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Jika iMfundo, with its particular focus on curriculum coverage, is an intervention for systemic education change. In this paper we focus on the extent to which Heads of Departments (HoDs) are able to play an adaptive leadership role in supporting the teachers in their departments. We report on data generated from interviews with HODs in fifteen KwaZulu-Natal schools that had been part of the Jika iMfundo intervention from 2015 to 2017. While Jika iMfundo's aim is to shift HODs' leadership practices from being based on technical compliance to the achievement of a more developmental and supportive role, our findings show that the majority of HODs were not able to do this because of their heavy workloads and overwhelming administrative responsibilities. We argue that the theory of change based on the Programme for Improving Learning Outcomes (PILO) has unrealistic expectations of HODs as key levers of change for curriculum coverage and, furthermore, that this theory does not take into account the realities and variations of resourcing in different school contexts.

It is widely acknowledged that understanding of science is key to becoming global citizens and to embrace technological advancements. Although research suggests that girl’s performance in science has improved over the years, there are still concerns about the under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers in most African countries, including South Africa. Variability in science performance according to gender is still an unresolved issue. In this study we aimed to examine the relationship between gender and science item achievement of Grade 9 South African learners in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015. We used data collected by TIMSS 2015. The data were further analysed using International Database (IDB) analyser and t-test statistics. The results show that in general gender did not influence learner achievement in most of the test items. However, the findings indicate that girls performed better than boys in most of the questions in all 4 content domains and in the knowing and reasoning cognitive domains. The study highlighted that gender had a limited effect in the manner in which the girls and boys answered the different test items. The observed gender differences in the content domains could be related to socio-cultural environments and learning experiences.

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Schools play a significant role in conveying essential knowledge, skills and attitudes about HIV and AIDS to millions of learners, and are therefore at the forefront of addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This has resulted in a shift in HIV/AIDS research to focus on the crucial role of teachers in HIV prevention. This paper explores the influence of teachers' subjectivities and emotionality on their teaching about HIV/AIDS. The paper draws on qualitative, narrative data gathered from five teachers teaching in a midlands town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It finds that teachers' subject positions play a significant role in presenting compassionate, supportive and knowledgeable subjectivities in the classroom; and that their positive and negative emotions pivotally influence their teaching about HIV/AIDS. We argue that it is vital to consider how teachers position themselves, as this is intricately linked with their teaching about HIV/AIDS, and we draw attention to teaching about HIV/AIDS as an emotional practice.