eCommons@AKU

Book Chapters

February 2006

Effective school leadership: Can it lead to quality

education?
Jan-e-Alam Khaki
Aga Khan University, Institute for Educational Development, Karachi

Follow this and additional works at: http://ecommons.aku.edu/book_chapters

Part of the Educational Administration and Supervision Commons, and the Elementary
Education and Teaching Commons

Recommended Citation
Khaki, J. (2006). Effective school leadership: Can it lead to quality education?. Quality in education: Teaching and leadership in
challenging times, 1, 206-217.
Available at: http://ecommons.aku.edu/book_chapters/57
 Effective School Leadership: Can it Lead to
Quality Education?
Jan-e-Alam Khaki, AKU-IED, Pakistan

Abstract
This paper examines the role of effective leaders in bringing about quality in
teaching and learning in schools. It is based on my doctoral empirical research
undertaken during 2000-2005 under the auspices of the University of Toronto’s
Ontario Institute of Studies in Education (OISE/UT), Canada. My study explores
the roles, beliefs and behaviors of three reputationally effective secondary school
headteachers in Karachi, Pakistan, in three types of schools – government,
community and independent, assuming that contextual factors will influence the
nature of leadership.

The findings reveal that all three heads’ beliefs and practices show similarity in a
vision of providing quality education, balanced between Islamic teachings and
values, and modern, secular content and skills. As managers and leaders, the
heads focused on building an environment conducive to better teaching and
learning, enabling teacher development, and fostering productive relations within
and outside their schools. They differed, however, in their rationale, strategies and
application of these strategies, due largely to differences in their personal histories,
specific beliefs and values, and organizational settings.

Introduction
The importance of the role of headteachers in making schools better for teaching
and learning has been fairly established by a wide array of studies all over the
world. “Scratch the surface of an excellent school”, say Leithwood and Riehl
(2003), “and you are likely to find an excellent principal. Peer into a failing
school, and you will find weak leadership” (p. 1). Reviewing the leadership
literature, Barth (1990) sums up his conclusions in the dictum, “Show me a good
school, and I’ll show you a good principal” (p. 64).

Though scant, yet the school improvement literature in the developing world also
suggests that the role of heads is significant in improving schools (Abdulalishoev,
2000; Bacchus, 2001; Simkins, T. Garrett, V. Memon, M,. & Nazirali, R., 1998;
Memon, 2000; Halai, 2002; Shafa, 2003; Wheeler et al. 2001; Yusufi, 1998).
Shafa’s 2003 study in the context of developing countries (such as Pakistan)

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argues that efforts to bring about a change in teaching practice are often stalled
by a “lack of appreciation and commitment from the headteachers” (p. 14). My
own experience of school improvement efforts at the Aga Khan University’s
Institute for Educational Development

(AKU-IED), supports the evidence that the role of school heads is important for
any meaningful school improvement (Simkins, T., Charles, S., Memon, M., &
Khaki, J. A., 2001).

This study is a step towards the direction of providing further insights to

developing theories about headteachers’ practices. This is critical because
theories of leadership or models drawn from the industrialized societies cannot
be automatically applied in developing countries, because of inherent differences
in many factors, such as school management, administration practices,
ideologies, curriculum orientations, and so on. Many of the researchers from the
West warn against generalizing their findings to the contexts of the developing
world (Bajunid, 1994; Berrel & Gloet, 1999; Chapman, 2002; Duke, 1991; Sapre,
2000).

My study, therefore, is an attempt to fill this gap by looking at school leadership

in developing countries to help construct a robust knowledge-base, which would
be utilized to improve both practices and policies regarding school leadership.

Methodology of the Study

This paper studied three head teachers from public, community and independent
secondary schools in Karachi, who were reputed to be effective in the public’s
eye. The rationale was to gain deeper insights about the nature of these heads’
roles; their beliefs and behaviors; as well as the factors that influence them. In
order to explore these dimensions, multiple data sources were used, including
interviews, observations and relevant documents. Three weeks were intensively
spent with each school’s head, as well as interacting with the school staff during
the school year. Various occasions and events of the school life were also
attended in order to obtain further data from multiple observations.

The study explored the headteachers’ behaviors in their actual settings by

observation, interviews and gathering data from other individuals, such as fellow
teachers, students, parents, and school governing members. Individuals, like
these heads, can hardly be studied without looking at their relationship with
those who work with them. The study therefore, attempted not only to
understand the heads, but also some of the “significant others” (teachers,

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students and officials). Data was also gathered from other sources, including
school records, heads’ reflective journals, and other documents, which provided
insights about the beliefs and behaviors of the heads under study.

Before discussing the findings, a brief description is given of the heads and their
schools, in order to provide a sense of context.

Research Participants and the Context

The study selected one school head, named in the study as Naz Sahib, from a
government secondary school. The school had a population of around 490
students and around 35 teachers. Naz Sahib had served this school for three
years at the start of the study. This was his first tenure as a secondary school
head. His career spanned over three decades serving different schools and
different positions. He was also serving as an Assistant Sub Divisional Education
Officer (SDEO), in the Department of Education. Being an SDEO, he looks after
around 80 primary schools, as the chief of several supervisors in a single school
district in Karachi. He had been appointed by the Education Department in the
school, as he was seen as a “tough person” to handle the socio-political issues of
the area within which the school is situated. The staff reported that the said is
regarded as a “top” school in the Karachi Central District.

The other headteacher, named in the study as “Fatima Apa”, served an English
medium community school, comprising of three major branches of schools,
having around 1680 students and 108 teachers altogether. The school is part of a
larger chain of schools run by the community. When the study was started with
her, she was promoted to become the head of the entire school network, having
previously served in the Boys’ Branch for around 10 years as its founder-head.

The third research participant is named “Khadija Apa”, serving what is described
as a “New Age School”. The name of the school represents the spirit of the
school which is meant for the coming generations. Khadija Apa comes from a
military and religious background (her father served in the Pakistan army). She
studied medicine and worked as a doctor for some time overseas. Due to some
critical incident, Khadija Apa’s family decided to come back to Pakistan and
establish a school to teach “Islamic values”. In 1990, she established her own
“value-based school”, the New Age School, with the vision of providing “quality
education through academic excellence based on values resulting in leadership
qualities” by creating “a happy place to learn”.

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Thus, the research participants came from different backgrounds in terms of
their family, schooling, and training. Their schools also differed largely in terms
of student intake, their orientation and emphasis in their curriculum.

We now move on to the findings and their analysis, in terms of what was
common and what was different among the three heads. The thematic analysis
has led to the categorization of the findings under five major headings which are
briefly discussed below.

Key Findings and Discussion

In the beginning of the study, the question was raised: What are the prevailing
roles, beliefs and behaviors of effective headteachers in government and private
urban secondary schools in Karachi, Pakistan? This question assumed that
successful and effective head teachers play roles in entertaining beliefs and
exhibiting behaviors that tend to make them “different” from many a “typical”
head teacher. This assumption led to two more questions: What are the socio-
cultural factors that inform and/or influence heads’ beliefs and behaviors? How
do the key stakeholders (e.g., students, teachers, parents and school-related
district officials/governors) view effective headteachers?

To investigate these questions, the study explored the beliefs and behaviors of
three reputedly “effective” heads in Karachi in three types of schools (public,
community and independent). The three heads for the study were selected on the
basis of their reputed “effectiveness”, generally because their schools achieved
high pass rates in the Matriculation Board and O levels exams, and the already
mentioned fact that the said heads were reputed to be highly “effective” by
various stakeholders.

The findings regarding the three heads’ roles, beliefs, behaviors, and influencing
factors in the three different types of schools in Pakistan, reflect many
commonalties and individualities. The comparative analysis of the data led to
five key findings about the roles, beliefs and behaviors that the three heads have
in common:

1. Having a passionate vision to develop their schools;

2. Making efforts to balance religious and secular education, leading to a

prophetic professional role;

3. Developing their schools as conducive places for teaching and learning;

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4. Developing teachers as part of school development and delegating
responsibilities to them to help encourage leadership; and

5. Fostering collaborative relations within and productive relations outside their

schools.

These five major areas of effectiveness are briefly explained below:

A Passionate Vision to Develop Schools

All three heads – Naz Sahib, Fatima Apa and Khadija Apa – have some common
and some differing visions for their schools.

All three heads’ visions focus on developing students as moral beings while
providing them with good secular education, through building their schools as
enabling places of teaching and learning, and achieving success by creating
teacher leadership. However, they differ in their rationale, strategies and aims
for achieving their visions.

Naz Sahib has a vision of learning that makes sure his students develop morally
and achieve a high pass rate in the Board exams, creating many successors and
improving his school’s conditions. He has focused on these priorities since he
joined Gharibnawaz School. He has a relatively stronger sense of performance-
efficacy than his peer public school heads, believing that he can make a
difference in his students’ lives. He thinks that all his students should and can
succeed and go to the next stage of their education. He also emphasizes
character building by providing many extra-curricular and curricular activities,
meant to engender Islamic religio-moral qualities. He also struggles to make a
difference by improving the school environment physically and socially so that
teachers can teach and students can learn in a proper atmosphere.

Fatima Apa’s vision centers on her belief in creating, in her words, a “leader-
full” school, and her desire to develop students faithful to their “Jamat” yet
capable of living in the modern world with skills such as English language,
critical thinking and computer literacy. She is optimistic that she would be able
to achieve her vision within a couple of years through her teacher-education
programs within and outside the school. Fatima Apa is struggling on two fronts:
First, she is trying to develop teacher leadership by giving the teachers her
personal encouragement, appreciating their work and providing leadership
opportunities; secondly, she struggles to convince the Board to raise the
compensation package for teachers in order to retain the good teachers who
otherwise would leave due to monetary dissatisfaction.

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Khadija Apa’s main vision rotates around the axis of Islamic-values-based
education, coupled with the best possible secular education. She shares a strong
desire with the other two heads, making sure her students achieve a very high
pass rate in the final (O level) exams. Moreover, her vision is to develop students
in such a way that they make a difference in the world. Her vision for her school
is to develop it as a highly competitive organization underpinned by the religio-
moral values, trying to balance the sacred and secular.

Balance Between Religious and Secular Education

All three heads are committed to providing a balanced and integrated religious
and secular education, which the government and their stakeholders also expect.
In actual practice, this means that all three schools emphasize moral and
religious education besides secular subjects like Science and Math. All three
heads encourage Islamic values and character building through curriculum as
well as extra-curricular activities, though they relate to these values in different
ways and to different degrees. These religious values include belief in one God,
in God’s communication to human beings through the channel of prophecy, in
the Divine Books, in equality of humanity, in balance between reason and faith,
in respect for human dignity, in moral virtues like respect for teachers and
parents, in the Day of Judgment, and in the importance of prayer. These
general, key concepts are explicitly or implicitly repeated in the curricular, extra-
curricular and informal experiences, which all these secondary schools provide to
their students. These values are explicitly emphasized in assemblies, Islamiat
courses and texts, and heads’ addresses given in their ceremonial capacities.

Fatima Apa is mindful of her community’s values and traditions; she attempts to
integrate and balance the community’s traditions, general Islamic education and
at another level, secular education. This integration takes place at two levels:
curricular and the extra curricular. A substantial chunk of curricular lessons
involve Islamic concepts, and examples, which are supplemented through extra-
curricular experiences like celebrations of community’s sacred historic
personalities, festivals, and prayers. Khadija Apa’s vision is particularly
underlined by her desire to impart religious values and the purpose of life to her
students and stakeholders. She does this by trying to create a balance between
Islamic teachings and modern, Western secular subjects like computer skills,
critical thinking and English language skills.

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Developing Schools as Conducive Places for Teaching and
Learning
Although their school contexts differ in their school structures and cultures, all
three heads focus on creating enabling environments for better teaching and
learning. Naz Sahib, despite limited resources, struggles to provide a decent
environment for his teachers and students by providing basic physical facilities.

On the other hand, many public and private school heads would envy the
resources that both Fatima Apa’s and Khadija Apa’s schools provide, with their
modern computers, libraries and other well-structured facilities. These heads
focus on maintaining, upgrading and adjusting their facilities as new needs arise
and as their priorities change with time.

Fatima Apa’s Board primarily ensures structural adjustments like maintaining

the buildings, but she looks after the existing facilities, adjusting them to her
teachers’ and students’ needs. She also adds or builds on the existing facilities;
for instance, adding teaching material in the classrooms, buying audio-visual
materials, adding curricular materials, restructuring her office or re-designing
spaces like the Social Area.

Khadija Apa has to think about the whole structure of buildings, facilities and
resources as the owner of the school. She has a custom-made school building and
keeps on adding or improving facilities, for example, building or expanding
library facilities or computer rooms.

Though differing in emphasis, all three heads focus their attention on their
schools’ environments in order to ensure that their schools are safe and socially
conducive places for teaching and learning.

These measures tend to add to the attraction and reputation of their schools.

Developing Teachers and Delegating Responsibilities

Teacher development to encourage teacher leadership is common to all three
heads, though with different aims and priorities. Fatima Apa and Khadija Apa
have more or less the same goal: to develop teachers professionally, as part of
their organizational philosophy; they equate teacher development with school
development.

Both encourage teachers to engage in inside- and outside-school professional

development, for which they provide support by giving them leaves or letting

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them use their school time to attend courses. Both heads themselves also attend
professional development programs in order to develop themselves, as well as to
provide an example for their teachers.

Naz Sahib faces a different situation: his District Office selects teachers for
professional development courses. As a result, he focuses on teacher
development through assigning school responsibilities within the school through
committees to create what he calls his “successors”. He argues that he wishes to
develop teachers in such a way that even if he were to be removed from the
school, his school improvement efforts would not be undone and that no vacuum
would be created in his school after his departure.

All three heads delegate various levels of responsibilities to their teachers for
different purposes. While Naz Sahib delegates partly to create his successors,
and partly to help the school run smoothly, particularly in his absence.

Fatima Apa and Khadija Apa delegate because they need support to manage
their large schools, and also because they want to develop their teachers’
leadership abilities. Fatima Apa wants to create a “leader-full” school.

Khadija Apa wants her teachers to provide an example of Islamic values and to
simultaneously provide quality education. The essence of all the three heads’
intention is to develop their teachers in making their schools as effective as
possible.

Fostering Relations Within and Outside School

All three heads share the idea of building relations inside and outside the school,
but their methods differ. They try to develop collegial and collaborative
relationships among their staff by appointing committees, groups and teams for
different purposes. Naz Sahib has constituted many committees like the
Discipline Committee and the Literary Committee.

These work informally and usually meet when the need arises. Fatima Apa and
Khadija Apa also appoint committees and societies to work, but on an ongoing
basis and not just sporadically as in Naz Sahib’s case. Their committees work
mostly on curricular, pedagogical and other extra-curricular activities to design
and implement changes.

In all three schools, teachers have varying levels of collegiality and collaboration.
While Khadija Apa’s school leads in this respect; Fatima Apa falls in the middle,
and Naz Sahib at the other end of the spectrum. These variances stem largely

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from the nature of the curricular approaches and the pedagogical perspectives
adopted for implementing the curriculum.

All in all, the findings show that the heads focus on five key areas: vision
building, teacher development, providing an enabling school environment and
emphasis on relations building; along with a balanced education both inside and
outside school.

These are the major key areas these heads focus on. They have some common
strategies for fulfilling these objectives, yet they take different approaches,
largely due to their organizational needs and their own approaches to school
development.

Conclusion
If leadership is about leading people to goal fulfillment, these heads do just that.
All three heads - Naz Sahib, Fatima Apa and Khadija Apa – strive to invest their
lives into making the world of the young a little better or happier. They want to
give their students something to stand on in life, whether a good career (Naz
Sahib), life skills with tools of communication (Fatima Apa) or a bedrock of
values (Khadija Apa).

These heads lead their schools with a singularity of mind, a totality of heart, and
a missionary spirit. They have made their schools a success story in a difficult
world. Each head tells us a unique story of struggle and leadership. They tell us
that a high vision can motivate people to accomplish things generally seen as
difficult. Naz Sahib makes a difference in his school, despite the stereotype of
public school heads as mere administrators.

Fatima Apa shows that a head can lead a community by providing committed
leadership to its schools. Khadija Apa demonstrates the importance of seeing
dreams and working towards them. The commitment of all three heads to their
individual beliefs and their missionary spirit to serve their communities as
prophetic professionals in a country, which desperately needs such dedication,
teaches us a lot.

All three heads have shown that struggle gives meaning to life and that success
can eventually come, if struggle is authentic, honest, and persistent. Their efforts
to raise the quality of education through their preferred roles and practices are a
lesson to learn for many headteachers and teachers who are striving to do the
same.

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Future Research
The heads with whom we worked have strong ideas about Islam and Islamic
values, which guide their notions of management and leadership. Future studies
could focus on this area and investigate in depth how the heads see the role of
religion in their management practices in many ways.

The consequences of heads’ actions on students’ learning and on teacher

motivation offer a second area of exploration; it has to be remembered that
influences on, not of, the heads’ beliefs and behaviours were explored in this
paper.

Third, as this study is limited in scope, future studies need to examine how a
larger sample of heads manage and lead their schools, in order to be able to
generalize the conclusions of this study and at the same time develop a larger
knowledge base on school leadership in Pakistan.

The exploration of the role of the assistant heads or vice-principals affords yet
another area of study. These middle-level managers play, after the heads, a major
role in all three schools that were studied. Sandwiched between the heads and
the teachers, they play a major bridging role between the two power bases.
Exploration of their management practices may be a rewarding exercise.

References
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Contact
[email protected]

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