School leadership agility in South African schools : sustaining quality performance in times of crisis

Abstract

Decisiveness and effective school leadership can make decisions quickly with the information it has during normal and crisis times. Effective decision-making comes with time and experience. Crisis leadership is used by a leader or leadership team during an event that threatens a school as an organization. This may involve planning for a crisis, motivating employees during a crisis, managing public relations, as well as protecting an organization in the aftermath. Schools are part of a community-wide social infrastructure that provides education to learners. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic placed tremendous pressure on the leadership to maintain high teaching and learning levels and to uphold or improve learner performance. This study analysed the secondary school leadership's exercise of legal and policy power to understand how the act improves the quality of Ieamer performance in the Western Cape, Metro South Education District amidst the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic. A phenomenological research design was adopted to analyse the views emanating from the school leadership ecosystem with the prime objective of understanding how the instruments of school leadership, policy and legal power are used to manage the quality of teaching and learning during a crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic in secondary schools in South Africa. The use of online qualitative research data collection methods was underpinned by the qualitative research approach.