SCHOOL LEADERSHIP IN NEUROTIC CONTEXTS: SURVIVING OR DROWNING?

SCHOOL LEADERSHIP IN NEUROTIC CONTEXTS: SURVIVING OR DROWNING?

PAUL MUPA

This paper seeks to bring forth into the contemporary education landscape the issue of institutional
neurosis based on schools in the Zimbabwean context. There are a lot of disorders and disengaged
gears in schools that have crippled the provision of quality education to learners who are in dire
need of it. Broken educational bridges are a common feature and this is failing to take education
to greater heights. The study was undergirded by the interpretivist philosophy. Qualitative research
methodology was thus employed. Purposive sampling was used to select participants who were
school leaders and school teachers because they were the information-rich cases for study. Semi-
structured interviews and focus group discussions were employed to generate data. The major
findings were that there is serious lack of communication in schools. Leadership is not instructional
at all and such lack of direction results in neurotic conditions in the schools. Teachers lack deep
cutting approaches to teaching and employ information processing approaches which scratch the
surface. There is high level of burnout by teachers due to eroded salaries and poor working
conditions, the situation which culminates into neurotic conditions. The study thus recommends a
series of capacity building workshops on issues to deal with instructional leadership, morale for
teachers and school leadership, technology use, ethics and professionalism, leadership
development, among others. These will go a long way towards dissolving neurotic circumstances
that have found a home in most schools

African Perspectives of Research in Teaching & Learning (APORTAL) V

2022