Exploring the Competencies of Principals in Managing Teachers’ Stress and Burnout in Selected Primary Schools of Chris Hani East Education District: A South African Context
Mzoli Osborn Voyiya 
, Sanjay Balkaran & Berington Zanoxolo Gobingca
Issue: Vol.6 No. 6 2025 Article 3 pp.355 – 362
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/jelt.2025663 | Published online 19th June, 2025.
© 2025 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
The purpose of this research was to explore the competencies of principals in managing teachers’ stress and burnout in selected primary schools in Chris Hani East Education District. A qualitative research method was adopted. A case study research design was employed. A purposeful sampling method was used to select five principals to be participants, each representing conveniently sampled five primary schools based on their proximity to researchers. Upon the receipt of permission from Eastern Cape Department of Basic Education officials and principals, semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-face to collect data from the participants to solicit in-depth relevant information regarding the phenomenon explored in this research. A thematic approach was used to analyse the collected data from five participating school principals. It emerged that principals, deputy principals and heads of departments are struggling to identify early, teachers suffering from stress, unable to avoid the causes of stress as a result of schools’ systematic challenges and are unable to cope with teachers’ stress. There are no psychological programmes in place in the majority of public rural schools to capacitate principals with remedial skills to deal with teachers experiencing stress. Principals and teachers should be trained by social workers and psychologists regularly to acquire some relevant psychological programmes and apply remedial skills and services to avoid the cause of teachers’ and learners’ stress. This research could contribute to motivating the Department of Basic Education officials to inculcate the skills to principals and teachers for early identification, monitoring and managing the phenomenon explored in this research.
Keywords: Management, Stress, Primary School, Monitoring, School Stakeholders, Psychological Programmes and Services.
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Dr. Mzoli Osborn Voyiya currently serves as the Principal of Lundi Pulic Full Service School in Elliot Circuit,Sakhisizwe circuit Management Center and Chris Hani Education District, South Africa. He is in his 29th year in the teaching fraternity and has served the Department of Basic education with out fail. He is an emerging researcher and author whose research interest is in leadership and management. He is now interested in mentorship and supervision of students in research and authorship.
Professor Sanjay Balkaran, the Executive Deputy Dean and a senior academic in the Faculty of Management and Public Administration at Walter Sisulu University, holds a PhD in Public Administration and is affiliated with bodies in academia, research, and law. As a trans-disciplinary researcher, he is ubiquitous in the fields of public management, education, social science, business management and law. A published author of note, with over forty articles in reviewed journals, and conference proceedings presented in South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tunisia, India, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Canada and the USA. He is a member of professional bodies and a reviewer for academic journals, specializing in public policy, public finance, political economy, public service reform, monitoring and evaluation and labour law. His contribution to three book chapters in public administration and public service reform is significant. Prof. Balkaran has graduated over a hundred honours, master’s and doctoral students in Public Administration, Education Management and Business Management. As an external examiner, he has examined numerous doctoral and master’s theses in South Africa and holds strong and close working relationships with universities in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya and India.
Professor Berington Zanoxolo Gobingca is a senior academic staff member in Business Management Education department in Faculty of Education at Walter Sisulu University. He has 17 lecturing experience at University. Currently, he is lecturing level IV student-teachers in Business Studies Teaching at Walter Sisulu University. He is active in postgraduate supervision and has successfully supervised and graduated a quite number of honos, Masters and Doctorate students. He is committee member for various University committees. He is the reviewer for numerous journals. He has published some reasonable number of papers to accredited journals. He has presented papers locally. He is also an external examiner for some of public South African universities. He has participated in recurriculation and reviews of various teacher education programmes.
Voyiya, Mzoli Osborn, Sanjay Balkaran, and Berington Zanoxolo Gobingca. “Exploring the Competencies of Principals in Managing Teachers’ Stress and Burnout in Selected Primary Schools of Chris Hani East Education District: A South African Context.” Journal of Education and Learning Technology 6, no.6 (2025): 355-362. https://doi.org/10.38159/jelt.2025663
© 2025 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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