The main role of the Department of Education Management and Policy Studies is to teach and research in the area of Education Management. This includes themes such as leadership, human resources management, strategic planning, transformational leadership, organisational management, classroom management, school organisation and management, stakeholder partnerships and financial management.

It also teaches Education Law and Education Policy as well as Comparative Education and is proud to be one of the institutions that can offer this training.

Due to the specialised nature of its programmes, most of the department's teaching takes place on a postgraduate level and is offered in a variety of study modes. Thousands of students from all over the country and the continent are enrolled for the department's distance learning programmes.

The department is also linked to the Interuniversity Centre for Education Law and Education Policy (CELP) which co-ordinates research in Education Law and Education Policy and promotes these fields of scientific enquiry. In addition, staff members are involved with all of the four research areas identified by the Faculty on a tuition and supervisory level.

Education Management and Policy Studies comprises of fourteen permanent and four temporary teaching staff members with five support staff members - the Dean is also a member of the department. The Department is also assisted by four extraordinary professors, Prof EH (Huw) Davies, Prof Teboho Moja, Prof Lynn Ilon and Prof MFD (Michael) Young, as well as a special professor, Prof M (Mokobung) Nkomo.