Challenges of school resources management for curriculum delivery in South African Rural High Schools: Principals' perceptions on the way forward

Abstract

Various existing studies have established the multi-faceted nature of social inequalities in South Africa. The social inequalities also segregate schools into urban and rural schools, with adequate or lack of infrastructure influencing learners' performances in various South African schools. Hence, school principals are expected to manage the available resources to attain curriculum delivery and the whole school's performance. This qualitative study explored principals' perspectives on managing uneven school resources to achieve the goals and objectives of the education system. This study adopted an interpretive paradigm to understand the voices of 20 rural school principals in semi-structured interviews. The principals were purposively selected from 20 rural schools in King Cetshwayo district in KwaZulu-Natal. The audio-recorded interviews were thematically analysed to generate themes for findings and discussion. Findings revealed that most rural schools need more adequate school resources, and the principals need more support to attain quality curriculum delivery in schools adequately. The principals also lamented the high expectations placed on their schools for the academic excellence of their learners. Thus, the contents of each subject curriculum could not be efficiently unpacked and delivered to learners. The study, therefore, recommends improvement in resource provision to rural schools. At the same time, principals should be capacitated on effectively managing available school resources to achieve desired and efficient curriculum implementation in rural schools.