While existing literature recognises mentorship as an important strategy for leadership development, there is limited empirical understanding of how women experience and negotiate mentorship as they advance into school leadership in the South African context. Despite policy efforts to promote gender equity, women remain underrepresented in school leadership, and the role of mentorship in addressing this disparity remains insufficiently understood. This study explores mentorship as a relational mechanism through which women negotiate access, leadership identity, and social capital in their advancement into school leadership. An interpretive qualitative design, underpinned by a narrative phenomenological approach and informed by Social Capital Theory, was used to explore the experiences of six purposively selected women leaders from township schools in a single district in KwaZulu-Natal. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews and were analysed thematically. Participants reported that supportive mentoring relationships provided them with confidence, professional visibility, networking opportunities, leadership guidance, and encouragement to pursue leadership positions. Participants with limited access to mentorship described feelings of isolation, reduced access to leadership guidance, and fewer opportunities for professional development. They also reported seeking mentorship through external professional networks and women-centered spaces when support within their immediate school environments was limited. Some participants described mentoring relationships characterised by unequal power dynamics, limited trust, or inappropriate behaviour. Based on these accounts, the researchers interpret mentorship as an uneven, relational, and context-dependent mechanism through which women negotiate access to professional resources, leadership identity, and social capital. The findings suggest that mentorship can facilitate women's leadership development when relationships are supportive and trusting, but may also constrain agency when mentoring relationships reproduce hierarchical and gendered power relations. The study, therefore, extends understanding of mentorship by shifting attention from the mere availability of mentors to the relational, institutional, and power conditions that shape how mentorship is experienced and mobilised. Although limited by its small, context-specific sample, the study provides contextually grounded insights into mentorship and women's advancement into school leadership. It highlights the need for structured, responsive, and gender-sensitive mentoring opportunities.
Despite growing concerns about mental health difficulties among children and youth, limited empirical evidence exists on the extent to which adverse childhood experiences and resilience predict mental health difficulties among school-going children and youth in rural communities. This research explored the prevalence and psychosocial predictors of mental health difficulties among children and youth. The study adopted a correlational and descriptive research design. Respondents consisted of 837 children and youth, who were selected from Johannesburg West Education District. They were assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), the Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire (ACE-Q), and the Child and Youth Resilience Measure (CYRM) as data-collection instruments. Frequencies and percentages, regression analysis, and moderation analysis were conducted using Hayes' PROCESS Macro. Findings revealed that about 44.4%, 18.3%, and 37.3% of the participants were within the normal, borderline, and abnormal ranges of mental health well-being, respectively. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) significantly predicted mental health difficulties (β = .238, t = 7.071, p < .001), contributing about 5.6% of the variation in mental health difficulties among youth and children. Resilience is also a significant predictor (β = −.121, t = −3.524, p < .001), accounting for about 1.5% of the variation in mental health problems; higher resilience was associated with lower levels of mental health difficulties. Moderation analyses showed that age and gender did not significantly moderate the relationships between ACEs, resilience, and mental health difficulties. The study concludes that ACEs constitute a significant risk factor, whereas resilience serves as a protective factor. The findings highlight the need for trauma-informed interventions, resilience-building programmes, and comprehensive mental health support services to promote positive mental health outcomes among children and youth.
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is one of the most common disabilities in South African schools. However, there is still limited information about children with ASD and their schooling needs in South Africa. Teachers may find it particularly taxing to address behavioral challenges while simultaneously seeking to provide fair and accessible learning opportunities for all learners. This study identifies effective behavioural strategies to help manage the challenging behaviour of learners with ASD. The study conducted observations and semi-structured interviews as part of a qualitative multiple-case study design. The data were analysed inductively, and the results revealed that teachers relied largely on their own informal strategies. These included attempts to meet the child's individual needs, providing positive reinforcement to improve behavioural regulation, practicing positive communication, and using structured routines and regulation breaks. The implementation of these strategies was carried out without formal training or systematic guidance. Learner facilitators also provided valuable support to learners with ASD. These approaches address the inclusion of learners with unique learning capabilities in mainstream learning environments through teacher initiative. This was done to address behavioural challenges in populations with limited systemic support. Given the exploratory, small-scale nature of this study, findings are intended to offer in-depth insight rather than generalisable conclusions. Additionally, recommendations are provided to assist mainstream schools and teacher training.
The rapid integration of digital technologies into teaching, learning, and assessment has created new avenues through which technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) may occur in school settings. Existing scholarship has examined TFGBV mainly through the lenses of cyberbullying, digital safety, and student well-being. At the same time, emerging work has also begun to conceptualise digital assessment systems as sites of structural and institutional gendered risk. Building on this systems-level perspective, this conceptual paper shifts attention to the pedagogical and interactional layer of digital assessment, examining how teachers' assessment design and oversight decisions may shape the conditions under which TFGBV becomes more or less likely. Developed through a critical interdisciplinary literature review, the paper draws on Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, digital citizenship frameworks, and classroom assessment scholarship to examine how learning management systems, peer assessment tools, collaborative online assignments, and social media-integrated assessment activities may create conditions conducive to gendered harassment, image-based abuse, and exclusionary behaviour among learners of all genders. The paper proposes the Assessment-Mediated Digital Ethics (AMDE) framework, a theoretically grounded but not yet empirically validated model integrating gender-responsive assessment design, embedded digital behavioural expectations, and structured teacher oversight. AMDE is presented as a complementary pedagogical extension of existing justice-oriented approaches to digital assessment and TFGBV, rather than as a claim of first conceptualisation. The framework provides a basis for future empirical research examining teacher-mediated assessment practices and their relationship to digital safety, ethical participation, and TFGBV risk across diverse educational contexts. Responsibility for TFGBV prevention is understood as shared among teachers, learners, schools, families, technology providers, and policymakers.
This study investigates the alignment between teacher allocation and learner enrolment patterns in Eswatini high schools following the 2023 teacher allocation policy, assessing whether deployment corresponds to learner demand and to the policy goals of equity and efficiency. Guided by the Theory of Compensating Differences, it analysed disparities in enrolment and teacher distribution using documentary evidence from enrolment records, class registers, staffing information, and policy documents from 23 high schools, supplemented by contextual observations. Findings revealed substantial variation: some schools faced overcrowded classrooms, while others had enrolments far below the advised threshold of 400 students required for certain staffing provisions, with several reporting between 172 and 286 students. This raised concerns about the effective use of human and financial resources, particularly in high-density communities where staffing levels did not consistently reflect student numbers. The study concludes that reallocating teachers is necessary but complex, requiring a more responsive and context-sensitive model that goes beyond fixed enrolment thresholds to incorporate regular monitoring, redistribution mechanisms, and consideration of demographic and school-specific conditions. Such an approach would better balance educational equity, resource efficiency, and sustainability of teaching provision. Limitations include reliance on documentary and administrative records from a convenience sample of 23 schools, restricting generalisation to all Eswatini high schools. Nonetheless, the study provides valuable evidence to inform refinement of teacher allocation policy and offers lessons for other resource-constrained education systems experiencing uneven teacher distribution and shifting enrolment patterns.
The transition from secondary school to higher education is a critical period that shapes students' academic engagement, social integration, and persistence. Despite increased access to higher education in South Africa, many first-year students enter university with expectations that differ substantially from their subsequent experiences, creating adjustment challenges. Guided by Tinto's Theory of Student Integration and Educational Transition Theory, this study explored first-year students' expectations. It examined how students perceived and experienced mismatches between these expectations and the realities of university life. The study adopted an interpretivist qualitative research paradigm and an exploratory descriptive design. Data were collected through three focus group discussions with 21 purposively selected first-year students at a comprehensive university in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. They were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings revealed an expectation–reality mismatch in three areas: social integration and peer relationships, course selection and academic guidance, and academic workload alongside self-directed learning demands. Participants who identified as first-generation students described experiencing additional transition difficulties, which they associated with limited social and cultural capital, inadequate career guidance, and low digital literacy. Participants also associated persistent socioeconomic inequality with these difficulties. The study concludes that expectation–reality mismatch is a psychologically meaningful mechanism through which structural inequality translates into experiences of uncertainty, diminished belonging, and academic disengagement during the first year. Strengthened orientation, mentoring, academic advising, and digital literacy support are recommended to improve student adjustment, engagement, and retention.
The education of young children constitutes the foundation of their cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioural development. Teacher psychological capital, emotional intelligence, and work engagement are personal resources that may be associated with good teaching practices and child development as perceived by teachers. Using COR theory, this study examined the relationships among teacher psychological capital, emotional intelligence, work engagement, teaching effectiveness, and teacher-reported children's developmental outcomes of early childhood educators in Lagos State, Nigeria. The study employed a correlational research design. A sample of 202 early childhood educators was selected through a multistage sampling process, in which five children per teacher's classroom were selected, resulting in a total of 1,010 children rated using the Early Development Instrument (EDI). The data for the study were gathered using the Psychological Capital Questionnaire, the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Pre-K, and the EDI Teacher Version. The scores of five children per teacher were aggregated to measure teacher-level indicators of child developmental outcomes. Data analysis was done using Pearson product-moment correlation, multiple regression, and hierarchical multiple regression at the 0.05 level of significance. The results indicated significant positive correlations among the research variables. Psychological capital, emotional intelligence, and work engagement, both together and individually, made significant contributions to teaching effectiveness and teacher-rated children’s developmental outcomes. Teaching experience and school ownership also significantly moderated the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. This research therefore concludes that psychological capital, emotional intelligence, and work engagement are significant resources for teachers, contributing to teaching effectiveness and teacher-rated children’s developmental outcomes.
