Instructional Leadership Capacity of Secondary School Science Heads of Department in Gauteng, South Africa

Natural sciences (NS) is an amalgam of five science disciplines, but the teachers of this subject are usually generalists, or have specialised in a maximum of two of the disciplines. This poses a major challenge to heads of department (HoDs), who are expected to lead instruction in these disciplines. We investigate science HoDs’ capacity to provide instructional leadership in South African secondary schools. The study was quantitative in nature and adopted the survey design. The investigation involved 77 secondary schools out of the 243 schools in the Gauteng province of South Africa. A data set from 142 participants (HoDs = 30; teachers = 112) was used to explore the capacity of science HoDs to provide instructional leadership in secondary schools, using questionnaires. The findings suggest that the capacity of science HoDs to lead instruction is limited by their inability to differentiate between curriculum management and instructional leadership and the relatively insufficient time allocated to provide instructional leadership. Unless schools and local district offices review the grouping of subjects in science departments and in the allocation of natural science teachers and HoDs, much stronger subject-based instructional leadership may potentially continue to remain a mirage. We recommend more focused subject-specific training in natural sciences for both teachers and HoDs, and that leadership should be distributed along science disciplines.

Instructional Leadership Practices of Principals at Public Elementary Schools in Indonesia

For more than thirty years, instructional leadership has been considered an effective school leadership model for improving student achievement. This study aimed to investigate the instructional leadership practices of Indonesian school principals and the obstacles that they face. In this study, the data were collected through semi-structured interviews with three principals of public elementary schools located in Bandung. An audit trail and member checks were applied to ensure the quality of the collected data. The results showed that the three principals shared the instructional leadership role, particularly in performing supervision responsibilities. Despite this practice, the principals found it difficult to perform instructional leadership due to time contraints. Also, they lacked support from student parents, which made it difficult to improve student achievement. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that the instructional leadership of principals should involve parents more in student learning. Keywords: school principal, principals’ leadership, instructional leadership

Intension, Current Implementation and Improvement Path of Instructional Leadership: A school Case of Hong Kong

This paper aims to analyze the implementation status of instructional leadership of a HK primary school that benefits in mid-ranking and mainly uses instructional leadership to develop their curriculums. Instructional leadership is the result of introducing leadership concepts into the teaching field, and it reflects the changing trend of school management to a certain extent. At present, the research on instructional leadership is limited to the principal's leadership, which limits the overall function of instructional leadership. By investigating the actuality of school and the implementation of school policies and programs, the paper deeply analyzes the existed problems in a Hong Kong school and offers optimization suggestions: strengthen the school distributive leadership construction, promote the professional development of teachers and curriculums, establish a diversified evaluation system, develop an organizational culture of democratic cooperation and improve the curriculum leadership of principals.

Relationship between the Adherence to National Competency-Based Standards and the Professional Profile of School Heads in Northern Samar, Philippines

A descriptive study sought to determine the school heads’ adherence to the national competency-based standards and its relationship to the professional profile of the school heads in the Division of Northern Samar was done. This study used the descriptive-correlational research design which the questionnaire was patterned from studies on leadership and National Competency-Based Standards for School Heads (NCBS-SH) TDNA tool. Elementary schools were proportionally sampled by district/municipality while secondary schools were proportionally sampled by legislative districts of the province of Northern Samar. The respondents answered a survey questionnaire developed from the standards of Department of Education. This study found out that most of the school heads have earned master’s degree, are principal’s test passers, had more than 10 years of administrative and supervisory experience and had limited number of exposures to trainings. All the indicators of leadership skills were very highly observed. On the test of relationship between the professional profile of the school heads and their adherence to National Competency-Based Standards, administrative and supervisory experience and NCBS-SH domains on school leadership, instructional leadership, HR management and professional development were found to be significantly correlated. Also, administrative, and supervisory trainings attended and NCBS-SH domains on school leadership, instructional leadership, HR management and professional development were found to be significantly correlated. Respondents’ leadership skills and NCBS-SH domains, leadership skills have significant correlation to all the NCBS-SH domains. From the test of relationship between the professional profile of the school heads and the school performance, only eligibility and administrative and supervisory experience are significantly correlated to SBM level of practice. The test of relationships between school heads’ adherence to national competency-based standards and school performance, the school leadership is significantly correlated to SBM level of practice.

Relation of principal instructional leadership, school climate, teacher job performance and student achievement

PurposeWe study the role of school climate, and teacher task, and citizenship performance in mediating the effects of principal instructional leadership behavior on student achievement.Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling was applied to data obtained from 302 Indian secondary schools to test a mediated-effects model.FindingsSchool climate was examined under two broad dimensions, the social and affective and the physical environment. Results of mediation analysis showed that the benefits of principal instructional leadership for student achievement are operationalized as an indirect effect. This indirect effect is realized primarily through the physical environment, and the in-role task performance of teachers. No significant contribution to the indirect effect through the social and affective environment was found. The latter, nonetheless, fully mediated the relationship between the instructional leadership and extra-role or citizenship behavior of teachers. These findings underscore the different and distinct mediating roles played by the social and affective, and physical dimensions of the school climate in our model.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, the reported associations between principal instructional leadership, school climate and student achievement that take into account both the in-role and extra-role job performance of teachers within the purview of a single framework are new. Also, this is the first study exploring these relations in an Indian context.

Study of Instructional Management and Institutional Effectiveness in Relation to Age and Experience of School Principals

The present investigation intends to assess instructional management and institutional effectiveness concerning the age and experience of school principals. The sample comprised twenty schools of Jalandhar and Kapurthala. The researchers used Hallinger’s Instructional Management Rating Scale and a self-prepared Institutional Effectiveness Rating Scale for the investigation. The result of the study reveals that in schools with younger principals, teachers exhibit better behaviour on coordinating the curriculum, protecting instruction time and developing academic standards of instructional management than teachers in schools with older principals. In schools with more experienced principals, teachers exhibit better behaviour concerning instructional management on co-ordinating the curriculum, protecting instruction time, providing incentives for teachers, protecting professional development, developing academic standards, and providing instructions for learning than the teachers in schools with less experience. In schools with older and more experienced principals, teachers exhibit better behaviour on supervising and evaluating instruction dimension of instructional leadership than the teachers in schools with older and less experience, younger and more experienced and younger and less experienced principals. There is no significant difference in the institutional effectiveness of schools with young and old aged principals. There is no significant difference in institutional effectiveness of schools with more and less experienced principals.