Perspectives of Ghanaian headteachers on their role and professional development: The case of KEEA district primary schools

Abstract

School effectiveness and improvement research has increasingly accepted that the success of a school is to a large extent influenced by the manner in which a headteacher perceives and performs his/her work in the school. Consequently, what school leaders do and how they are prepared for their work have, in recent times, become crucial. This study sought to explore, through an interpretive approach, how primary school headteachers within one district of Ghana - the Komenda-EguafoEdina- Agona-Abrem (KEEA) district, perceive their role as heads and their professional development. The study, which was based on semi-structured interviews, observation and focus group discussion, suggests that tradition, culture and the political geography of Ghana are crucial factors in understanding what primary school headteachers in the KEEA district do and how they conceptualise headship. Headteachers' understanding of headship is skewed towards the exercise of 'power and authority'. The country's urban-rural dichotomies are characterised by teacher shortages and female headteacher under-representation in rural schools; thereby causing rural headteachers to lead the school and at the same time manage a full-time teaching load. These are compounded by frequent interactions with visitors, attending to incidents in school, collecting fees and keeping financial records and, in some cases, inspecting building projects, which meant pupils being left on their own in the classroom while the head attended to other matters. It is further suggested that the range and complexity of the tasks undertaken by the headteachers and how they construed their visions are to a large extent shaped by expectations which significant others (the Ministry of Education, the School Management Committees, parents, the local community, teachers and pupils) hold of them. Coping with the challenges posed by public demands requires that headteachers develop the appropriate 'competences' and 'competencies'. Yet the data suggest that the headteachers, among other things, lacked competence in managing people, managing time and keeping financial records confidently. This implies a need not simply for more careful selection but for a more sophisticated approach to recruitment and sustained professional development of headteachers in the district. Two major questions emerge from my study, which require further investigation: (i). To what extent does the under-representation of female headteachers affect the attitude of girls towards learning in rural schools, (ii). To what extent does the indigenous language influence the understanding of contemporary school leadership issues among headteachers in Ghana?