Improving School Leadership In Ghana

Friday July 31, 2009
By Felix Essah-Hienno

In Ghana, as in many countries across the globe, there are conscious efforts to adapt an educational system that responds to the needs of the contemporary society.

Some African countries have moved towards decentralization, making schools more autonomous in their decision making and holding them more accountable for their results.

The function of school leadership in Africa today is increasingly defined by a demanding set of roles which include financial and human resource management and leadership for learning.

Heads of educational institutions now have heavy workloads; many are reaching retirement, and it is getting harder to replace them.

More often than not, potential candidates hesitate to apply for the job because of overburdened roles, insufficient and inadequate support and rewards.

In Ghana, the increased responsibilities and accountability of school leadership are creating the need for the distribution of leadership within schools.

Policy makers need to broaden the concept of school leadership and adjust policy and working conditions accordingly.

The mass media and the citizenry at large do criticize school Headmasters/Headmistresses/Principals for poor learner performance and a lack of discipline in schools.

It is perhaps a truism that Heads of schools today must serve as leaders for student learning, must know academic content, pedagogic techniques, and work with teachers to strengthen skills.

They must collect, analyse and use data in ways that will fuel excellence. And they must rally learners, educators, parents and the community around the common goal of raising learner performance.

Also they must have leadership skills and knowledge to exercise the autonomy and authority to pursue these strategies.

We need to benchmark the following if we are to improve school leadership in Ghana.

i) Distribution of leadership – By encouraging and ensuring that distribution of leadership can strengthen management and succession planning.

This will better equip Assistant/Deputy Heads of educational institutions to take over from their superiors when they retire or otherwise.

Distributing leadership across different people, no doubt, can help to meet the challenges facing schools today and improve school effectiveness.

ii) Leadership teams – There is the need to support distribution of leadership by reinforcing the concept of leadership teams. Therefore, leadership training and development must be extended to school Heads, their deputies and potential future leaders in the school.

Perhaps school leadership is contemporary Ghana should address the following concerns:
* Instructional leadership – which should focus on strengthening teaching and learning, professional development, data-driven decision making and accountability.

* Community leadership – which should manifest awareness of the school’s role in society and which should be fuelled by shared leadership among educators, parents/guardians and students and advocacy for school capacity building and resources.

* Visionary leadership – that demonstrates energy, commitment and entrepreneurial spirit as well as inspiring others worth this vision both inside and outside the four walls of the school.

It needs to be stated however that salary for teachers and for that matter school administrators should be given the attention it deserves.

Many feel that the inputs made into the teaching profession are not commensurate with the salary that they take home.

Another area of concern which many people have grossed over is the lack of parent and community support.

This stems from the fact that fewer parents are actively involved in the academic development of their wards.

Lack of respect for the teaching profession is a source of worry.

Many look at the profession with scorn because many are those who use the profession as a stepping stone to getting into ‘juicier’ professions.

Again, the negative criticism school leadership receives at the hands of the media and the public at large, when issues of the schools come to the public domain are enough to deter people from wanting to take leadership positions in the schools.

There is also the need to change leadership and management styles in our schools.

The top-down management and leadership style, where management decisions only trickle down to the School Head at the bottom who have little power to influence policy must change.

The School Head needs to be more of an educational manager or instructional leader than an administrator.

The writer is Headmaster, Akwamuman Sec. School, Akosombo.

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