School Leadership and Management: Identifying Linkages with Learning and Structural Inequalities

Abstract

This chapter summarises three phases of research developments in South Africa that have successively brought more reliable quantitative evidence to bear on what we know about the linkages between school leadership and management (SLM) and learning outcomes. A common thread emerging through these studies is the educational value of managing time-on-task and curriculum coverage although more recent evidence suggests that the efficacy of these management practices in raising learning may be mediated through teacher capacity. These linkages are also only informed through mere associations rather than causal evidence. Notwithstanding the lack of rigorous casual evidence in South Africa on how to raise the quality of management in schools, analyses of distributional patterns and trends in school management team (SMT) post-provisioning reflect key areas that could be targeted to at least improve the quantity of SLM in schools and reduce related inequalities. While international evidence on the educational value of leaders and managers supports calls for the capacity development of SMTs, ensuring SMT members are allocated to schools and selecting the best people for these jobs at the outset are the first steps to improve and level differences in the school leadership and management landscape.