Instructional leadership roles of school heads in public senior high schools in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region of Ghana

Abstract

The overall performance of senior high schools in Ghana has been of grave concern to all stakeholders in education. Several reasons for this downward trend have been proffered but perhaps without getting to the bottom of the problem. Poor student achievement in the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in most schools, is experienced every year. The purpose of the study was to examine and explore the instructional leadership roles of the senior high school headmasters towards quality school improvement in Ghanaian schools with specific reference to Wa Municipality. The research methodology that was employed was the qualitative design drawing from case and ethnographic studies to collect data from the participants. A total of ten senior high schools, their heads, and fifty teachers from the same selected schools took part in the study. The research instruments that were used included qualitative document analysis, interviews and qualitative observations. The results indicate that for effective instructional leadership that improve quality of schools, heads needed to exercise both instructional and managerial roles effectively. However, the findings of the study indicated that heads tended to concentrate on managerial roles and performed instructional roles indirectly although these have a direct focus on quality school improvement. As a result, teachers in the study lacked motivation and greatly missed opportunities to be assisted by the headmasters which would translate to teacher growth and development and ultimately, school improvement. Heads attributed their failure to perform instructional tasks to lack of appropriate interventions to improve their leadership roles, too many meetings and too much paper work which they felt needed to be reduced so that they could be able to focus on instructional leadership tasks.