INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP ROLE OF SCHOOL HEADS AND STUDENT ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN SELECTED PUBLIC SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS OF THE AHAFO REGION OF GHANA

CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTION1.1 Background to the StudyEvery school exists to enhance teaching and learning. There is no other role that schools perform that pre-eminent to this. What this implies is that the over-all role of school heads- headmasters, principals, etc. has one underlying function, namely, to ensure that teaching and leanring … See more

CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTION1.1 Background to the StudyEvery school exists to enhance teaching and learning. There is no other role that schools perform that pre-eminent to this. What this implies is that the over-all role of school heads- headmasters, principals, etc. has one underlying function, namely, to ensure that teaching and leanring becomes a top priority of their functions. Budgeting, scheduling meetings with staff and Parent-Teacher Associations, etc. are all in view of effective teaching and leanring of the school. It is for this that instructional leadership role of heads of schools constitute the quintessence of the role of school heads. Additionally, due to the problems that the Directorate of Inspections encounter, school heads have been mandated to ensure effective that instructional leadership roles within the schools. Many committees of education have discussed and made recommendations on upgrading and maintaining high standards of education. Additionally because of globalization and its consequent competition in terms of a globalized knowledge economy as opposed to production, there has been an increasing and ferocious competition in academic institutions to meet the fast-growing demands for human capital with high levels of scientific and technological skills. It is within this context that many countries globally continue to embark on extensive educational reforms. Similarly, government and other policy makers as well as the public tax payer continue to demand greater public accountability in schools subvented by the tax payer especially in terms of school accountability and assessment. The purpose of all these is to improve both academic and non-academic outcomes of schools and also to bridge the achievement gaps between disadvantaged and advantaged learners (Barber & Mourshed, 2007). Thus, many countries are embarking on extensive educational reform in the effort to enhance the performances of their schools that develop such vital human capital (Barber & Mourshed, 2007). Moreover, with the continuous education reform, government policymakers and the public are demanding greater public school accountability and assessment in the hope of improving academic and non-academic school outcomes, as well as decreasing the achievement gaps among the subpopulations of pupils (Heck & Moriyama, 2010). Thus, the interest of policy makers has focused sharply on performance of schools in such areas as examination results of students at either the West Africa School Certificate Examination or the Basic Education Certificate Examination. However, in recent years, school performance has taken on a wider interpretation: it includes value-based leanring, academic value-added physical as well as aesthetics and character development of students. To ensure that students outcomes are improved means that there is a paradigmatic shift in the education system that over the years in many countries including Ghana has focused on the traditional teacher-centred approach to teaching into a more student-centred approach. Researchers over the last decade have made significant progress in understanding how classrooms and schools can provide better quality instruction. Whether or not schools and classrooms can provide the much needed enabling environment to enhance teaching and leanring is also contingent upon how the school principal/head ‘s beliefs and practices of instructional leadership; how she/he applies the various dimensions of Instructional Leadership in her/his interactions and meetings with the academic and non-academic staff, learner's and parents. Thus Instructional Leadership actions such as the head of schools cultivating the habit to conduct frequent classroom observations of academic staff and students, ensuring that academic staff are punctual in class and continue to actively engages learners during instructors-student contact hours, etc. are directly related to teaching and enhances teaching and leanring. This was the conceptualisation of instructional leadership used in the 1980s and was normally applied within the context of small, poor urban elementary schools (Hallinger, 2003; Meyer & Macmillan, 2001).Another view of Instructional Leadership role has to do with all school leadership activities directly affecting student learning. They include the school culture, timetabling procedures- that is those aspects of leadership roles having impact on quality of curriculum and instruction to students. This conceptualisation acknowledges that principals as instructional leaders have a positive impact on pupils’ learning but this influence is mediated (Goldring & Greenfield, 2002; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2000; Southworth, 2002) School.The instructional leadership activities of the school head enables every school going child to reach his/her highest potentials. School heads as representing the Ghana Education Service (GES) among other have to develop developsupervisory techniques; executing techniques for enhancement; to keep up the school system; improving curriculum and library materials; evaluating students’ progress and time-tabling (Okumbe, 2003). Highlight of the instructional leadership role has been made by many stakeholders who are increasingly holding the school heads accountable for the results of their students (Zepda, 2003). Parents and the other stakeholders are more and more becoming conscious of the need for the schools to be accountable of the results of the learners they are teaching.Researchers have focused on variables relating to the school heads and their roles of instructional leadership. Some others have researched on instructional leadership activities and improvement of instructors’ class instruction. However, studies on this field have failed to bring in the variable of the learners achievement especially in the study area in which this study was conducted. Poor academic achievement of students raises concern as to whether instructional leadership role has positive influence on the learner's academic achievement. Yet it is important to establish how effective instructional leadership role implicates students’ academic performance in the study area due to the absence of such studies . . It is for this that this study investigates school heads’ instrustudents. leadership roles and its effect on the student’s academic achievement. 1.2 Statement of Problem Ineffective and poor inspections of instructors by the school heads has led to the poor learners’ academic performance in public senior high schools. Learner's in public senior high schools in Ahafo Region have been performing abysmally in the West Africa School Certificate Examinations. Poor academic achievement raises concerns as to whether school heads instructional leadership roles are effective in schools. Heads of schools are expected to provide effective supervision of instruction by motivating, stimulating and consulting with instructors to improve learners’ academic achievement. The Ministry of Education, through Ghana Education Service, in liaison with Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary School-Ghana (CHASS), do organize workshops and in-service training for school heads in order to equip them in their instructional leadership roles. With all these interventions in place, one would expect learners achievement in the Senior High Schools in the area to be better. Given the fact that some research studies have found that some school heads spent less than third of their time in inspection (Cooley & Shen 2003) and (Goodwin, Cunningham & Childress, 2003), it is significant to investigate how heads instructional leadership implicate students achievement in this area to contribute to the literature on Instructional Leadership. Additionally, Instructional leadership role within a school is expected to have achievement. However, very little is known about instructional supervision is influencing learners’ academic achievement in Ahafo Region. Research in this field has been done on roles and responsibilities of inspectors in schools by Sturge Krajewski, & Love (1979); role of school head in instructional leadership in public secondary school by Muoka (2007); role of school heads in instruction in public senior high schools by Baffour-Awuh(2011). Thus in many research on this topic, learners’ academic achievement was not considered and hence given the consistent poor performance of students. it was important to investigate the correlation between instructional leadership and learners achievement.

See less