The Practice of Instructional Leadership in Primary Schools in Mizan– Aman Town Administration

Abstract

The objective this study was to assess the practices of Instructional Leadership in Primary Schools of Mizan–Aman Town Administration. To achieve this objective, descriptive research design was employed. With regard to method, the study employed both qualitative and quantitative. Sources of data were also both primary and secondary. The primary sources were School principals, teachers, primary school supervisors and members PSTA and KETB) whereas secondary data were collected from official reports, organizational archives, policy documents, school development packages and training manuals, official rules and regulations, and organizational minutes. Population of the study comprised 28 government primary schools principals, 5 education officers, 3 primary school supervisors, 42 department heads, 49 PSTA members and 96 KETB members. Seven (58%) primary schools were chosen using lottery method of simple random sampling technique. Similarly, 64 (32.8%) teachers were selected by using lottery method of simple random sampling technique. Three (100%) supervisors were included by comprehensive sampling technique whereas 7 (100%) school principals were considered through purposive sampling technique. Two (40%) educational officers were also purposely selected through lottery method of simple random sampling technique. Thirty two (76%) department heads were taken using census sampling although there had been schools where some departments did not have heads. Questionnaire, interview, FGD and document review were used to generate both quantitative and qualitative data. The data collected were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and t-test. Based on the analysis of the data, it was found that the practice of instructional leadership, generally, was weak. The results showed that school leaders were not in a position to properly play such instructional leadership roles as decision making, conflict or disturbance handling, monitoring or negotiator roles. That is,instructional leadership was found not to be properly practised and fully implemented in this regard.”It was, however, found that instructional leaders conduct classroom visits, provide support for teachers and that they, to the extent possible, devoted to ensure the instruction is of quality. The results also showed that poor motivation, lack of instructional leadership skill, low awareness and weak readiness were among the major challenges of instructional leadership with clear negative implication on the practice of instruvtional leadership. Sharing of responsibility, provision of adequate resources, capacity building, continous and close supervisory support could be among strategies to use to improve the practice of instructional leadership. Based on the findings, it was concluded that instructional leadership, generally, was poorly practised in primary schools of Mizan-Aman Twon Administration. Moreover, it could also be concluded that, as there was a clear gap as the findings indicated, prmary schol leaders did not fully implement instructional leadership. Furthermore, the conclusion could be that the practice of instructional leadership is entangled with different kinds of challenges like failure to provide prompt constructive feedback, lack of support and many more. In view the findings and the conclusions, it was suggested that creation of awareness through workshops, short term trainings, seminars, etc. on basic activities and principles of instructional leadership for insructional leaders, generation of adequate resources for the proper implementation of instructional leadership, provision of incentives for instructional leaders, arranging experience sharing visits to other schools that are believed to somehow perform better, organizing capacity building traingins to instructional leaders are among the possible ways to address the problems and improve the practice of instructional leadership in primary schools of Mizan-Aman Town Administration. It is also recommended that further studie be conducted in a comprehnsive way regardless of the level.