Training of head teachers for effective leadership and management of schools

The focus of this study was to explore how head teachers are trained for effective leadership and management of schools. The study was situated in two training programmes existing in East Africa. The focus was mainly on how effective leadership is perceived and how training is organised to make head teachers effective. The data was collected through interviews specifically one to one interview and telephone interviews. I generally interviewed twelve participants to get diverse experiences and insights on head teachers training for effective leadership and management of schools. In addition the open ended questionnaires were used to get responses from other participant whom the situation did not allow to meet in face to face interview. Finally I analysed documents to confirm the information given through other methods for data validity and credibility. The major findings indicated that the perception of trainers on what it meant about effective leadership and management has great influence on training head teachers. Participants has different perspectives on effective leadership whereby in one hand some participants focused on input factors in which the head teacher ability to coordinate school programs is what makes school effective. In other hand others focused on output factors in which school outcome mainly good final examination results defined effective leadership and management. It further stated that there are core competencies that a training of head teachers needs to focus so as to equip them with strategic planning, reflective practices, and pedagogical skills, financial management skills, leadership styles, team building and monitoring and evaluation. Basing on these findings it was recommended that the trainers should train head teachers not only for developing individual leadership characteristics of the head teacher and for improving student achievement but should also focus on developing social competencies of their learners