Abstract
The words autonomy, power and leadership have always been debated, especially when it comes to government setup where roles and responsibilities largely are top-down. The article explores leadership practices and autonomy exercised by the school leader within the frame of prescribed roles and responsibilities and accountability structures. The study is a case of Government Secondary School in Delhi, India, and follows a qualitative research design. Document analysis for studying the prescribed roles, and ‘shadowing of principal’ to understand the practiced roles, were the key aspects of research design. The article takes a dig at the prescribed roles and responsibilities that limit the school leader to being an administrative head. It further makes a case wherein the school leader, through the creative use of leadership agency, redefines school leadership as an action to influence quality of teaching–learning at school rather than a bureaucratised position that manages the day-to-day affairs.
Introduction
There is a continuous change in societal aspirations which gets reflected in the expectations from schools. The role of principals has evolved in the past few decades. They are no longer seen solely as administrators or managers of the school. Today, the principals ‘must accept the responsibility to manage personnel, funds, and strategic planning’ as well as be ‘instructional leaders’ whereby they ‘maintain the responsibility for the learning of all students, including students with differential needs’ (Lynch, 2012). This requires a shift from being just administrators and/or managers to effective leaders who are able to navigate through the multiple roles and responsibilities and are responsible for school improvement. But they sometimes face role confusion or role conflict, especially in terms of prioritising between systemic and/or administrative demands and a commitment towards ‘transforming schools’. The dilemma is also a result of the lack of clarity over new job roles or when decision-making in particular lies beyond their purview of powers. However, if such dilemmas persist, not only does a lot of time get wasted but also affect the quality of results (Stringer & Hourani, 2015). Any role confusion would certainly disrupt the vision for quality education.
Sugrue (2009) surveyed teachers in Ireland, 18 per cent of whom said they had no idea of leading schools before having undergone the induction training. In India, states hardly have any orientation programme for school principals on their new roles and responsibilities and often, in the absence of any guiding document or role modelling by senior personnel, principals restrict themselves largely to administrative and functional roles. The official documents also narrow down to administrative and financial functions as against the multiplicity of roles and responsibilities from being an organisational leader to a curriculum and academic leader, a liaison officer, a team leader, a public relation officer and so on. There appears a gap between the expectations of the field, the prescriptions in the documents and the roles actually performed as per the contextual demand.
In order to understand the extent of this gap in terms of roles and responsibilities, the study first tries to understand roles and responsibilities of school principals through ‘observations’ and then locate the existing gaps. It also attempts to study how the principal used his/her faculty to navigate through the roles, so as to improve learning for children in particular and overall school performance in general. The study is based on three pertinent questions. First, what are the prescribed and expected roles and responsibilities of school heads? Second, what is the understanding and/or perception of principals about their defined roles and responsibilities. Third, how does a school principal exercise his/her leadership role to meet the field expectations? Thus, this article explores the leadership in the frame of prescriptions and challenges through the school based practices and initiatives.
The study has major implications on policy in school leadership development in India, especially with regard to inducting new principals into their job roles and redefining the current roles and responsibilities enabling the future leaders to be ‘leaders of learning’ than ‘leaders of organisational management’ alone.
Given the author’s experience of working with schools and school principals across the country as a member of the National Centre for School Leadership (NCSL), the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), it was observed that more than 70 per cent of school heads prior to their engagements with NCSL felt that being a school principal/head meant taking up administrative roles in addition to their initial teaching assignments. Further interactions revealed that all the office orders, statutory documents and education code (if one exists in the state) also made them accountable for the administrative and financial roles only, limiting them to master only selective roles and responsibilities. This mismatch between the basic purpose of schools and the role of teachers and educational administrators at different levels compelled the need for observing and understanding those school heads who have moved beyond the call of the administrative expectations and stood firm as leaders with vision and commitment to transform their schools. This case study therefore, is an attempt to understand the prescribed (as mentioned in the official documents), the expected (the contextual demands) and the performed (the actual) roles and responsibilities, and the unique leadership faculty of the school head that could help them navigate between the two (prescribed and expected) keeping with the purpose of school (here we define prescribed roles as the roles that are defined and guided by Government Acts and Statutes whereas expected roles are those which arise from the field and lie outside the purview of prescribed roles). The present study was carried out in August 2018 as a joint exercise to understand the possibilities that leadership brings amidst the constraints.
Research Methodology
To explore these questions, the study follows qualitative research design. Case study method is used to understand the expected and performed roles and responsibilities. While the prescribed roles could be understood through the review of official documents, understanding expected and performed roles demanded shadowing the school principal and having free and uninterrupted access to all his actions/meetings/interactions including his telephonic conversations. This demands a great level of preparedness and comfort on the part of the school and the school leader to be able to allow such external interference in the school. Hence the school in the case study was purposely selected based on the readiness of the school head to provide uninterrupted access to the school and its activities and their preparedness in giving extra time for interviews, sharing vision, approaches, styles, practices and processes and allowing researchers to be part of the school events even after the completion of the actual exercise of shadowing.
The study was conducted in two phases. During phase one, document analysis of available research studies and government documents was done in order to understand the prescribed and expected roles and responsibilities. During phase two, field visits (6 working days for 6–7 hours each day) were conducted in Government Boys Senior Secondary (GBSS) School situated in Delhi. However, the interaction of the research team with the school was much beyond (for another four months) this exercise which helped them to study and understand the leadership roles and practices objectively. The field study followed the method of shadowing the principal wherein the researcher stays with the school head just like a shadow. The observations made during the shadowing and those made later during interactions have helped in understanding multiple roles and responsibilities performed by the school head and also his perceptions about the same, as objectively as possible. Data was recorded in the form of field notes and narratives of the interactions between or among school head and other stakeholders. Semi-structured interview with the school principal (face-to-face) was also conducted. These were later categorised and analysed under various themes to arrive at the findings.
Review of Related Literature: Prescribed Roles and Responsibilities
Studies under the educational leadership have evolved with the theories and constructs on principal leadership, their roles and professional identity in the Western context. Literature points that role and professional identity though appear synonymous, are different. ‘Professional identity is the internalized meaning of a role that individuals apply to themselves. Roles tend to be scripted, deterministic, and static, but identities are more improvisational, emphasize human agency, and are dynamic’ (Whiteman et al., 2015, p. 578). However, the understanding of roles of school heads facilitates the understanding of ‘professional identity or identities’ of school heads (even vice versa).
Catano and Stronge (2006, p. 225) argued that it is difficult to define the role of the school principal as it involves a ‘complex set of job responsibilities, skills necessary to perform the job, and values’. However, the role of the principal can be understood in several ways:
As consisting of several functions As approaches and characteristics As values As skills necessary to fulfil certain responsibilities
Traditionally the principals were akin to ‘the Organisation Man’ thereby limiting themselves to functioning of the institute in the given frame. Even today in many countries including India, principals and/or school heads are seen as unquestioning supporters and implementers of the government schemes and programmes with very scant significance attached to the tasks of understanding and applying a plethora of complex and competing educational theories and approaches. Govinda (2006) presents a comprehensive picture on the roles of head teachers in the management of elementary schools through the case studies of six states in India: Assam, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Mizoram and Uttar Pradesh (UP). The study recorded that most of the head teachers are hamstrung by lack of clear set of guidelines regarding their managerial role and inadequate staff strength. They have not been able to evolve a decentralised internal management system with no in-house arrangement to share experiences or sort out problems. However, in curriculum management, the head teacher has the power to bring flexibility within the broad framework of the curriculum and co-curricular activities, to encourage innovation in curriculum transaction. Financial management is limited to utilising the funds that come their way under the fixed budget heads. Regarding staff management, a head teacher can grant casual leave, forward leave applications, allocate jobs, monitor the teacher’s activities and evaluate their performance, but he cannot appoint a temporary teacher, recommend a substitute teacher, take disciplinary action at his level, or stall or reverse a transfer order of a colleague. A government school head teacher has no authority to introduce a new course of study or textbooks other than the recommended ones. Thus, the study affirms that the head teachers of government-managed schools in most cases are completely inactive in school development planning exercises and limited to managerial roles owing to the narrow conceptualisation of school heads and thereby their roles and responsibilities.
The review of the School Education Acts and Rules of the states of Delhi (The Delhi Education Act and Rules, 1973) and Haryana (Department of Education, Government of Haryana, 2003) and the Education Code of the states, the job charts and the office orders make it further evident that most of the prescriptions emerge from a managerial discourse largely concerned with the functioning of the schools within the government set of rules and regulations. In addition, limiting the roles and responsibilities to financial and administrative also suggests that these are largely seen as a tool in case of any aberration in the functioning of the school. School heads may welcome this type of mechanism, as they perceive it as an enhancement of status or a power symbol within the hierarchical structure, without recognising that leadership values are substituted by organisational values. Bureaucratic, hierarchical and managerial controls replace cultures of collaboration and trust. All this is accompanied by budgetary restrictions, standardisation of work practices, performance targets and accountability, rather than professional judgment (Evetts, 2009). Rephrasing Whiteman et al. (2015), this is a form of professional identity that focuses on school heads’ adherence to prescribed behaviours rather than the internalisation of professional attitudes, intellectual ability and commitment to the core purpose of education.
However, in the international literature there is a prominent shift in the manner in which roles and responsibilities of school leaders are seen in the wider ambit of work with a huge emphasis on improving learning for all. In today’s world, Hanny (1987) perceives that ‘effective principals are expected to be effective instructional leaders.… The principal must be knowledgeable about curriculum development, teacher and instructional effectiveness, clinical supervision, staff development and teacher evaluation’ (p. 209). Bryce (1983) and Fullan (1991) agree with this holistic view of the principal’s role. However, Fullan expands this holistic definition of leadership and management to be an active and collaborative form of leadership where the principal works ‘with teachers to shape the school as a workplace in relation to shared goals, teachers collaboration, teacher learning opportunities, teacher certainty, teacher commitment, and student learning’ (p. 161).
The Wallace Foundation (2013) also suggests the need for school leaders to be (or become) leaders of learning who can develop a team delivering effective instruction. According to Portin et al. (2006) for quite a long time, the main responsibility of school principal was limited to managerial operations. But with the evolution of society in the global world and changing structures, the roles and responsibilities of principals have also undergone a change. Schools are now considered as ‘learning organisations’ whereby the school can learn and change in response to the ‘adaptive challenges’ it faces.
Today, principals can be regarded as managers of personnel, managers of students, mediator between system and community, manager of external development, manager of finances, developer of plans and mission and manager of instruction and academic performance (Figure 1). The role of principal has expanded, become complex and multi-dimensional: ‘to be leaders of personnel, students, government and public relations, finance, instruction, academic performance, cultural and strategic planning’ (Lynch, 2012).
In addition to roles, school heads have some responsibilities to fulfil. There are five key responsibilities of school heads as suggested by The Wallace Foundation (2013, p. 6)
Shaping a vision of academic success for all students, based on high standards. Creating a climate hospitable to education in order that safety, a cooperative spirit and other foundations of fruitful interaction prevail. Cultivating leadership in others so that teachers and other adults assume their parts in realising the school vision. Improving instruction to enable teachers to teach at their best and students to learn to their utmost. Managing people, data and processes to foster school improvement.
The responsibilities of school heads/principals can be understood in various themes (Table 1). However, the themes vary across studies and context.
Themes of Responsibilities of School Principals
Since the emphasis of research studies has shifted towards quality and learning outcomes of students, the literature suggests that principals can influence ‘student achievement’ through ‘development of effective teachers’ and ‘effective organizational processes’ (Stringer & Hourani, 2015, p. 227) by assuming the role as instructional leaders. However, only few principals can spend time in classrooms and work towards instructional transformation as most of their time is spent in the ‘activities of management, scheduling, reporting, handling relations with parents and community and dealing with the multiple crises and special situations that are inevitable in schools’ (ibid.).
In the Indian context, not many studies have focussed on the roles and responsibilities of school heads. However, there are policies and documents which discuss the prescribed roles and responsibilities of the principal in a public education system in India (Table 2). The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 (NCERT, 2005) has also mentioned about the role of heads of the school, with support of the teachers, in ensuring that minimum infrastructural and other materials are made available. It has visualised collaborative efforts among the staff members and recommends a creation of space for staff interactions in the timetable. It mentions the creation of a climate of mutual respect and equality between teachers and principals where decisions are taken through ‘dialogue and discussions’, and mechanisms are developed to resolve conflicts, if any.
Prescribed Roles and Responsibilities of School Heads in India
With the implementation of Right to Education (RTE) 2009 (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2009), the role of school principal has become more diverse and challenging. In order to sensitise them about the needs of all sections of society, it is necessary to first help them clearly understand the roles and responsibilities they have towards the school. Moreover, it’s not just the formal position or specific skills that are requisites for the heads but also development of personal characteristics such as empathy, punctuality, commitment and so on. But in most of these guidelines, descriptions on the administrative, financial and day-to-day managerial roles of the heads in the school such as preparation of timetables, maintaining records and financial responsibilities are mentioned.
The School Context: Understanding the Field
The study was conducted in the GBSS School which is situated in an urban context of a metropolitan city Delhi and comes under the jurisdiction of the State Government of Delhi and NCT. This area was earlier a village but now has relatively developed over the period of time under the process of urbanisation. The catchment area around the school is busy and easily accessible. The school is surrounded by residential locality and has good roads and better connectivity in terms of transport (both public and private). There are private hospitals and both private and government schools within the radius of 3–4 kilometres. There is one senior secondary government school adjacent to this school, most of the students take admission in this neighbouring school once they pass tenth grade. There is a bus stop and a very small garage outside the school premise. The garage is often visited by vocational educator and students who have opted ‘automobile’ as their vocational trait.
The school is operational in two shifts, that is, morning and evening. The afternoon shift (in which study was conducted) is a secondary school for boys from classes 6th to 10th with total enrolment of 750 students. Its building consists of two floors (ground and first) each in its two compounds. There is a small playground which is also used for assembly and other events. There is one staff room, two rooms for school heads (one for each shift). There is one science lab but mostly occupied by a class due to scarcity of classrooms in the school. There are separate toilets for male and female staff. There is one computer lab and one vocational lab (under construction) which was recently constructed with introduction of computers and vocational education at secondary level by the State Government.
There were 24 teachers at the time of study and the Pupil–Teacher Ratio (PTR) was 1:30 as per the RTE, 2009 norms (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2009). However, if considered subject-wise, there was severe resource crunch. For instance, a mathematics teacher took social sciences lessons as well. The new recruitments in the school were expected soon, however by the time, the session would be over. The teachers were expected to perform most of the administrative tasks, and it was very difficult to balance teaching, non-teaching and non-academic tasks. Unlike private schools, there is no separate administrative staff available, so teachers and principals work as a team, even if it requires working after school hours.
Roles and Responsibilities as Observed: Understanding the Performed and the Expected
With the implementation of RTE Act 2009 (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2009), every child, irrespective of caste, class, creed, region and so on has the fundamental right to get education at elementary level. This has opened a path for the ‘first generation learners’ to not only have access to schools but retain and complete their education. However, the challenge is now to make school and classroom more inclusive—to not only accommodate but also provide support to these learners for successful completion of their education at the elementary level.
The school (i.e., GBSS, Delhi) school had many first generation learners; in most cases, parents struggled to arrange for their basic amenities on a daily basis and just providing access to school was not sufficient. The school had to create an environment to support the overall development of the child by going beyond the requisites stated in the Act. This school went beyond to support the learners for their education after elementary level as well. The school head had envisioned the philosophy of Dewey, Bourdieu and Freire by implementing it in daily school tasks. This was evident partly from the school development plan and partly from the initiatives taken by the principal. Many initiatives were taken by the school head and teachers to nurture each learner and make them ‘empowered beings’. The head of school assumed many new roles and responsibilities that would nurture not only his students but also his teachers and community as well. Based on the observations by the researchers, the practiced roles and responsibilities are categorised as follows:
Beyond Prescriptions: Leading Towards Overall School Improvement
From the field observations, one revealing fact is the ‘uniqueness’ of the school head which is manifested in the form of the varied initiatives and efforts taken personally, and also as a team with support from the community to transform the school as a ‘learning organisation’. Some of the many reasons that we see associated with this are the leadership style and practices of the principal, the readiness, vision and values of the school and the intellectual capital of the principal which makes a difference. In fact, the school also exposes the limited view of the official documents that limits the school heads to be mere administrators or implementers of government schemes and programmes than lead the school.
Educational background that builds perspectives about child’s education and gave him the ability to view it from various perspectives. Experience as a teacher/a practitioner that helped him to understand nuances in school, the situations where conflict(s) can occur and where all issues can emerge from. Reflexivity, a habit of taking a step back to review and examine which according to him helped the maximum.
Since the principal himself had been a teacher for many years and truly trusted the potential of each stakeholder in the school milieu, he believed in growing and learning together and worked towards the overall development of his teachers and students. For this, the school principal had planned to give a chance to every teacher to ‘officiate as school head for a week’. This did not include administrative burden, but the tasks like preparation of substitute timetable, conducting assembly and other academic tasks. This was totally a practice-centric approach to capacity development which not only gave them the experience of such tasks but also helped them to understand the challenges involved in the role of a school head. Thus, role reversals were used to develop a more empathetic school culture and a collaborative team. This initiative led to a strong team of teachers in the school, where they could work collaboratively, supporting each other by having a practical understanding of each other’s roles. Also, the junior teachers got a fair chance to step into the shoes of their seniors, breaking the hierarchy among teachers and being given equal opportunities to learn, unlearn and relearn from and with each other. These transactional activities of the school became transformational leading to transformation of people and practices that would impact the overall school improvement through the social and professional capital that was developed in the process. As Elinor Ostrom (2000) argued that social capital like human and physical capital grows out of transactional and transformational activities.
The school head in this case, through a series of transactional and transformational activities, developed the social capital of the entire school community in turn leading to the development of the school. His leadership approaches and practices helped him develop trust among teachers, students and parents. This in turn developed a positive school culture and motivated teachers to develop and improve.
The teachers taking up different responsibilities and the active role of students and SMC members in planning and executing is the manifestation of the developed human and social capital. ‘Social capital takes the form of social networks … [and] the relations among individuals in a group or organization’ (Spillane et al., 2003, p. 10). The same notion is captured by Putnam (2000) when he describes within group connections as ‘bonding social capital’ and across group connections as ‘bridging social capital’. The principal has developed both bonding and bridging social capital through student and teacher networks and relations, inside and outside the school based on the trust and collaboration among members. The principal’s use of his personal networks with other teacher education institutions, university departments, NGOs, academicians and so on provided opportunity to students, teachers and SMC members to interact on overall school development even beyond the school premises.
Discussion and Implications
Professional judgement is a feature of new or ‘principled’ professionalism (Goodson, 2000) which brings together cognitive dimensions of knowledge, along with the moral and social purposes of education and the emotional dimensions of teaching. This type of professionalism is in contrast to managerial professionalism, or what some see as ‘deprofessionalisation’ (Evans, 2008). In an environment of ‘new professionalism’, one can see the school leader committed to being the catalyst of change with a focus on teaching and learning, working collaboratively and effectively with each other and the wider community to influence school improvement.
The present study found a new sense of meaning being attached to the prescribed roles and responsibilities that was centred around students’ overall development, nurturing relationships and developing a climate of trust as visible from the community- and student-centric approaches, anchored to the development of people and processes through modelling, direction setting, creating space for collective sharing and reflections. Thus, moving beyond the constraints in the official documents and frameworks and answering the call of education than being limited by the ritualistic prescriptions. It is important to highlight here that some of the practices adopted by the principal in this case were a combination of the vision of NCF and the personal vision and experience of the leader. For instance, the activities conducted for teacher development, that is, monthly colloquiums for teachers, conducting role reversals (teachers assuming the role of the school head in rotations and vice-versa), guidance and counselling of parents and teachers, spending time and interacting with students and teachers over meals. These along with other initiatives facilitated the achievement of a long-term vision of enriching the social and cultural capital of each member of the school community.
School leadership is an umbrella term, academic leadership being the prime. Nonetheless, each and every act of the head of the school be it as an administrator, a manager, a teacher, a guide, a community mobiliser, a public relation officer and much more in its own ways contributes towards overall school improvement. Each of these roles are embedded or intertwined with each other, isolating the one will distort the whole picture. The observations through the shadowing gave a picture of the ‘principal’—a multi-tasking persona—who not only focuses on administration and management of school but also works for the professional development of his staff. He is not the authoritative but the compassionate and empathetic figure, striving towards overall school improvement.
The National Research Council (2011) in its report briefly highlighted school leadership as one of the key aspects of school conditioning and culture that supports learning. A principal, thereby, cannot be restricted to the domain of management but has multiple roles to play in order to have a positive impact on holistic development of children. Moreover, to ensure a positive learning environment in schools, National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has recommended that it will be imperative that role expectations of school principals include developing a ‘caring and inclusive culture at their schools’. It has further emphasised on the need for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) of school principals, together with school complex leaders, through modular leadership/management workshops and online development opportunities and platforms not just to continuously improve their leadership and management skills but also share best practices with each other. Consequently, this and other recent educational reforms (RTE Act 2009–10, Samagara Siksha Abhiyan, result based framework for assessment, etc.), make it even more necessary to revisit and redefine the roles and responsibilities of school heads beyond the ‘normative’ definitions. It also calls for outweighing prescriptions and envisioning leadership as a process and not as an outcome.
Literature suggests that there are three ‘core elements’ for effective school leadership namely ‘setting direction, developing people, and redesigning the organization’ which are required for substantive complexity, creativity, values, and ingenuity. However, much emphasis has been laid on developing technical skills than professional identities or such values (Scribner & Crow, 2012). Also, we observed that the ‘construction of leadership’ occurs, as also argued by Spillane et al. (2003, p. 4), through an ‘interactive process’ based on various forms of capital—‘human capital (skills, knowledge, expertise), cultural capital (ways of being), social capital (networks and relations of trust), and economic capital (material resources)’. In this case also, we observed that the socio-cultural capital and human capital has influence on the way school functions and also helps in capital formation of teachers and students. The school head’s readiness and own professional identity are also among the factors bringing a difference.
However, much remains to be done in the area of defining roles and responsibilities and nurturing professional identity so that principals across schools are able to evolve as instructional leaders. Only a few principals successfully act as instructional leaders. Partly because the structures neither allow such flexibility nor have a supporting framework in place that facilitates academic leadership. As a result, their role is restricted to management, scheduling, reporting, meeting with parents and other day-to-day requirements of the schools leaving very little instructional time.
Another lacuna identified in the recent policies is that there is no sanctioned position of head teacher in stand-alone primary and upper primary schools, while in elementary schools many states have sanctioned positions; it is subject to the enrolment size of the school. Even in high and higher secondary schools where there are sanctioned positions, the challenge is that appointments are either not made or, due to small size, schools are primarily managed by senior most teachers who assume additional responsibility as head teacher (MHRD, 2016a). This limits both—the potential of a teacher and of the head teacher—since in a primary, upper primary or elementary school, the head teacher has full-time responsibilities of teaching and same is the case with schools small in size. Thus, lack of sanctioned full-time posts, narrow vision and therefore, scope of the outlined roles and responsibilities, limited opportunities for induction of school leaders into the new roles are some of the policy gaps that need to be addressed. In order to cater to wide range of issues in school, there is a need to provide more power and flexibility to principals. For this, ‘the School Principal should have greater administrative power and academic freedom, thereby further deepening decentralisation of management of school education’ (MHRD, 2016b, p. 73).
Conclusion
Given the complexity of the prevailing position of the school heads and the new optimism for school leadership to significantly influence school improvement, the article suggests a critical engagement with prescribed roles and responsibilities of school heads particularly from the perspective of their focus on and understanding of the contexts in which school heads serve.
Traditionally quality improvement in education meant the introduction of system-wide reforms which included the curricular reforms, the governance reforms and placed the system at the centrality of change and improvement. This approach has gradually begun to give way to treat the individual ‘school as the unit for change and improvement action’. This obviously has a significant impact on the roles and functions of the head teacher. In this respect, every school has to acquire an institutional identity and meet the social as well as systemic expectations. The school in the case study also shows how it became the unit for improvement action with the efforts of the leadership. Literature supports the fact that ‘some schools perform better than others mainly because of the leadership provided by the Principal or headmaster. Such leaders motivate teachers, inspire students and seek cooperation of parents and the community to improve the academic levels and infrastructure of their schools’ (MHRD, 2016b, p. 71).
Studies also show that the new performance assessment framework is putting unprecedented pressure on the school head to show tangible results. A direct consequence to which is the increased autonomy in the daily functioning of the school with implied enhancement in the powers and responsibilities of the school head. Every school head is expected to lead the school towards improved standards of functioning by shared understanding of the goals of the school and securing the contribution of everyone. The growing number of small schools with one or two teachers also raises serious issues in redefining the roles and functions of school heads in the country.
Thus, while on one hand there is a pressing need to envision principals as leaders and expand their roles focusing more on developing leaders rather than administrators or managers through school leadership programmes; on the other hand, there is a need to contextually understand each school differently and give sufficient freedom to the school heads that allows them to navigate within the range of prescriptions and expectations effortlessly. We argue that leadership is an essential element of school head professionalism so school heads can and should have the autonomy to mediate the diverse conditions within which they work. Also, there is a need to strengthen the principal support mechanism by taking school as a unit of change under the decentralisation model of governance and management. The authors feel the need to conduct more such research studies to understand the extent and nature of discrepancy(s) between the prescriptions by state and/or Centre and the contextual expectations owing to the diversity of schools in India.
However, one can clearly discern a positive shift in the education policies and programmes which recognise the critical role of the head teacher in quality improvement efforts and also the need for launching programmes for their capacity building (MHRD, 2020). After all, it needs no special project to recognise that quality improvement of schools in the final analysis hinges on the effectiveness of the principal–his or her vision, human relations and professional competence.
The Wallace Foundation suggested that meaningful changes in terms of ‘(a) defining the job of the principal and assistant principal to detail what they must know and do, (b) providing high-quality training for aspiring school leaders that reflect the realities education leaders face in the field, (c) hiring selectively only those candidates who are well-trained, and (d) evaluating principals and giving them the on-the-job support they need in the form of professional development and mentoring based on their evaluations to help promote a “pipeline for effective leadership”’ (as cited in Lynch, 2012, p. 46) is the need of the hour. These reforms would put school leadership development on a continuum from recruitment to induction, capacity building and on-the-job support leading to the development of a new professionalism as Goodson (2000) puts it developing the cognitive and psychomotor dimensions along with the moral, social and emotional dimensions.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.