ROLE OF SCHOOL LEADERS IN MANAGING CONFLICTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL OF BALE ZONE IN OROMIA REGIONAL STATE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of school leaders in managing conflicts in secondary school, in Bale zone, Oromia Regional State. In the study, descriptive survey method was used. The sample of the study consists of 83 home room teachers, 83 class monitor students, four school principals and four PTA chairpersons. Generally, 170 cases were participated in the study. The sampling techniques used were simple random sampling for homeroom teachers and class monitor students and purposive sampling technique for school principals and PTA chairpersons. Questionnaire, interview and documents were tools used for data collection. The collected data were analyzed using frequency, percentages and independent t-test to compare the mean difference between the scores of homeroom teachers and class monitor students. The p- value at sig. 0.05 was also utilized to testify the significant difference between the two groups of respondents. The finding indicate that the major causes of conflicts between secondary school principals and supervisors in the study area were unimpressive conditions of service, leadership incompetency, use embezzlement of funds, indiscipline on the part of students, teachers or leadership and poor academic performance. The major impact of conflict in schools includes preventing members from task and dislocates the entire group and produce polarizations. In addition, preventing conflict, transparency in financial and resource allocation in secondary schools as a way of conflict management strategy and the use frequent stakeholders meeting and discussion in secondary schools were found to be the most frequently used techniques of managing conflict. In general, the findings revealed that the majority of the school leaders lacked the basic know how of managing conflicts. As conclusion updating and providing the skills of school leaders would be one solution to minimize conflicts. Therefore, recommendations made on the bases of the findings showed that leadership role in conflict management should be timely and properly utilized. It was also made clear that proper training and workshops need to be arranged for the school leaders so that they might be well aware of the causes and uses of all the conflict management strategies