Picture: Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the North West University (NWU), Prof Linda du Plessis/Supplied
By OBAKENG MAJE
1 July 2026 – Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the North West University (NWU), Prof Linda du Plessis said the Governing Body Foundation national report on the administrative load of public-school principals should force a national conversation about the administrative burden placed on schools and public institutions. Plessis said when did paperwork become more important than educating children?
She further said South Africa’s principals are becoming administrators when they should be leaders. Plessis added that a completed report has never taught a child to read.
“The best way to improve schools may be to ask principals for fewer reports. The GBF (Governing Body Foundation) national report on the administrative load of public-school principals should be read as more than just another education survey.
“It is a distress signal from the people expected to hold our schools together. According to the report, 84% of principals routinely work after hours to keep up with administrative demands, 92% say the administrative load is higher or much higher than it was five years ago,” she said.
Plessis said 71% experience a negative impact on their ability to perform their core duties as school leaders and 59% say the burden makes them seriously consider leaving their role. She said a principal is the heartbeat of a school.
“The moment you enter the gates, you can feel whether leadership has built a culture of care, discipline and safety and that culture ultimately drives the school’s performance and it influences young educators’ decision to enter or leave the profession. When nearly six out of ten school leaders are thinking of walking away, the government should not ask for another report.
“It should ask what its own systems are doing to schools. The most troubling finding is not simply that principals are busy. School leadership has always required long days and strong commitment. The troubling point is that so much of this time is now being consumed by paperwork, repeated reporting, evidence files, short-notice requests, duplicated information and compliance demands,” said Plessis.
She said many principals are not working overtime because they are designing better teaching strategies, mentoring young teachers or engaging parents. Plessis said they are working overtime to feed a bureaucracy that too often appears unable to distinguish between meaningful accountability and administrative noise.
“Time is not an elastic resource. Every hour a principal spends completing another template is an hour not spent observing teaching, supporting staff, helping learners, solving safety concerns, strengthening school culture or planning improvement.
“The question the government must answer is therefore not whether schools have submitted the required documents. The real question is whether those documents have improved learning, leadership or service delivery. If they have not, then the system is not strengthening education. It is draining it,” she said.
Plessis said this is managerialism at its most damaging. She said managerialism is the belief that institutions can be improved through more targets, more plans, more reports, more monitoring and more measurable “evidence”.
“It often enters public institutions wearing the respectable clothing of efficiency and accountability. But when taken too far, it produces the opposite such as mistrust, duplication, fear, risk avoidance and compliance without learning.
“In education, managerialism slowly turns principals into clerks, teachers into data capturers and departments into machines that demand proof of activity rather than evidence of impact. There is a useful phrase for this: bureaucratic bluffing,” said Plessis.
She said the system looks busy, but it produces files, dashboards, templates, signatures, plans and submissions. Plessis said it creates the appearance of control, but the key question remains unanswered.
“Where does all this administration lead? Is it read carefully? Is it used to give schools better support? Does it help departments allocate resources fairly and address needs during budget allocation? Does it identify risks sooner? Does it improve teaching and learning? Does it create a better future for our young people? Or does it merely move from one desk to another, creating the illusion that something important has been done? A thick compliance file does not mean a school is improving.
“A signed plan does not mean a learner can read. A submitted report does not mean a teacher has been supported. A completed checklist does not mean fewer learners drop out. Government must stop confusing paperwork with performance. The visible existence of administration is not proof of value,” she said.
Plessis said in fact, excessive administration may be evidence of a system that has lost trust in its own professionals. She said let principals focus on what they were appointed to do, which is lead.
“The word “principal” comes from the Latin prīncipālis – “first in importance, chief, leader”. That is what they should be allowed to be. Accountability must sharpen focus, not scatter it. It should support leaders, not exhaust them. A principal sets the tone, shapes the culture, builds trust and drives performance – the very heartbeat of a school. If we want better schools, we must give principals the time and space to lead.
“The first leadership lesson from the GBF report is that accountability must be purposeful. Good leaders do not ask for information simply because they can. They ask for information because it will inform a decision, trigger support, reduce risk, improve learning or protect resources,” said Plessis.
She said if a reporting requirement cannot pass that test, it should be removed. Plessis said public institutions must adopt a simple discipline, which is no form without a purpose, no template without a user, no report without a decision and no compliance demand without visible value.
The Guardian 