National Qualification for Transformative School Leadership and Management

Source : SAIDE

In 2017, Saide was awarded the tender by the South African Department of Basic Education (DBE) to develop the practice-based, learning programme course materials for the Advanced Diploma in School Leadership and Management.

Saide’s Maryla Bialobrzeska reports on the overall approach that informed the design and the development of the programme course materials and provides a brief overview of the planned implementation process.

The Advanced Diploma in School Leadership and Management (represents a new and exciting national initiative in the professional development of practising and aspirant school principals.

Saide finalised the course materials in early 2019 and submitted them to the Department of Basic Education (DBE) for final review and quality assurance. An external review task team lead by Professor Herman J van Vuuren, Deputy Dean of Education, North West University, was commissioned by the DBE to review the materials.

The review findings were presented in August 2019 highlighting that the end product is evidence of a tailor-made South African school leadership and management programme developed by knowledgeable, experienced and informed education experts (practitioners and theorists). “Made by us, for us!”

The overall aim of the qualification is to empower School Management Teams (SMTs) to develop skills, knowledge and values needed to lead and manage schools, as complex learning organisations, effectively and to contribute to improving the implementation of quality learning and teaching in schools.

The key focus of the programme is to facilitate real transformation in the quality of education in South African mainstream or public ordinary schools, positive transformation that is grounded in the recognition of the challenges of particular contexts and in the values underpinning the South African Constitution.

It is intended that the programme students will develop a deep and systemic understanding of current thinking, practice, theory and methodology in the area of school leadership and management.

The seven modules that comprise this qualification focus on relevant areas of educational leadership and management specialisation and not on general educational subjects or fundamentals, as had been the case with, the now discontinued ACE (SL) qualification.