Role of school leaders in enhancing female Students’ academic achievement in secondary Schools of iluababor zone

Abstract

The principal has the pivotal role of providing the leadership for the school and its wider community. It is therefore important that the performance of a school is appraised against the performance of the person who leads it. The objectives of the study were to examine the school leadership support in promoting female student’s education in Secondary Sc hools of IluAbabor Zone. The study was guided by the systems theory of organizations which postulates that schools are like open systems and emphasizes the consideration of the relationships between the school and its environment as well as what goes on within the school. The study used descriptive survey research design. The study sample composed of 10 schools out of 43 Public secondary schools in the IluAbabor Zone. Each school yielded 3 students and 14 teachers selected through systematic sampling plus the principal purposively selected giving a total of 180 respondents. The researcher collected data using questionnaires. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results were presented in summary form using frequency distribution tables. The study established that there was an association between the school’s performance and its school leader’s instructional management practices. Findings also revealed that school leaders used several approaches in supervising the implementation of instructional practices. Most school leaders involved their deputies, and teachers in decision making. Schools faced challenges that include inadequate trained teachers and learning/ teaching materials, inadequate science laboratories and lack of time to check on the teachers’ and students’ work by school leaders. Study recommends that the ministry of education provide more learning materials and facilities like science laboratories and libraries. The Teachers Service Commission should deploy/ employ more teachers to the schools with understaffing in order to relieve the current teacher of the work load and ensure timely syllabus coverage as this will significantly impact to female students’ achievement. School leaders should delegate mores duties to their deputies and teachers in order to save time to assess both the students’ and teachers’ commitment to their work. Further research should be conducted to identify the major contributing factors in secondary school performance for schools in IluAbabor Zone.