Leadership and Management of Change
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This project will work with headteachers of schools serving disadvantaged communities in Ghana and Tanzania. It will identify existing examples of effective practice as a basis for developing and refining models of effective leadership for managing change and encouraging community participation. |
The project aims to understand the role of leadership at a local level in implementing education quality in disadvantaged settings in increasingly decentralized systems. It has involved a baseline study of 260 schools in Ghana and Tanzania. Follow up action research is being currently being conducted in 30 schools. The findings below emerged from the baseline study of head teachers' needs and perceptions.
The result of this research will be a leadership manual and toolkit for use by schools. These will be piloted in Pakistan as well as Ghana to trial their relevance to another cultural context.
Lead Institution: University of Cape Coast
Contact: Dr. George Oduro gkto2@yahoo.co.uk
Primary School Classroom, Ghana
Preliminary findings - Ghana
A leadership needs analysis workshop involving 240 basic school headteachers drawn from 12 disadvantaged districts in Ghana revealed that:
Teachers' level of commitment to duty, teachers' time on task, level of accountability and transparency demonstrated by heads in dealing with teachers, headteachers' leadership style and effectiveness of supervision provided by the headteacher are critical factors in achieving quality education.
The effectiveness of the headteacher in achieving quality education in the school depends on his/her capacity to provide professional guidance to teachers, ability to manage inhibitive cultural values that tend to affect teachers' performance and pupil learning, capacity to promote harmony between the school and the community and his/her ability to maintain discipline in school.
Supervision, maintenance of discipline and meeting attendance are the most common tasks performed by Ghanaian basic school headteachers.
Major challenges faced by headteachers in disadvantaged communities are lack of leadership-related in-service training, delayed supply of textbooks, teacher absenteeism and neglect from the Ghana Education Service.
Out of 43 headteachers who participated in a baseline study on the status of basic school leadership in Ghana, 33 (approximately 76%) said they had not received any training in school leadership and management since their appointment as heads.
Preliminary findings - Tanzania
" Head teachers management of teachers is critical to school quality, including accountability and transparency in dealing with teachers; leadership style; monitoring teacher and pupil attendance, supervision of teaching and learning; and providing professional guidance and encouraging professional development.
" Head teachers' capacity to perform the following are critical to school quality: manage inhibitive cultural values that affect teachers' performance & pupils' learning; promote harmony and effective links between the school and the community; promote gender awareness, maintain discipline in school and cultivate a child-friendly environment in which pastoral as well as academic needs of children are recognized and met.
" The most common tasks performed by head teachers in Ghana are supervision, maintaining discipline and attending meetings. The most common tasks in Tanzania are meeting with teachers (when a new curriculum was introduced), registering form one students (in the context of a policy to universalise participation in primary schooling), securing resources and overseeing classroom construction.
" The main challenges head teachers in Ghana face in implementing quality initiatives in disadvantaged communities are lack of leadership-related in-service training that focuses on both key administrative tasks and also on the effectiveness of teaching & learning; delayed supply of textbooks; teacher absenteeism; and neglect by the Education Service.
" In Tanzania, the main challenges are supporting teacher professional development without any allocated funds; meeting needs of learners with special education needs, from poor households and with particular emotional needs when there was lack of recognition of these needs at the system level; engaging community support at a time when community resources are being diverted by a policy of rapidly expanding secondary education; and managing intensified responsibilities following de-concentration of financial management and some decision-making to the school level.
" In Tanzania, the main barriers to improving pupil retention and attainment are overcrowded classrooms in urban schools and low teacher motivation."
Two of EdQual's research students are contributing to this project through their studies;
IEPA, University of Cape Coast
Enrolled at: Department of Education, University of Bath
Ms Aneth Komba, kombandembeka@yahoo.com
Faculty of Education, University of Dar es Salaam
Enrolled at: Department of Education, University of Bath
Topic area: Leadership & Management of Schools for Poverty Reduction
| Key Publications: |
| Leadership and Management Project Proposal Document evolved from the original proposal submitted to DFID September 2005 |
| Implementing Quality Education in Low Income Countries: Literature Review - Ghana (2005) Y. Ankomah, J. Koomson, R. Bosu, with G. Oduro. This document reviews available Ghanaian generated literature that throws light on some quality issues in education and also draws on few literature from Europe and America and on research and analyses of quality education in other African countries. |
| Country Display Poster Poster to promote the work of the RPC |
