The practices of school improvement program in government primary schools of gelan town

Abstract

Assessing the practices of school improvement program in primary schools is vital to draw lessons and suggests future actions. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to assess the current practice of school improvement program in all Government primary schools of Gelan town. To conduct this study, both quantitative and qualitative approaches of a descriptive Survey method was employed. All Government primary schools of Gelan town were included in this study. The total of 54 teacher,9 Department head,21 Parent teacher association members respondents were selected by using simple random sampling method, while 14 school improvement committee, 6 school principals and 2 supervisor’s respondents were selected purposively. Questionnaire, interviews, focus group discussion and document analysis were the data collection tools employed in this study. Data were analyzed and interpreted using both quantitative and qualitative data analysis method were employed in order to reach to the results. Data obtained through questionnaire were analyzed and summarized using statistical tools. The qualitative data were analyzed by narrating the responses of the respondents. The findings of the study showed that most of activities across the domains except leadership and management domain the other three were implemented at moderate level, Furthermore, the practice of school improvement program was low due to various hindering factors like lack of self- assessment of schools before preparing school improvement program plan and developing the plan without involving all stakeholders, lack of training, lack of leadership skill, lack of commitment of principals and school improvement committee members and lack of accountability on the part of principals and school improvement committee members. From the result of the findings, it was concluded that there was lack of stakeholder awareness on school improvement program implementation; low commitments of the stakeholders and collaborative approaches among all key stakeholders which resulted that the school improvement program with its four domains in the study area was not implemented as indicated in the school improvement program framework. Finally, It was recommended that these problems might be minimized by strengthening school community relation; by giving training that enhance stakeholders awareness, develop good communication network with parents, develop good stakeholders relation, Schools should develop school improvement program plan after conducting effective self-evaluation to identify their strength and weaknesses. Moreover, suggestions were forwarded to the challenges that hinder proper implementation of school improvement program