ANALYSIS OF HEAD TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL ROLE IN RELATION TO QUALITY IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVES AT PRIMARY LEVEL

Abstract

Several policy initiatives have been put in place to address the issues of quality of education in primary schools of Sindh province. These initiatives included provision of free textbooks and scholarships to children, up gradation of physical facilities in schools, professional development of teachers, head teachers and educational managers for the improvement of teaching- learning situation; strengthening School Management Committees (SMCs) and providing professional support to schools. Despite these initiatives, the quality of teaching and learning in primary schools in terms of students’ achievement has not been claimed satisfactory. This paper attempts to find out the role of head teachers (HTs) in implementing and responding these initiatives and to underline issues and challenges in the implementation of school improvement initiatives. Data was collected from head teacher by using structured questionnaire. The major findings of the study suggested: Very limited number of HTs had attended any leadership training program prior to joining the position of headship. HTs spent their major fraction of their time for visiting district education office, very minor parentage of time was spent for monitoring and evaluation of teaching and learning activities. HTs get minimal support from Supervisor Primary Education (SPEs) in implementing ‘Quality Improvement Initiatives’. Regarding the issues, head teachers pointed out that there was lack of interest among community members about children education and there was low level of physical facilities in primary schools. This paper has suggested various policy measures to improve the quality of primary education with reference to role of head teachers.