Instructional leadership challenges and strategic responses to declining secondary school performance: Perspectives from school management teams
Phumlani Samuel Mnikathi & Parvathy Naidoo
Abstract
This study explored the instructional leadership challenges and strategic responses of School Management Teams (SMTs) in three South African secondary schools in response to the decline in their National Senior Certificate (NSC) results. To this end, an interpretivist paradigm and a qualitative approach were adopted, and data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Purposive sampling was utilised, involving principals, deputy principals, and departmental heads from the three selected schools. Thematic analysis revealed that poor working relationships among stakeholders and the presence of some educators who deliberately engaged in practices detrimental to teaching and learning contributed to the decline in NSC results. The findings further showed that SMTs responded to the decline in NSC performance by conducting additional classes and collaborating with district officials. This study concludes that sustainable improvement in learner performance requires not only strategic interventions but, more importantly, professional working relationships that strengthen collaborative instructional leadership practices and enhance teacher commitment and accountability. Although this study was grounded in the South African context, it contributes to global understandings of the instructional leadership challenges and strategic responses of SMTs to declining school academic performance.
Keywords
academic performance, national senior certificate, school leadership, secondary schools
Author information & Contribution
Phumlani Samuel Mnikathi. Corresponding author. PhD in Education candidate. Assistant Lecturer, University of Johannesburg. Email: pmnikathi@uj.ac.za
Parvathy Naidoo. PhD in Education. Associate Professor, University of Johannesburg. Email: pnaidoo@uj.ac.za
"All authors equally contributed to the conception, design, preparation, data gathering and analysis, and writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript."
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was not supported by any funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement
This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines set by the University of Johannesburg. As part of a doctoral thesis, the conduct of this study was approved by the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Education ethics committee with an ethical clearance number SEM 1-2024-078, dated May 2024.
Data and Materials Availability
The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
AI Declaration
The authors declare the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in writing this paper. In particular, the authors used Grammarly to eliminate grammatical and punctuation errors. Furthermore, the authors used Copilot in searching for literature. The authors take full responsibility in ensuring proper review and editing of contents generated using AI.
Notes
Acknowledgement
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Cite this article:
Mnikathi, P.S. & Naidoo, P. (2026). Instructional leadership challenges and strategic responses to declining secondary school performance: Perspectives from school management teams. International Journal of Educational Management and Development Studies, 7(2), 77-98. https://doi.org/10.53378/ijemds.353364
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