2014), providing meals for learners in Quintile 1–3. Some of the differences among the schools are evident in learner size as they range from 520 to 1400.

Out of the five principals who participated in the study, only one was female. It is also evident that all five participants were seasoned teachers, while only two had been in the principalship position for a significant number of years. Two of the five principals had limited experience in terms of years serving as principals. While all participants have been teaching for over 20 years, the implications of leadership experience can be clearly seen in how the two principals who have 12 and 17 years as principals were better able to work with outside organisations to gather resources for their schools. It was also noted that of the five principals, four had postgraduate qualifications, with two having their postgraduate qualification in education management, which arguably is relevant to their work. Table 1 below illustrates this information.

Once schools were selected and consent was granted, two sets of in-depth interviews and non-participant observations were carried out with each of the participants. The interviews allowed us to hear their views about leading in a rural context and the complexities associated with it. The non-participant observations (LeCompte and Schensul 2010), which were carried out over a period of 5 school days with each principal, gave us insights about more than what the principals were willing to share, as well as, elements of their leadership practices that they may not even have been aware of. The interviews were conducted in both Sepedi and English as per the request of all participants, and they were able to answer in either of the two languages. This enabled principals to talk freely and be articulate when sharing their experiences. After exiting the field and doing thorough data analysis, it was felt that three of the participants should be reinterviewed to clarify some of the views they expressed in both the initial and follow-up interviews that were conducted with them. This enhanced the richness of the data and provided in-depth views of principals about the phenomenon. The process of data generation (interviews and observation) took a period of 4 months from August to November 2016. While interviews did not take much of this time, observations needed to be longer in order to confirm what was said during interviews. While observations provided evidence for what was said in the interviews, there were two major limitations to our fieldwork. First, the number of schools made it difficult to spend sufficient time in the school and second, principals are usually busy with external meetings and this meant they could not be observed when they are out-of-school.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Principals’ and Schools’ Profile

P	G	A	NYT	NYP	HQ	SE
Principal 1	Male	58	34	17	BEd Hons	520
Principal 2	Male	57	31	12	BEd Hons	661
Principal 3	Male	48	25	3	BTech	783
Principal 4	Male	48	24	2	BTech	655
Principal 5	Female	56	35	2	SPTD	1400

Source: The authors.

Notes: P = Participant, G = gender A = age, NYT = number of years teaching, NYP = number of years as principal, HQ = highest qualifications, BEd Hons = bachelor of education hons, B. Tech = bachelor of technology, SE = school enrolment.

Inductive content analysis, which is the process of breaking down data into themes and patterns to find meaning from similarities and differences (McMillan and Schumacher 2010), was used to analyse the data. One researcher first transcribed the data verbatim from the audio tape. This was then followed by a process of creating codes manually, which were further organised into themes. In our organisation of themes, we first grouped together all those codes that related to the leadership enactment. We then grouped the themes reflecting complexities and the ways principals responded to these complexities.

To ensure trustworthiness in the article, we used interviews and corroborated these data with observations. This enabled us to look at what principals said against what they were observed doing daily in their schools. This also enhanced the quality of data and the quality and rigour of the research reported here. Ethical practices were observed in this research; first, we obtained ethical clearance from the University of KwaZulu-Natal; then we wrote to the Limpopo Department of Education to seek permission to conduct research in their schools. Lastly, informed consent was given by the principals who participated in the study. To further abide by ethical practice, the names of principals and their schools are not revealed in this article and we have used pseudonyms instead.

Findings

The findings of this study reveal that principals are pushed by the circumstances within the rural context to focus more on their administrative leadership responsibilities. Interestingly, the study also reveals that the principals try to share their responsibilities with teachers and others who are not part of the school administrative leadership. It also emerged that the principals applied boundary-spanning leadership by bringing in stakeholders beyond the school premises to take part in decision-making. The participating principals further ensured that instructional time was protected by making discipline one of their key focus areas. The above leadership practices were not enacted without challenges. A lack of human and other resources, diminishing parental support, poor security and a lack of support from the provincial department of education (PDE) were highlighted as some of the challenges. These key findings are discussed in-depth in the following sections.

Principals’ Daily Leadership Practices

In analysing our interactions with all five principals, it emerged that they had a strong focus on administrative leadership roles. When we asked them to share with us what constituted their daily leadership activities, especially within their context of rurality, Principal 1 stated:

Well, my first job is to manage the resources which are the teachers, the physical resources and the finances of the school. Therefore, I see to it that all the resources are in order. That the learners have teachers and a place to sit when they are taught.

In a similar vein, revealing his strong focus on administrative leadership, Participant 2 said:

I use the four basic operations of managerial admin in my leadership practices, they are ‘POLC’ which means that as a leader you must plan and after planning you must organise, you put things in place and then we come back and lead. As a leader and overseer, you must now show them where we are planting. When they join, and follow you, it is then that you monitor and control.

Providing details about what is involved in administrative leadership in the school, Participant 2 further explained that one of the tasks he performed and considered important was that of financial management. Because of this role, he conducted meetings with the finance committee and other committees involved. He also took care of financial records as well as organising other matters of the school relating to finance. This is what the Participant said:

One of my most important roles in the school is financial management. I therefore work with the SGB and the finance committee a lot to ensure that I direct the school finances to be used wisely for the benefit of the school. It is also my duty to keep financial records in order.

The voices of Participants 3 and 4 revealed that their daily leadership practices were similar to those of Participants 1 and 2. Participant 3 broadly defined her daily leadership activities as involving performance of management tasks My daily tasks include overall management. Which means I must see to it that the school runs smoothly. I do so through monitoring teachers and learners, checking that teaching and learning takes place. When analysed closely, Participant 4’s voice suggested that his leadership involves being an overseer of every aspect of planning to see to it that everything is done appropriately. Further, it comes out that he was more consultative in his approach to management. This is what the Participant said:

I do a lot of planning in a day. Setting school targets, term plans, meeting with HOD’s and then taking plans to teachers. Everything that is planned in the school must involve me. I also meet with parents and other stakeholders of the school, I attend SGB meetings and I control the happenings of the school.

The complexity leadership theory from which we draw the framework for this article identifies administrative leadership as one of its focus areas (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). Although all five principals invest more time in administrative roles, there seems to be some differences among them. For example, Participant 1 and Participant 2 mention the role of financial management. While this is an administrative role, according to the South African Schools Act, the SGB is responsible for financial management. Therefore, it remains a question as to why these principals spend part of their time in this role.

The Complexity of Bringing Parents on Board

Across all sites, it was clear that principals valued parents’ contribution/inputs but were not satisfied with the level of parental involvement in their schools. As established from the principals, parents did not participate adequately, particularly when it came to learner discipline issues in the school. One principal pointed out that some of the challenges could be made easier with the help of parents. She stated that parents with learners in the school should also help us realise the vision of the school. Learners are writing exams while there’s music coming from the tavern. It’s unacceptable. So, they need to get involved and help us by complaining and making sure things change. (Participant 5). Earlier in our conversation, she had mentioned that there is a tavern about 500 m away from the school.

Realistically speaking the relationship between parents and the schools is far apart. If you call a parent to come here about the education of their children, according to them it is a waste of their time. When you call meetings also they find it to be fruitless. (Participant 1)

Some of the parents in the school work far and the homes are child-headed. Therefore, we don’t have support when we encounter problems with their children. (Participant 4)

In response to the lack of adequate parental involvement, principals found different ways of actively trying to involve parents, and this included calling them individually, conducting grade separation and demonstrating positive engagement outside the school.

Sometimes if you divide them into grades to come get reports at the end of the term, some show up. Or if there is a problem with a child and you call the parents they do come but generally they don’t. (Participant 3)

There are things that are minor but can motivate them to get involved. I attend their functions here even though I’m not a member of the village. If they invite me to the local authority meeting or an event and I am available, I go. That way they see me as one of them and when I call they will say here is that our person, let’s go and support him. (Participant 1)

If there’s a serious issue that we cannot solve without the involvement of the parent we send the child home to call them. This usually works. (Participant 5)

The observations conducted revealed that both Participant 2 and Participant 5 resorted to sending children home during school hours to call their parents, which we argue in this article is against the law and challenges the principals’ understanding the roles of 21st-century schools. Principals are challenged to create school spaces that promote social justice and human rights when dealing with the teachers and the learners (Ekundayo, 2012; Kemp-Graham, 2015; Gaetane, Normore and Brooks 2009). Principals seem to dismiss learners in order to force parents to come to school, which does seem to be in line with social justice and human rights. We have highlighted in the profiles that Participant 5 only had 2 years of experience and this could arguably be the reason for ignoring the law. Clearly, sending learners out of school for disciplinary measures contravenes their constitutional right to education. Similar to Participant 5, Participant 2 who had 12 years of experience as a principal also used this approach of sending learners back home for disciplinary cases. Contrary to Participant 2 and Participant 5, Participant 1 seems to understand that for parents to be involved, there was a need for the principal to be part of the community and this can be seen in the observations above.

The above extracts indicate that principals see value in the role parents play in the school. As such, measures are taken to actively include them. Plowman et al. (2007) and Boal and Schultz (2007) assert that complexity leadership theory supports the view that organisations such as schools are pieces of a whole put together to work collaboratively for the advancement of the organisation. As such, the successes of the school cannot be the sole responsibility of the principal but rather the product of different stakeholders working together in their various capacities that lead to success. Similarly, Leithwood, Harris and Hopkins (2008) argue that an important role of an effective principal is fostering relations with stakeholders of the schools and motivating and encouraging them to work together for the betterment of the school. A principal who takes time to attend community gatherings shows an understanding of how fostering relations with stakeholders can motivate them to get involved in the management of the school, and this can be observed in the case of Participant 1.

However, the fact that three principals having no problem in removing learners from class to call their parents can be a cause for controversy as it contradicts some of the expected roles of the 21st-century principal. It is the principal’s duty to be an advocate for and protector of instructional time, upholding learners’ rights to education and ensuring that teachers are in class, teaching and learners are present, learning (Hallinger and Murphy 1986; Leithwood and Jantzi 2000; Wallace Foundation 2013). However, it is also the role of the principal to create an environment that is conducive for teaching and learning (Hallinger and Murphy, 1986; Leithwood and Jantzi 2000; Mendels 2012; Wallace Foundation 2013). Learners’ misbehaviour may be a challenge in protecting instructional time and other children’s right to education. Therefore, for example, if learners are putting other learners or themselves in danger, or if they cannot be reprimanded for disruptive behaviour and other serious matters in class, principals may decide to remove students from class to protect their future, to secure instructional time and to create a conducive environment for others to learn. The above must be done in line with basic human right to education.

The Complexity of Learner Discipline

Discipline was a major obstacle in all five schools and subsequently, a challenge for principals’ leadership. The principals attributed the lack of discipline to a variety of factors such as what has been established above as poor parental involvement, a lack of teachers and overcrowding in classrooms as well as substance abuse by learners, which is a problem in four of the five schools.

As I have told you earlier, some of the posts go unfilled for a very long time. Therefore, there are classes where we have forty learners. They end up taking advantage and giving teachers a hard time. So, I must be there to help teachers deal with them because some of the new teachers are not that much older than some of the boys in the school. (Participant 3)

We have a drug issue here in the school and it is a problem for me because when they are done smoking, they go back to classes and cause problems for us. (Participant 5).

The big boys that don’t want school anymore sit at the toilets smoking and then they become aggressive. You just never know what they may do, even the teachers are afraid of them. (Participant 4)

Another one of our challenges is drug abuse here in the school. The dilapidated mobile classrooms I told you about have become a harbouring ground for these learners who are using drugs in the school. (Participant 1)

During the observations, all principals were observed to be dealing with discipline issues, four out of five participants were observed doing so at least 3 out of the 5 days we spent with them. When asked how they dealt with the drug issue in their schools as part of discipline management, principals held a unanimous view that it was the duty of the South African Police Services (SAPS) as well as South African National Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (SANCA). Their role, they understood, was to get these organisations involved in the school.

We have a group of teachers who identify these learners, bring them to me and with the permission of the parents we refer them to SANCA for professional help. (Participant 1)

We have asked the SAPS to set up a satellite station here at the school, but they won’t. Or at least to come in once in a while and search the learners, that way they will be scared to bring drugs into the school. But until that happens, I am the one who has to deal with them. (Participant 5)

According to SASA this is not an issue to be dealt with domestically. Therefore, I must make sure that I open police cases and call their parents to school to deal with this. (Participant 4)

The above data further indicate that principals understand their role as creators of a conducive environment for teaching and learning to occur. One principal mentioned that learners who are high on drugs interfere with teaching and learning while another mentioned that some of the older boys are closer in age to some of the new teachers; hence, teachers are also afraid of them. With respect to the issue of drugs, principals have realised that the school is a complex adaptive system, dependent on each unit of the system in order for the school to function properly. Therefore, they call upon different structures trained to deal with drug and substance abuse. One principal also took the initiative of putting a group of teachers together to identify students taking drugs and then seeking help for them.

However, when it comes to how they deal with less serious behavioural problems, principals often took extreme measures that interfered with teaching and learning and failed to protect the learner’s instructional time. For instance, Participant 4 was observed taking learners from class for long periods of time as he reprimanded them. In one particular incident, he was observed speaking to a group of five boys about a fight that had occurred at the end of the previous day. While only two boys were involved in the fight, their witnesses were kept in his office testifying. The meeting took around 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Observations with Participant 1 also revealed a similar practice of reprimanding learners. When a teacher brought three learners to the principal for unrelated discipline problems, he took time talking to them one at a time and the meeting took over 30 min. In that time, none of the learners was released to go to class even after he had finished talking to them. Participant 5 also shared in the interview that she had a learner who wore boots instead of school shoes. She explained that she forbade him from attending lessons for over 2 weeks until he finally agreed to come to the school with his mother.

Prytula et al. (2013) maintain that an important role of the 21st-century principal is to protect instructional time. While it was important to reprimand the learners for bad behaviour, doing so over an extended period of time is unnecessary and undermines the importance of being in class at all times. Similarly, preventing a learner from attending classes for weeks because he is not wearing proper shoes reveals that the principal does not see it as important to protect instructional time when it comes to individual learners. Therefore, it is clear that principals lack a full awareness of their role as those who safeguard instructional time.

The Complexity of Crime and a Lack of Security

The five schools are situated on the outskirts of villages outside of Polokwane. Four of them are about a kilometre away from the nearest houses as they stand between two villages. The rationale behind having schools outside the villages is to allow one school to serve neighbouring villages. Indeed, principals explained that their learners came from three to four neighbouring villages. As such, all schools continue to fall victim to crime. The limited security resulting from a lack of funds in the schools also makes it easy for burglary and theft to take place. In an environment already dealing with a scarcity of resources, the biggest challenge posed by the break-ins is attaining and retaining the much-needed technology that schools need to thrive in the 21st century. Principals explained that they sometimes acquired technological devices from donors as well as the department but retaining them was a challenge.

There are gangsters around the school so when we get things they get stolen. We can have computers and overhead projectors, but they get stolen. Our school is in the outskirt of the village, so it is hard. (Participant 1)

Our challenge is burglary and theft. You may find that we have one computer, boys come and steal it to use it to play music instead of using that one computer to produce doctors and engineers and that takes us back. (Participant 2)

One of the other challenges that come with being a rural school is the limited security. As you can see I am sitting in an office without a computer. We had one here and thieves came in through the roof and stole it. (Participant 5)

Principals used two methods to deal with this problem. They contacted the police to open a case and later notified the Department of Basic Education (DBE). Participant 4 was observed making a call to the police to ask for a case number on a theft case, which he explained he needed to report to the department. Other participants also revealed similar ways of dealing with the crime affecting their schools.

When you come in in the morning to realise that the computer was stolen, you call the police. There’s nothing else we can do because we are not here when they come. (Participant 4)

By law we are supposed to call the police when such things happen, so we do. But so far there has never been an arrest. I have spoken to the circuit manager about this issue on several occasions, that people please help us. We are in the middle of nowhere here and we are struggling. But they never do anything. The department has no security in mind when they are thinking about schools. (Participant 1)

The proactivity by principals to report cases, conduct follow-ups and report to the department shows an understanding of the law and its processes. CLT suggests this further signifies their understanding that the school does not exist in isolation, and that there are other role players inside and outside the school who, through collective efforts, might find solutions to lead to better outcomes.

The Challenge of Insufficient Teachers

Another major challenge that the principals face is filling vacant positions. According to the DBE (2014), one of the reasons why schools in rural contexts lack teachers is the fact that many teachers find the conditions of rurality unattractive. As such, positions are left unfilled for long periods of time. However, principals revealed that the issue was more than the unattractiveness of rural areas for teachers. The process of getting a teacher appointed was often lengthy and temporary teachers went unpaid for months. The principals explained that this was a problem for them as it leads to overcrowding learners in one class, which results in discipline issues.

Post provisioning is a huge issue in Limpopo. Right now those forms I was filling regard our temporary teachers. They started working here in April (4 months prior to our interview) and they have not been paid a cent. They tell us to never ever engage a teacher without their approval. (Participant 5)

Right now, we have three vacant posts. If you want to ask for a temporary educator, they will say it must be approved by treasury. But while we wait for approval learners are without a teacher. (Participant 3)

Participant 1 also revealed during the observation that he was doing the job of two people as he was meant to have two deputies, but one deputy position had not been filled in months. When asked how they were dealing with the issue of insufficient teachers, principals did not feel like they were coping. They explained that their own workload as well as that of their subordinates had increased, leading to chaos and overcrowding in the classrooms.

I can’t really say we are coping with this issue, because we cannot hire teachers ourselves. So, learners are left without teachers. Your conscience will eat you knowing that parents went to work leaving you with their children and you’ve left them to play without a teacher. (Participant 5)

You know even if you ask other teachers to take more lessons it becomes impossible because our class sizes are already large. So, I teach more classes than I should, teachers teach more lessons, but we are not coping. It is impossible to cope when you are three teachers short. (Participant 3)

Principals dealt with this issue by notifying the DBE as well as by instituting various methods of dealing with discipline to ensure that teachers focused on teaching. The lack of support from the DBE in addressing the obstacle posed by a lack of teachers challenges principals in their efforts to ensure that agents work together (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007) to achieve school goals.

Inadequate Support from the Department of Basic Education

In all the previously mentioned challenges, principals revealed that while the schools would not function without the DBE, the support they received was often not sufficient to deal with their challenges. In addition to the challenges mentioned above, principals also cited lack of physical resources as a challenge their schools face. Some of the schools have no libraries while others have libraries with outdated and irrelevant materials. Participant 1 explained that there are dilapidated mobile classrooms that are not suitable for teaching and learning and instead are used for criminal activities. However, the DBE has failed to get rid of these forms of classrooms. Other participants shared this sentiment.

Our circuit manager tries to help us. He will fail where he does but he tries. The issue of teachers is not up to him. But we submit to him and he must take it up so it doesn’t always work. (Participant 3)

Generally speaking the department doesn’t support schools. They only show up when there is a serious problem, otherwise they are far from us. (Participant 1)

There are internal and external issues we experience that affect the internal health of the school. Unfortunately, the department doesn’t always help us. When they do, in most cases they come much later than they should. (Participant 5)

When principals were probed on how they deal with this problem, they mostly felt that their duty was to keep pressing the department. One principal has lost faith in the department and feels it is better to collaborate with the community rather than rely on the former.

We normally write letters to them or if it is an urgent matter we call them. The circuit manager is aware of all our problems. They just say we got your letter and we will respond but they never do. (Participant 5)

We make sure that nothing happens in the school that they do not know about because I represent the HOD in this position. So we complain to them, when we open police cases we give them the case number. (Participant 4)

We always inform them. I have told them that my classes are crowded we need teachers, we need libraries shelves, we need desks. All these complains they know about. (Participant 2)

I don’t see them being very effective even in other schools I’ve worked in. So, you as a leader might find ways to be involved with the community. To win community and rather work with them to solve the problem we have. (Participant 1)

While CLT suggests it is ideal to collaborate with the community as it fosters the idea of working together for a shared goal, for the schools in the study, the results in terms of dealing with some of the problems may be fruitless. As established, the communities are in rural areas where unemployment and poverty are thriving. Therefore, community involvement is unlikely to result in new burglar-proof doors or technological devices or even new library. Therefore, the principals choosing to continue complaining and reminding the department of their grievances reveals the vulnerability of these communities and their schools rather than just telling us about the principals’ roles.

Discussion of Findings

Influenced by the emerging issues discussed in the findings above, the discussion below is presented under two focus areas of this article. First, we look at the nature of leadership of the five principals and, under this, we highlight that while their leadership is more administrative, it also treats schools as open systems, which allows for principals to tap into assets from beyond the school premises. We further highlight that in leading in the context of rurality, principals encounter social and institutional complexities.

Treating Schools as Systems

Although principals predominantly described their leadership in a manner that we argue is more administrative, their actions in addressing some school challenges demonstrate that they considered rural schools as systems. A system can be understood as a collection of interconnected elements or activities or entities of a single whole that is able to adapt and survive in a changing environment (Mchunu 2015). For a system to survive, there is a need to consider the individual entities as major role players in the survival of the whole. In the same vein, the principals in this study understood that schools operate in spaces where there are multiple players whose contributions, or lack, therefore, had a pertinent role in addressing rural school issues. Principals emphasised working with government departments such as SAPS and other organisations such as SANCA. Although their involvement was not satisfactory, parents were also considered to be important contributors in ensuring the survival and adaptation of schools as systems. Soliciting support from the separate entities of the entire system may be seen as an understanding that leadership is an emergent event and an outcome of relational interactions among agents, it is more than a skill, an exchange, or a symbol—leadership emerges through dynamic interactions (Eppel 2009; Lichtenstein et al. 2006). In order to survive, principals in schools in the context of rurality are encouraged to form relationships so that they can tap into resources beyond their premises (Chikoko and Khanare 2012; Renihan, Patrick, and Noonan 2012). For this to happen, there is need to recognise that rural schools exist not in isolation but in communities with a set of resources that can be used to improve education (Education Policy Consortium 2005). The interconnectedness of, or interactions between, single entities of the system is crucial in pushing the organisations towards achieving, or not achieving, their goals (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). In this case, there is a complex lack of support from the DBE, which forms a crucial entity in a school as a system. This lack of support from this entity is described by principals as one obstacle that makes functioning in the context of rurality difficult.

While there is lack of support from the DBE, principals claimed that they solicited support from committees such as SGBs, finance committees and teachers. This is also in line with an understanding of schools as complex adaptive systems with interacting agents (Eppel 2009; Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). Within the concept of enabling leadership, there is an argument for setting conditions for different agents to work together and principals’ interactions with other stakeholders may be interpreted in line with this. These kinds of interactions may find their relevance in balancing administrative leadership, which, we argued above, may be rejected by teachers as it is not in line with the democratic principles of leading and managing schools.

Social and Institutional Complexities

Principals’ leadership as described above is challenged by both social and institutional complexities. Learner discipline, burglary and theft are some of the complexities that principals in the study encounter as social complexities affecting the school. The findings of this study correspond with those of other studies. For example, it has been recorded elsewhere (du Plessis 2017) that working conditions in South African rural schools affect teachers in such a way that some end up leaving those schools to find jobs in urban areas. When this happens, principals have to dig deeper to find solutions. As found in this study, instead of focusing on teaching and learning, principals end up focusing more on measures to instil discipline such as spending time with learners and parents discussing discipline matters. What we see as a ‘double dilemma’ for rural principals in this study is the issue of theft of resources as revealed in the findings. This is a double dilemma in that one of the challenges encountered in rural schools is the scarcity of educational infrastructure and resources (Balfour et al. 2009; Ebersöhn and Ferreira 2012; Hlalele 2012; Moletsane 2012). Coupled with this dilemma is the theft of already limited resources. The management of teaching and learning, as outlined by principals in their responses, is affected by this reality. Within complexity leadership theory, Uhl-Bien et al. (2007) talk about adaptive and enabling leadership. In the presence of these complexities, principals tried to adapt by working with the limited resources they have.

For schools to adapt, the support from different units of the system is important. Enabling leadership suggests one important aspect is cooperation between different levels of the school system. Contrary to this, the study shows the lack of support from the DBE, which is an institutional complexity. Elsewhere, this lack of support may be attributed to the physical distance between rural schools and the department offices that service them. For example, in their study, Renihan, Patrick, and Noonan (2012) argue that principals in the Western Canada struggled to build relationships with officials due to the geographical location of their schools, which were far from officials. In terms of a lack of teachers, this may be seen as an institutional complexity, in that currently, teacher allocation is based on the number of learners enrolled in the school. Rural schools suffer from a limited number of teachers due to low learner enrolment, and where vacancies exist, the findings show that the PDE takes time to appoint or allocate teachers to schools. Enabling leadership is critical in adapting and this is enhanced by different structures’ roles in embracing their interdependence (Uhl-Bien et al. 2007). The department’s lack of support in this study is seen as the ‘missing link’ in ensuring that school leaders are able to play their administrative roles in order to adapt to the complexities discussed above.

Conclusion

The aim of this article was two-fold. First, it examined principals’ leadership in the context of rurality and second, it also examined the complexities that principals encounter in leading schools in the context of rurality. In relation to these aims, it was found that principals’ leadership is dominantly administrative. Furthermore, we found that principals encounter multiple complexities, which are largely the product of their context. Based on these findings, we make main conclusions in relation to principals’ leadership and the complexities they encounter in the context of rurality.

First, the context of rurality pushes principals to exercise administrative leadership beyond their roles. At least three principals in the study claimed that they were engaged fully in financial management. We have argued earlier that this role is assigned to the SGBs by the South African Schools Act and principals are only there to assist. However, due to the complexity of the lack of parents’ involvement and the lack of skills among parents in rural areas, principals find themselves having to lead and manage beyond their call of duty.

Connected to the parents’ commitment as highlighted above, we conclude that more often, rural principals’ enactment of leadership can be characterised as leadership that shuns policies to address contextual complexities and in order to achieve efficiency. For example, the majority of principals disturb learners’ instructional time in order to deal with disciplinary issues. To bring parents to schools, they send learners home to call parents during teaching and learning and they hold learners in their offices for too long while teaching and learning is taking place. This contravenes the right of learners to education, but to force parents to come to school and limit discipline problems, principals exercise it. This is against the social justice agenda that principals of recent times are called upon to promote in their schools and we argue that this has some implications.

In relation to the above conclusions, there is evidence that principalship in the context of rurality is a daunting task that requires grounded knowledge of leadership. From this, we recommend the consideration of an official training and qualification for principalship in South Africa and such training needs to consider different contexts in which leadership is exercised. Furthermore, rural principals encounter multiple complexities, which, if looked at closer, are a reflection of communities where learners come from. For example, the issue of drugs is a societal issue. There is therefore a need to strengthen the bonds between schools and other government institutions to lessen the burden that principals carry while dealing with issues that emerge from communities and extend to schools.

While the findings of this study are important, the study is limited to a few principals in the Limpopo province. We therefore argue for larger scale research, which will unearth the realities of leading schools in the context of rurality. Although we have attempted to unpack issues of rurality in this article, some issues may be relevant in other contexts, which suggest more studies focused on this context, in order to establish the uniqueness of the challenges encountered in rural schools and how to better address them.