ANALYSIS OF SCHOOL LEADERS EFFORT IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF EAST HARARGHE ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze school leaders effort to implement teachers’ continuous professional development in Secondary Schools of East Hararghe Zone. To realize this purpose, three basic questions: Efforts of school leader to implement CPD program, challenges to implement CPD and strategy to implement CPD in secondary schools were raised. To this effect, descriptive survey design that involved quantitative and qualitative approaches was employed. Data were collected through questionnaires, interview and document analysis. Primary data sources were 95 teachers and, 66 school leaders. Simple random sampling technique was employed to proportionally select teachers from 16 secondary schools. While purposive sampling was employed to select school leaders. The data collected through questionnaire were self-administered and analyzed using percentage, mean and t-test. Results indicated that school leaders did not have strongly carried out the tasks of implementing teacher CPD to enhance quality of students learning. The findings show that inadequate materials for effective professional development activities, shortage of budget for CPD implementation, time and organization of human power were some of the observed debilitating factors in CPD activities. With respect to strategies of implementing of teacher CPD, allocating sufficient budget to practice CPD (for material and learning facilities) , creating favorable conditions in the school to teachers in implementing CPD Program, organizing training opportunity based on teachers’ needs, creating team spirit among teachers and better working atmosphere among the approach to carefully consider them.