The study on effective implementation of school leadership improvement program in selected schools of Lusaka district.

Abstract

School leadership, as the name itself suggests is managing the ability, competency and power of employees within an Organisation. This is a study on the implementation of School Leadership Improvement program in some selected schools in Lusaka district. This dissertation benefited in data collection from a project which was being implemented by the British Council on the provision of School Leadership Course for school management teams. The project was premised on equipping targeted recipients with School Leadership knowledge, skills and values. However, the study focused more on the effective implementation of school leadership improvement program in selected schools in Lusaka. The purpose of this study was: to investigate the effective implementation of school leadership course in selected schools in Lusaka district. This study was qualitative in nature and employed a narrative research design . The study involved selected public schools including Highland Secondary, Munali Boys Secondary, New Mtendere School and Hillside Primary Schools. Participants being the head teachers, deputy head teacher, head of departments and senior teachers from these schools also Senior Standards Officers in charge of Teacher Education at Lusaka Provincial Education Office as the main respondents. The data was collected using semi- structured questionnaires, interviews and document review. The analysis consisted analysing content themes called thematic analysis. In the findings, it was noted that all participating schools received the training materials despite some receiving them. School leadership course was found to be effectively implemented in schools. It was discovered that monitoring and evaluation of school leadership course was uncoordinated in some ways due to lack of effective monitoring by the monitoring team. The study reveals that effective implementation of school leadership improvement program has impacted some school leaders to be able to start raising funds beyond school levies, schools are able to budget in collaboration with their communities. The study recommended the continued School Leadership Improvement program to more school leaders. It was also recommended that Ministry of General Education should get involved in the monitoring and evaluation of the trained school management teams to ascertain the impact on the effectiveness of the implementation of school leadership programme.