Training and Professional Development Needs for Effective Secondary School Management in Nachingwea District

This study was conducted to investigate the training and professional development needs for effective secondary school management in Nachingwea district. The specific objectives of the study were; to determine the training and professional development needs for heads of schools, to examine the training and professional development skills given to secondary school administrators and to determine the difference in training and professional development needs between non-degree and degree holding heads of school. Triangulation approach on questionnaire and interview was employed, the data was collected from 40 heads of schools that were selected purposively by virtue of their position and analysed in quantitative and qualitative way. The findings indicate that 93.7% of the respondents mentioned that training and professional development for effectiveness of their roles are highly needed by both heads and deputy heads of school. Only 6.3% of the deputy and heads of secondary schools did not need further training out of the skills questioned. In training skills given to heads and deputy heads of school, the data shows that, only 19.03% of the skills tested are given in training program and the remaining 80.96% was not given to heads and deputy heads of secondary schools, lastly the findings show a slightly difference on training needs of 3.9% (67.2 by 63.3)between non degree and degree holding heads of secondary schools. Conclusively, recently most of the secondary schools are managed ineffectively as school heads lack appropriate skills on school management hence causing poor academic performance of the students. It is recommended that the ministry of education and other educational stakeholders should conduct continuous training and professional development programs for school administrators