The South African school system has been in a state of flux since the first
democratic election in 1994, with numerous changes that have included the
introduction of Outcomes Based Education (OBE) by the then Professor Kader
Asmal, the Revised National Curriculum Statement (NCS) by his successor, Mrs.
Naledi Pandor, and recently the introduction of the Curriculum Assessment Policy
Statements (CAPS) (Department of Basic Education, 2011). All the mandated
changes were informed by international tests such as the Progress in International
Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Trends in International Mathematics and
Science Study (TIMMS), but a major challenge facing the policymakers is how to
manage the implementation of the change process. Emotional intelligence is one
of the tools that can be used to manage the change process as it provides school
managers, at the micro- implementation level, with the knowledge and skills to
manage possible resistance. It can be nurtured and is valuable for a leader to
possess as a way of maximising positive behaviour (Gutstein, 2004:29-30).
Results from South Africa’s participation in 2006 in TIMSS and PIRLS, conducted
by the International Association for the Education of Education Achievement (IEA)
for Grades 4 and 5 learners, ranked South Africa far below other African countries.
The 2011, Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational
Quality (SACMEC) report 3 reveals that South Africa had slipped further to
seventh from the bottom. More recently, in the 2012PIRLS, South African learners
achieved an score of 460 against an international average of 500 (Rademeyer,
2012), whilst in the TIMMS South African learners’ came second last in
Mathematics out of 45 countries that participated, with a score of 352 compared to
the international midpoint of 500. In Science, South African learners came last with
an average of 332 compared to a midpoint of 500 (Rademeyer, 2012).