**6.3 Impact of COVID-19 on the schools' fundraising efforts**

To keep the spaces safe from infections, schools had to be fumigated every day when the learners left the premises [2]. Subsequently, renting out of school spaces to the public to use for various functions could no longer happen as explained in KZN Circular 41 of 2020. This resulted in the loss of revenue that schools generated from these fundraising efforts. Mostly, the under-resourced schools were negatively affected by this arrangement. *Othandweni* Primary Principal lamented that this 'had a huge negative impact; the school has a tuck shop which it uses for income. A lot of fundraising activities were compromised'. *Thethani* Combined Principal regretted that the new arrangement affected the school 'negatively because the school hall was used as a wedding venue previously'. *Umthetho* Primary Principal complained that the new arrangement 'has affected us negatively since there was a church that was using a classroom on Sundays. They have now stopped paying rent'. *Inhlanhla* Primary Principal bemoaned the fact that the 'income received from rental of classrooms is now nil'. Lethiwe Principal even stipulated the amount lost when she said that there has been 'no income for rental from March – loss of R12000'.

### **6.4 Challenges of curriculum delivery and management during the pandemic**

The presented data show how difficult it was for principals to cope in managing the delivery of the school curriculum during the COVID-19 pandemic. Teaching and learning were disrupted due to COVID-19 infections. **Table 1** depicts the combined statistics of cases of infection to both teachers and learners, with the quarantine of teachers and the closing of schools from June when the schools reopened to October when this study was conducted. This depiction is necessary as it reveals the amount of teaching and learning time lost to the pandemic within a short time.

**Table 1** highlights that whilst the principals adhered to policy guidelines of screening people, sending them to quarantine and closing schools for decontamination, they were being robbed of important assets for curriculum delivery: time and personnel in the form of teachers, learners and days lost [2, 17]. In total, 17 teachers from 12 schools went into isolation and/or quarantine for a period of about 10 days. This was not the only dilemma that principals faced as there were other cases of absenteeism, like family responsibility leave, that added to the challenges. The most serious challenge came from the absence of teachers who had to be away from school as per the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) Agreement 1 of 2020. Under this agreement, the concession was made for teachers with high-risk comorbidities and those who are over 60 years of age to work from home while the country was on Alert Levels 3 and 2 of the state of disaster [18].

The principals complained that the teachers who remained at home on concession were not substituted. *Thandokuhle* Primary Principal moaned that 'for three months, since June, the teacher who applied for comorbidity has been absent and her


**Table 1.** *COVID-19 cases and teaching time lost.* *Principalship Educational Policy Challenges in the Management of a Turbulent School… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108504*


#### **Table 2.**

*Levels of confidence in curriculum recovery programmes.*

subjects have not been taught due to shortage of staff'. Othandweni Primary principal stressed that the 'absence of educators has a huge negative impact on subjects being taught as learners lost learning time'. Zwelonke Primary Principal revealed that 'teachers who attend school regularly are being burdened with relief [duties]' which makes 'frustration levels high amongst staff due to continuous changing of subjects to teach'. To recover the lost time some schools, like Lethiwe, arranged Saturday and morning classes with teachers for higher grades. Others like Bongisizwe, arranged for afternoon classes. For Esethu Primary, the impact left by the absence of teachers was 'addressed by requesting teachers to draft a catch-up plan upon return to school'. Goodness Primary applied a similar strategy.

**Table 2** shows the varying levels of confidence amongst the schools in the completion of assigned tasks, and their comparison with the implementation of curriculum recovery programmes and completion of assessment tasks. The findings show the negative impact of the turbulent schooling year that principals had to contend with. The Policy Guidelines made efforts at trimming the tasks, yet the situation looked bleak as schools lost days due to sudden outbreaks of the virus and the subsequent enforced quarantine periods.

Furthermore, **Table 2** shows 17 principals who were unsure of their stand as far as their capacity to manage the completion of the assigned tasks, curriculum recovery programmes and assessments tasks. What can be read from the above is the level of hopelessness that prevailed as principals were only capable of managing what was within their reach.

### **6.5 Areas of achievements in policy implementation**

This section looks at the duties that were performed by the allocated staff and the manner in which the principals managed these duties. Principals showed an element of success in managing the daily routine tasks through the allocated personnel. Principals had to provide immediate task-oriented leadership to prepare and make schools ready to prevent the spread of infection by applying the policy guidelines [2, 11] The first priority was to set up COVID-19 Committees comprising staff members and to provide relevant training for them. This would then be followed by delegating duties as prescribed by the policy guidelines. Most of the tasks were, however, performed by personnel other than teachers. These were employed and trained specially to execute these special tasks. Nonetheless, it was the duty of the principal to monitor the performance of these duties. The table below indicates the levels of performance as observed by principals.


#### **Table 3.**

*Level of confidence with performance on COVID-19 activities.*

**Table 3** indicates that the principals observed very high or high levels of performance in the execution of duties allocated to various personnel except for a few schools whose performance was low or very low.

Procedures that needed to be followed with great accuracy included how to isolate individuals suspected of infection, notification of relevant authorities and closing down of schools for decontamination. Out of the 12 schools that had to deal with reported positive cases, principals seemed to have followed protocol and handled cases in the best way that protected the schooling community.

*Lethiwe* Primary had a case with a learner and later a teacher. The learner was 'placed in [an] isolation room' while the principal called the parent—'fetched by a parent'. The teacher was 'asked to get immediate medical help'. The principal contacted the Circuit Manager and 'phoned the nurse'. The school 'followed directives from [the] Health Department' and the school closed for 3 days to decontaminate. *Bongisizwe* also had multiple cases from learners at different times. The principal 'contacted [the] parent to collect [the child] immediately' and 'phoned the Circuit Manager, [and] health [officials]' and notified 'school staff'. 'The school closed for 3 days'. With a case in Grade 12, only the affected grade was closed. All other schools that experienced cases followed similar procedures.

That protocol was followed by principals may also be supported by data in **Tables 1** and **3**. **Table 1** depicts the number of cases the schools experienced, the number of learners sent home and the number of teachers quarantined. **Table 3** illustrates the principals' levels of confidence related to the performance of the activities used as barriers to prevent the virus from infecting many individuals.

### **7. Discussion of the findings**

The findings point to the difficulties that were faced by principals to ensure continuous teaching and learning despite the spatial arrangement to try to equitably

#### *Principalship Educational Policy Challenges in the Management of a Turbulent School… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108504*

share the classrooms through alternate attendance models. Principals had to make these compromises as a way of trying to balance the phasing in of the Grade R to Grade 6 learners in primary and Grades 8–11 learners in secondary level respectively. The other key finding from the data is that the limited infrastructure in underresourced schools posed a risk of spreading the virus. These are contextual factors beyond the control of the principals. The policy guidelines compelled schools to have an isolation room or sick room for individuals with suspected infections. Of the schools participating in the study, it was only the well-resourced schools that had functional isolation rooms or sick rooms. Most under-resourced schools improvised by using available spaces for this purpose. Such adaptation is nevertheless in line with the argument that spaces may change depending on need, which means that certain activities and human conceptions determine the meanings and use of space [19, 20].

It is clear from the findings that teaching was negatively affected by the absence of teachers. Absent teachers leave behind gaps that may not be instantly or suitably filled by the principal. Added to that is the number of days in which some of the schools were closed for decontamination. Twelve schools closed for a combined total of 31 days ranging from 2 to 9 days for some of the schools. To respond to these challenges, some principals had mitigation strategies to make up for the lost time. The findings indicate the complexity of implementing the policy and the gaps that exist between the policy and the reality at the school level. The turbulent nature of the academic year indicated the level of challenges that principals faced in managing the implementation of the policy guidelines.

## **8. Conclusion**

In this section, we draw conclusions and highlight implications for practice and research. As researchers, we acknowledge the fact that 30 out of 487 public schools is not a sufficiently large enough figure from which to draw general conclusions on how uMgungundlovu District managed the COVID-19 crisis in schools. We nevertheless conclude that there was a disjuncture between policy and implementation. Policymakers seem to have assumed that schools had capacities to implement all the ideas contained in the guidelines. However, the contexts of the schools are never the same, as some lack the financial and other resources to fully implement COVID-19 safety protocols. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work in the educational context. Although principals may have been determined to implement all the guidelines, the complex, turbulent and unprecedented nature of the pandemic made it difficult to have fully functional schools.

Some principals managed to salvage teaching and learning despite the challenges of juggling different grades and classes to allow for the sharing of space. Some of the failures were beyond the principals' control, as teachers used their legal rights to apply for leave due to underlying comorbidities.

The added burden of managing the temporary closure of schools for decontamination negatively affected the number of days for teaching and learning. All the efforts that were made for curriculum recovery programmes could not be successful in a learning situation filled with fear and anxiety caused by the new infections. The recovery programmes were more of a sacrifice by the teachers putting in extra hours of work. We conclude that situational leadership was applied in areas where principals had a level of control. Where there was not much to be done principals allowed the situation to unfold and dealt with those areas within their control to ensure that the

academic year was not totally lost. While this study aimed to understand the principals' experiences, it also revealed the capabilities and readiness of schools as they maintained a delicate balance between providing education and fighting the virus. Evidence on various models of social distancing applied in schools has proved to be challenging as revealed by the findings. Research is thus required to develop methods of creating space to avoid close contact in schools without disruptions to curriculum delivery, especially in under-resourced schools within the South African context.
