Curriculum leadership is essential in education because it encourages teachers to participate in modifying the curriculum to meet schools’ needs as opposed to the school or teachers adopting the Department’s curriculum as is. This implies through curriculum leadership, schools are encouraged to develop school-based curriculums (SBCs) which can be used to address learners’ specific needs. Since teachers are aware of what needs to be taught, when it needs to be taught, and how it needs to be taught, they are key in making sure that whatever is planned will result in improved learner performance. This means that the dissemination of curriculum leadership at all levels of education is extremely important as it allows teachers to gain a deeper understanding of the curriculum and how it should be contextually applied in the classroom to achieve intended curriculum goals. The implementation of curriculum leadership is depending on principals’ understanding of the concept, while it is accepted that the involvement of teachers in the implementation of curriculum leadership will differ amongst schools. Tantamount to this is the problem that in South African schools, the apartheid-era practice of a principal adopting an authoritative leadership style is still in place. Principals frequently assume such an authoritative leadership role and, consequently, they are unwilling to give teachers more authority. Considering the important role teachers play as curriculum leaders, the aim of this paper is to explore how teachers perceive curriculum leadership challenges encountered in both performing and underperforming schools. Following a quantitative descriptive research approach, the study is underpinned by a transformative paradigm, and distributed leadership theory is adopted to emphasise the importance of decentralising curriculum leadership roles to the teachers level. Eighty (80) teachers were purposefully sampled due to their knowledge and lived experience as teachers whilst a closed ended questionnaire with a four-point Likert scale was used to collect data. Results emanating from the study revealed that the majority of teachers in underperforming schools are experiencing curriculum leadership challenges to a high extent, whilst the majority of teachers in performing schools are experiencing curriculum leadership challenges to almost no extent. Lack of school management support through professional development to influence learner performance and lack of school management support for quality teaching and learning to influence learner performance emerged as the key factors that contributed to such significant difference. The study recommends the introduction of mandatory policies emphasising the effective implementation of curriculum leadership and SBCs to improve learner performance. It is further recommended that introduced policies must also emphasise the inclusion of teachers in the whole development and implementation process of curriculum leadership and SBC to ensure learners’ needs are met successfully.

Keywords: Curriculum leadership, school-based curriculum, curriculum, curriculum leadership challenges.