Government to introduce leadership course for headmasters

Dr Yaw Adutwum, the Deputy Minister of Education, in charge of General Education, said government as part of its secondary education reforms would introduce a professional leadership course for head teachers aspiring to be headmasters.

The Deputy Minister said the initiative would help build the capacity of headmasters in the secondary schools to be abreast with current development in the management of schools.

Dr Adutwum said this in Accra, at an orientation workshop for selected Journalists across the country on the Secondary Education Improvement Project.

He said the Ministry had realised that some of the headmasters performance was below average and that there was the need to organise a leadership course for them to up their responsibilities and also ensure accountability in the school system.

“I was shocked to ask a headmaster of a school about the performance of the school and he said he doesn’t know, how can that be possible, a whole headmaster who is not interested in knowing how well the school had performed,” he added.

He said it was important for headmasters to know the performances of their schools to enable them to plan ahead and improve in the previous performance.

Dr Adutwum said in line with the reforms, any teacher who aspire to be a headmaster or headmistress would have to undergo a compulsory professional training course to be equipped with the needed skills to manage a school.

According to the Deputy Minister, if the performance of a headmaster or headmistress was not encouraging, in terms of consistent failure in the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations, that headmaster or headmistress would be re-assigned.

He believed that as a headmaster or headmistress, productivity and performance should be the key consideration in promotion and not only focusing on the number of years.

Dr Adutwum said government would soon introduce a system to rank Senior High Schools in the country, adding that, the approach would be national ranking and similar schools ranking.

He explained that the top schools with the same facilities and infrastructure would rank together while the so called lower schools would also be ranked together.

The Deputy Minister said the aim of the ranking was to help schools with the lowest ranking to learn from best practices and improve upon their performance and the educational sector.

He said other reforms include understanding diverse or specialised learner’s background, gifted and talented education and the transformation of the inner city schools.

He said all these reforms were in line with government free Senior High School policy to improve the country’s educational curriculum.