The Roles and Practices of School Principals As Instructional Leaders in Government Secondary Schools of Assosa Zone in Benishangu Gumuz Regional State
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Date
2017-09
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess the roles and practices of school principals as
instructional leaders in government secondary schools of Assosa Zone of Benishangul Gumuz
regional state. A descriptive survey design was employed in this study. The size of sample taken
was 92 teachers, 10 principals, 20 Members of PTA and 6 school cluster supervisors were
included in the study making a total sample size of 128 by using simple random for teachers and
availability sampling techniques for principals. Questionnaires, semi structured interview and
documents were used to collect data. 102 questionnaires were properly filled and analyzed using
both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques: frequencies, percentages, one sample ttest
and independent sample t-test. In addition to this, the data gathered through open ended
questionnaire, semi-structured interview and documents were analyzed qualitatively. With
regards to the result, one sample t-test showed that school principals were not effective in
encouraging and motivating staff, creating conducive environment for teaching learning process,
promoting professional development, observing and evaluating classroom instruction. Contrary
to these, school principals were effective in monitoring students’ progress, group development
and school curriculum implementation, evaluation and improvement. Moreover, Independent ttest
results showed that significant mean differences were not found between teachers’ and
principals’ in implementing instructional leadership roles. Both the quantitative and qualitative
results indicated although school principals were effective in implementing some of their
instructional leadership roles still they have faced serious problems to implement all of their
roles. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that although school principals were qualified they
were not able to fully exercise their instructional leadership roles to improve the performance of
their schools. To alleviate the problem of the implementation of instructional leadership, the
selection and assignment of school principals should be based on the criteria set by Ministry of
education. In addition, it is recommended that educational leadership and management training
should be given for school principals to improve their instructional leadership capacities.
Moreover, it needs to provide training professional development training, delegate responsibility
and supply adequate resources to implement it.
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Keywords
Roles and Practices of School Principals