Leadrship style of my headteacherThis is a featured page

LEADERSHIP IN MY SCHOOL
by
Mashooque Ali Samo
Before coming to AKU – IED, I was working as a teacher in a private school in the Northern Areas for many years. In this reflective paper, I will present my reflection on my experiences of my headteacher’s leadership style, and then I will give some suggestions on the ways to change it to pedagogical leadership. Role /importance of leadership in school A headteacher has no doubt, very important role in the school because he/she is the person who initiates strategies to improve students’ learning outcomes and consequently, to improve schools. MacNeil, Cavanagh and Silcox (2003) endorse this by saying that “The effectiveness of schools in educating students is highly dependent upon the presence and nature of multi-level leadership within the individual school” (p.1). It shows the importance and necessity of leadership in the school because it is the leader who influences his/her group member to achieve the desired goals of the school as, Memon (2000) opines, “…the success of any major school improvement initiative depends on the motivation, commitment, managerial skills and competence of the headteachers and others involved in the management of school” (p.5). My Headteacher’s Leadership Style in the School Zafar (pseudonym) was my headteacher for the last fifteen years. When I was inducted as a teacher in the school, he was the first person whom I came across because he was working there on headship position. Since I, as anyone else in that school system was appointed from the central office, Zafar had nothing to do with my induction procedure. The only thing he had to do was to send my joining report to the central office. I found him sort of introvert type of person. After the morning assembly, he usually went to his class right directly from the assembly area. During the recess, he rarely came to the staffroom to have tea with other teachers. The only time, come to the staffroom was when there was a staff meeting. Zafar was the whole in-charge of the meetings. He himself was making the agenda for the meetings without sharing it with any of the teachers. During the meetings, he was listening to each of us, but his own ideas had high weight over the teachers. I very little knew what was going on in the school system because it was not shared with me. School and classroom related activities were going on the same pattern. There were routine activities. For me it seemed that all the teachers including the headteacher were working mechanically. The teachers usually had to wait for his orders to take any initiatives. He also was not that much independent to decide on his own but had to wait for any direction from the central office. He himself did not have much authority to take an initiative. There was top down bureaucratic hierarchy. Memon, Ali, Simkins and Garret (2000) also state that headteachers are not involved in decision-making and they do not get any recognition for any innovation. In the school, there was a small library in a specious room. Many books including storybooks for children and books on educational and other topics were there but there was not a systematic way of using it particularly for students, because it would remain closed mostly and the keys were with the headteacher. Whenever he needed something from the library, he would open it, otherwise it was closed. Teachers were also not using it frequently. One day other teachers and I suggested to the headteacher that there should be a library period for students along with their respective teachers and it could be managed through deducting five minutes from each period, so that students as well as teachers could get benefit from it but he rejected our suggestion on the ground that there would be some problems from the senior management. However, latter on I came to know that there was not such a strict rule regarding library period. Zafar’s relationship with parents, especially VEC☼ members who were supposed to bridge the gap between school and community, was not very good. He often had arguments with parents and I twice or thrice heard him saying, “Yea jahil log maray kam may mudakhilat kartay hain (These illiterate people are interfering in my affairs)”. There was a sort of “tug-of-war between the school and the wider community” (Safdar, 2005, p.185). He even was not happy with the role of VEC and he was quite often complaining against them in the central education office. His attitude towards the parents also changed parents and other community members’ attitude towards him in particular and the school in general. Once, on the occasion of result announcement ceremony, he invited parents, which was suggested by the teachers, but to his surprise, no body turned up. He again started blaming the parents that they were not cooperative and supportive. Some of the teachers said it was his fault, who was ignoring parents and not giving them importance. REFERENCE Memon, M. (2000). Preparing school leaders for the 21st century in Pakistan. Paper presented at the 13th International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement: Global Networking for Quality Education in Hong Kong, January 4 – 8 Memon, M., Ali, R. N., Simkins, T. &Garret, V. (2000). Understanding the headteachers’ role in Pakistan: emerging role demands, constraints and choices. International Studies in Educational Administration, 28(2), 48 – 56. MacNeil, N., Cavanagh, R. & Silcox, S. (2003). Beyond instructional leadership: Towards pedagogic leadership. Paper submitted for presentation at the annual conference for Australian Association for Research in Education, Auckland. Safdar, Q. (2005). Parents as partners in the learning community. In J.Retallick & I. Farah. (Eds), Transforming schools in Pakistan towards the learning community (pp.182 – 198). Karachi: Oxford University Press.

☼ Village Education Committee


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