School Leadership under COVID-19 Pandemic: A Critique of the South African School Context

The advent of COVID-19 exposed the lack of readiness for school leaders to cope with demands of leading during a pandemic. Globally, school leaders were not trained to deal with a crisis of COVID-19 proportions. Leaders in the twenty-first century need to have the required skills like the twenty-first century leadership skills and Fourth Industrial Revolution skills. This study investigated how school leaders are handling the challenges of school leadership under the COVID-19 pandemic in the 4IR era. This study adopted a qualitative research approach. An analysis of local and international literature was done to identify gaps. The study revealed that school leaders and teachers have inadequate information and communication technology skills. Leadership preparation programmes are lagging behind in preparing school leaders to lead in a crisis. Furthermore, the study revealed that school leaders and teachers do not establish communities of learning to learn leadership skills from each other. The study has concluded that there is no alignment between the level of readiness for school leaders and leadership skills of the twenty-first century.