About 850 principals gathered in Limpopo to take stock of their challenges, with the president of the South African Principals Association calling on the government to reform systems to free up principals to do their job of leading schools.

South African Principals Association (Sapa) president Mashudu Ramulumo has called on education departments to take pressure off school leaders, saying principals are increasingly being forced to carry responsibilities that should be handled elsewhere in the education system.

Speaking to The Education Desk at Sapa's conference in Limpopo, Ramulumo said the association wanted provincial departments to build systems that allowed principals to focus on leading schools rather than constantly responding to administrative failures and crises.

A major concern is the repeated demand for information from schools. Principals were often required to submit the same information to different sections of education departments, creating unnecessary duplicate work.

Follow us on WhatsApp | LinkedIn for the latest headlines

More than 850 principals gathered for the national conference, where school leaders discussed the challenges facing principals and how schools should prepare for a changing education environment in the world of artificial intelligence (AI).

Read more South Africa's schools are losing teachers faster than they can replace them July 20, 2026 Ramulumo said Sapa would appreciate the departments urgently moving towards a system in which school information is captured electronically and can be accessed by the relevant officials without schools having to repeatedly provide the same data.

He added that different...