School leadership in action: The dynamics of managing preservice teachers’ work-integrated learning in South African secondary schools
Motsekiso Calvin Letuma & Moeketsi Elias Dlamini
Abstract
The Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications policy in South Africa prescribes Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) as a means of preparing preservice teachers for authentic school environments. During WIL, School Management Teams (SMTs) are expected to provide guidance, mentorship, and leadership support to students. However, little is known about how SMTs manage preservice teachers in practice and what challenges they face in fulfilling this responsibility. The study explored how SMTs manage preservice teachers during WIL and the challenges they encounter. Grounded in Transformational Leadership Theory and framed within an interpretive paradigm, the study adopted a qualitative descriptive phenomenological design. Purposive sampling was employed to select nine participants: two mentor teachers and two departmental heads, who participated in semi-structured interviews, and five preservice teachers, who took part in a focus group discussion. Data was analysed thematically. Findings revealed that SMTs demonstrated key transformational leadership behaviours by providing orientation, assigning mentors, and ensuring access to resources. Nonetheless, structural and organisational barriers, including limited resources, time constraints, and weak collaboration, restricted their ability to fully enact their leadership roles. These limitations signify the need for enhanced partnerships between schools and higher education institutions, effective resource allocation, and structured mentorship training. Although limited to one school, the study findings are significant by shifting attention to the leadership role of SMTs in WIL, a dimension often overlooked in teacher education research. The findings provide valuable insights that can inform policy, strengthen school-university partnerships, and support the professional growth of preservice teachers.
Keywords
school leadership, preservice teachers, teacher education institution, school management team, work-integrated learning
Author information & Contribution
Motsekiso Calvin Letuma. Corresponding author. PhD. Lecturer, Department of Education Management, Policy and Comparative Education, University of Free State, Bloemfontein campus, South Africa. Email: LetumaMC@ufs.ac.za
Moeketsi Elias Dlamini. PhD. Lecturer, Department of Curriculum Studies and Higher Education, University of Free State, Qwaqwa campus, South Africa. Email: DlaminiME@ufs.ac.za
"Author one wrote the entire paper while author two collected the data and proofread the paper."
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was not supported by any funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement
This study was granted ethical clearance by the University of the Free State Ethics Committee (UFS-HSD2018/1107).
AI Declaration
The authors declare that Gen AI was used in the creation of this manuscript. Whilst preparing this work, the author(s) used ChatGPT-4o vision and Grammarly to support text structuring, grammatical corrections, style, and language cohesion. QuillBot was also used for paraphrasing.
Notes
Acknowledgement
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Cite this article:
Letuma, M.C. & Dlamini, E.M. (2025). School leadership in action: The dynamics of managing preservice teachers’ work-integrated learning in South African secondary schools. International Journal of Educational Management and Development Studies, 6(4), 88-110. https://doi.org/10.53378/ijemds.353284
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