The Link between Leadership Preparation and Work Demands of School Principals in Secondary Schools of Ethiopia
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Date
2019-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
School principals play key role in mobilizing resources to run teaching and learning. However, their
preparation as related to their work place duties and responsibilities is questionable. The theoretical
assumption for this study is then, school leadership preparation need to be situated to the actual school
context linking campus training to field-based experiences.
The main purpose of the study was to explore the link between leadership preparation and work demands
of school principals in secondary schools of Ethiopia and identify challenges associated with principal
preparation that could hinder principals from providing effective leadership and provide the necessary
recommendations.
The schools are found in majorcities of Amhara, Oromia, Afar, and Benishangul-Gumuz national
regional states and in Addis Ababa City Administration. The respondents include six categories-‘woreda’
education office responsible person, relevant person from Ministry of Education and department heads of
principal preparation universities as well as principals, middle level managers and teachers in the
respective schools. Documents such as Education and Training Policy, Education Sector Development
Programs, National Principals Professional Standard, curriculum frameworks and staff minutes were the
secondary data. The method employed was QUAL-quan model which can best be described as
predominantly qualitative augmented by quantitative methodology. And the sampling techniques used
were combination of purposive sampling, cluster-sampling, availability sampling, stratified sampling and
simple random sampling.
The main findings of the study were that while principals welcomed instructional leadership as a standalone
course in the MScL program, time of delivery (being summer), richness of the content in terms of
relevance, commitment of the trainers and changing nomenclature of the degree to MScL (as they
believed it limits job opportunity) were among the challenges affecting delivery of the courses. It was
also found out that there were frequent program change, three times in less than half a decade, in
principal preparation program.From the multifactor ANOVA model, region of the respondents were
found to have statistically significant effect on the composite scores at 5% level of significance. It was
also found out that there was no job description specifically set for principals consolidated in a single
document.
The main conclusions of the study were that the preparation of school principals is both inadequate
and in part, unrelated to the increasing work demands of principals in Ethiopia. The system also
lacks a clear framework and leadership successive planning to bring the best applicants to the
office and to remove those who are incompetent. The complex and multi-faceted role of school
principals is not clearly defined.
Finally, the major recommendations provided are the need to re-center the profession to focus on student
learning and situate leadership development in work settings. It is also recommended to establish
National Council/ Forum which may be called Ethiopian Education leadership Council/Forum (EELC/F)
constituted from university preparation programs, MoE, local education office, principal and
professional organizations such as Teachers Association which facilitates nesting of university
preparation programs in the local context.The duties and responsibilities of principals scattered in
various documents should be pooled together in a single document and an independent course is
recommended to be designed and provided in the university preparation program. Since involvement of
principals in out of school activities is inevitable, it is recommended that such activities should be part of
their duties considering as community service with not more than 20% of the 40 working hours per week
as civil servants.
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Education