Leadership has received much attention in both the business world and education. My thesis explores effective educational leadership through examining the management and leadership challenges that face principals in a multi-grade school. Schools in sparsely populated rural areas in Namibia have had to resort to multi-grade teaching to be able to be economically viable. Hard economic realities force people to move to bigger towns and cities. The constant demand for better schools, effective principals, qualified teachers and an improved service to the communities coupled with the demand for better working conditions and salaries for teachers drained the education budget even further. To keep in line with the four major policies of education namely equity, access, quality and democracy, the operation of smaller, rural multi-grade schools has become a necessity. The alternative – which is to close smaller schools and operate fewer, bigger schools at an affordable and reasonable cost - would deny rural communities access to schooling. This thesis is a case study of the leadership and management challenges of multigrade schooling in a single school. The goal was to understand how education managers and leaders perceived their role in making it possible for teachers and learners to cope with multi-grade teaching. I worked in the interpretive paradigm to be able to interpret the social and cultural context of a rural, multi-grade school in the Karas region. The methods included questionnaires, interviews and observation. One of the leadership models universally considered to be available to principals of multi-grade schools is instructional leadership. My study revealed that the concept was unknown to teaching staff, although there were indications that the model had been encountered. My findings also revealed that the communication between colleges of education and the regional education department staff was very limited. One of the major issues that arose was that principals were so occupied with teaching that important issues about training/evaluation and supervision of teachers, the ‘visibility’ of the principal, setting and implementation of the aims and goals of the school and regular communication with parents and community leaders were neglected. Probably the most significant finding was that head teachers are not trained in the management of a multi-grade school, hence most if not all of the head teachers run multi-grade schools like a single-graded school. The single most important problem was that the importance of multi-grade teaching had never been highlighted, particularly in light of new staffing norms, in spite of the fact that it was a phenomenon that was likely to be a permanent arrangement.

The Namibian education system has undergone a policy shift from a top-down leadership practice or head-centred leadership to a more shared form of leadership in schools. Existing policy documents call for teacher participation in school level decision-making structures and processes as teachers often are involved in other activities and have been through life experiences which equip them with leadership skills. These policies clearly stipulate that school principals cannot lead and manage the schools alone, but should involve teachers and other stakeholders in leadership activities. This study explored teacher leadership in a rural primary school in the Otjozondjupa region of Namibia. The study explored the understanding of the concept teacher leadership, the practice of teacher leadership and the enhancing factors as well as barriers to teacher leadership practice. A qualitative interpretative case study was conducted. Interviews, document analysis, focus group interviews, a questionnaire and observation were employed to produce data with regard to teacher leadership practices in the case study school. The data were analysed thematically using Grant’s (2008) model of teacher leadership. Findings revealed that the concept of teacher leadership was understood as teachers leading both within and beyond the classroom. Teacher leadership was practiced across the fours zones of teacher leadership (after Grant, 2008), but to varying degrees. It could be categorized as emergent teacher leadership (after Muijs and Harris, 2005) within a formal distributed leadership framework (MacBeath, 2005). Teacher leadership in the case study school was enhanced by collaboration among staff and involvement of teachers in school level decision-making. However, barriers to teacher leadership at the case study school included holding on to power by the principal, teachers’ negative attitudes towards teacher leadership, a lack of incentives, a lack of time due to a heavy work load and a lack of professional development.

Text in English, Zulu and Afrikaans / The study investigated assistive technology for the deaf, specifically applied to the teaching and learning of mathematics at a rural Namibian special primary school. The problem was the lack of prior research about the effects of Constructivist assistive technology for guiding Namibian special schools and educators. The objective was to conduct an experiment with deaf learners and interviews with the teachers involved. The study was a mixed methods study, involving quantitative academic achievement data and qualitative interview data. The findings suggest that there was a statistically significant effect on the multiplication and division achievement of the learners, but not their addition and subtraction achievement. The emergent Constructivist-related categories were collaborating, cooperating, exploring, selfassessing, learning from errors, seeking knowledge independently, self-regulating, selfreflecting, metacognitive thinking and being self-aware. These scientific insights contribute to the field and stem from a useful method for reviewing and selecting an appropriate learning theory and assistive technology. / Isifundo socwaningo siphenya ngobuchwepheshe obuluncedo kulabo abayizimpumputhe, ikakhulukazi lolu cwaningo lumayelana nokufundisa kanye nokufundwa kwesifundo sezibalo esikoleni sabakhubazekile endaweni yasemakhaya ngaseNamibia. Inkinga lapha ukusweleka kocwaningo lwangaphambili olumayelana nemithintela yohlelo lobuchwepheshe oluncedayo losolwazi abangama-contructivists ngokuhola izikole zabakhubazekile zaseNamibia kanye nabafundisi. Inhloso kwaye kuwukwenza ucwaningo oluphathekayo kanye nabafundi abakhubazeke amehlo kanye nenhlolovo nothisha ababandakanyekayo, ngokusebenzisa ucwaningo oluxubile, oluxuba idatha mayelana nempumelelo kwezemfundo kanye nedatha yezamanani yenhlolovo. . Okutholwe wucwaningo kuchaza ukuthi kunomthelela obonakalayo wezamanani mayelana nempumelelo yekhono lokuphindaphinda kanye nokwehlukanisa, kodwa hayi impumelelo yabo ngokwekhono lokuhlanganisa kanye nokunciphisa. Izigaba ezihambisana nosolwazi abakhasayo zisebenza ngokuncedana, ngokusebenzisana, ngokuvumbulula, ngokuzihlola wena siqu sakho, ngokufunda ngokwenza amaphutha, ngokucinga ulwazi ngokuzimela, ngokuzenzela imigomo, ngokubheka impumelelo yakho, ngokucabangisisa ngokusebenzisa ulwazi kanye nokuzibhekisisa. Lolu lwazi lwezesayensi lunomthelela emkhakheni kanti lususelwa endleleni esebenzayo ngokubuyekeza kanye nokukhetha ithiyori yokufunda efanele kanye nohlelo oluncedayo lobuchwepheshe. / Die studie het ’n ondersoek na bystandstegnologie vir dowes, spesifiek ten opsigte van hoe dit in die onderrig en leer van wiskunde by ’n landelike spesiale laerskool in Namibië toegepas word, behels. Die navorsingsprobleem was die gebrek aan navorsing oor die effek van konstruktivistiese bystandstegnologie wat leiding aan Namibiese spesiale skole en opvoeders kan bied. Die navorsingsdoelwit was om ’n eksperiment met dowe leerders uit te voer en onderhoude met die betrokke onderwysers te voer as deel van ’n gemengdemetodestudie, wat die insameling van kwantitatiewe data oor akademiese prestasie en kwalitatiewe onderhouddata behels het. Die bevindings van die studie dui op ’n statisties beduidende effek op die leerders se prestasie met betrekking tot vermenigvuldiging en deling, maar nie hulle prestasie met betrekking tot optel en aftrek nie. Die voortkomende konstruktivisties-verwante kategorieë is meewerking, samewerking, verkenning, selfassessering, die vermoë om uit foute te leer, ’n onafhanklike soeke na kennis, selfregulering, selfbesinning, metakognitiewe denke en selfbewussyn. Hierdie wetenskaplike insigte lewer ’n bydrae tot die studieveld en spruit uit ’n nuttige metode vir die beoordeling en seleksie van geskikte leerteorieë en bystandstegnologie. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)