Multiple deprivation affects a large proportion of schools in South Africa. The past 20 years of democracy have tended to focus on reforming education through curricula revision and a raft of redress-directed interventions, through the application of what we call a broad-brush policy approach. The paper argues that a broad-brush policy application fails to recognise the contextualised challenges faced in specific schools. The central purpose of the research was to discover the specific challenges and leadership issues that schools in multiple deprived communities face, and to identify ways in which such schools dealt with these challenges. The research was conducted through a case study approach of three schools in one of the most impoverished provinces of the country. In total 3 principals, 3 parents and 26 teachers were interviewed. The study found that while the three schools shared many similar conditions of poverty that drove the poor to marginal performance, stories of success tended to be strongly related to four key factors:(1) leadership that went beyond an ordinary focus on instruction; (2) staff stability; (3) flexible scheduling that allowed parental involvement; and (4) a focus on a school-wide project that acted as a rallying point and a source of pride for the entire school. The paper identifies assetbased leadership and servant leadership approaches as generative in schools facing multiple deprivation. The paper concludes with a call for more school-based improvement initiatives that seek to interrogate the impact of factors of multiple deprivation, and a broad policy redirection towards school improvement rather than educational reform, which has been the focus in the past 20 years.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, measures have been taken globally to shut down schools at all levels and move education to the online arena, which entails a strong dependence on access to the internet and electronic gadgets. Measures such as these are bound to deepen already existing inequality and bring about major disruptions in the students’ learning process. In this context, the makeup of our diverse Mexican society and school communities calls for a political framework that promotes equal education and ensures a way of constructing knowledge that is accessible to all; a perspective in education that respects traditional groups and cultures, especially those who are usually financially disadvantaged, such as indigenous people. This article examines measures taken to support provision of online education, in general, and indigenous groups, in particular. The data collection approach to support the findings consisted of reviewing official websites from UNESCO, the Mexican Ministry of Education, and three states with the largest number of indigenous people (IP). The findings suggest that the production of TV programs and school booklets in indigenous languages show a considerable effort to reach out to indigenous communities throughout the country. Nevertheless, the measures taken by the national and state governments may still be deemed limited and somewhat biased in favor of monolingual students.

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The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has highlighted a ‘vicious cycle of decline’ in rural, regional and remote (RRR) regions, with significant inequalities in educational outcomes between rural and urban areas. However, interventions have not resulted in transformative or lasting improvements to education in rural contexts. This paper presents a cross-comparative country analysis of current global policy on RRR education. We used a policy analysis framework to interrogate national policy texts concerning teacher education for RRR contexts in three countries - Australia, South Africa and Mexico. A rigorous selection process of the literature yielded 17 key policy texts, which were examined for the influences, practices, language and outcomes relating to teacher education preparation for RRR locales. Findings highlighted a legacy of historical influences and a metrocentric bias in policy texts, with limited examples of assets-based education. We argue that these factors may be perpetuating the significant and persistent disadvantage in RRR education. We recommend an alternative policy discourse that recognises the productivities and potentialities of an assets-based approach within the local context, where school leaders and teachers are positioned as central change agents in RRR education.

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