Public secondary schools: a case study of public secondary schools in Limpopo province

Abstract

Ethical leadership behaviour practices in schools foster a compassionate, respectful, transparent, and ethical learning environment that is favourable to educators, principals, learners, and other stakeholders in the school community. Promoting values, morality, and a feeling of responsibility in learners, educators, and the larger community is made easier by ethical leadership. The purpose of the research was to investigate ethical leadership behaviour practices in selected public secondary schools in Limpopo Province. In particular, the study probed the causes of unethical leadership behaviour practices in public secondary schools from the perspective of educators, deputies, and principals. The researcher went further to determine the strategies which could be employed to promote ethical behaviour practices in the school settings. The study also determined to what extent educators could be effective and efficient in the advancement of ethical behaviour practices in the school context. The study adopted a case study research design, using the interpretative paradigm, where qualitative research approach was applied. One-on-one semi-structured interviews were conducted to accumulate data from six educators, three deputies and three school principals of three public secondary schools in Waterberg District. The findings revealed that for the success of the school as an institution, educators and school principals should keep strong ethical standards as leaders, such as honesty, respect, accountability, and transparency. The participants identified numerous causes that influenced unethical behaviour practices of educators and principals. These included factors such as greed. The findings of the study showed that there was an urgent need to train educators and school principals about the value of ethics in the setting of school. In addition, the Department of Basic Education should organize workshops on ethics and ethical leadership. Based on the above findings, six recommendations were proposed to the Department of Basic Education in guaranteeing that all educators and principals are adequately prepared for promoting ethical behaviour in public secondary schools. The Department of Basic Education should provide ongoing professional development opportunities for educators and principals. These opportunities should improve their awareness of ethical leadership, ethics, and teaching strategies.