Perceptions and practices of Assistant Sub-Divisional Education Officer about their role in improving teaching learning : An exploratory study from Chitral, Khyber Pakhtunkhhwa

The 18th Constitutional Amendment has also played important role in devolution plan to divide the education to the provinces. In this backdrop, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has undertaken major education reform initiative for improving overall governance, infrastructure and teaching, learning and management processes. One such initiative is the recruitment of Assistant Sub-Divisional Education Officers (ASDEOs) for a particular jurisdiction called circle office with a responsibility of turning schools around by working with/in schools for 15 days of every month while the remaining 15 days are dedicated to their circle office work. At school they are expected to carry out teacher observation, students’ assessment, observation of management and leadership, giving feedback to teachers and reporting the results to the education department. The present qualitative case study research examined the perceptions and practices of two ASDEOs (one male and female) working in a circle office of Chitral about their role in improving classroom teaching and learning. The Participants were selected through purposive sampling strategy. Data collection methods included interviews, document analysis and shadowing. Following the case study approach, the two cases i.e. perceptions and practices of the two ASDEOs were analyzed and presented separately followed by a cross-case analysis.The study has found that both the participants played important role as the motivator of parents, teacher and students. Their improvement related efforts focused on building teachers’ professional capacity and also acting as classroom or academic leaders in schools. The study revealed that both the participants strived to implement policy related initiatives at the schools. The study also explored differences in views and strategies of participants. For example working towards gender equity was particularly focused by female participants. Similarly, Male participant considered use of technology waste of time but the female participant considered technology helpful in reducing workload and wastage of time. Both used personal feedback to the teachers as an important strategy. However, for this communication the female participants used teachers’ personal diaries while the male participant used oral feedback. He also considered teachers’ interest more important than professional development towards change in schools, while the female participant considered both important for school improvement. The study found that absence of transport facility, heavy workload, teachers’ poor capacity and lack of authority to take independent measures limited their efforts towards improving teaching learning processes in the schools of their respective circle office. Considering the importance of ASDEOs in reform implementation at school level, the study recommends the respective education department to provide adequate space, authority and facilities, so that innovative and creative ideas can be materialized