School Leadership Types and Teachers’ Empowerment in Public Secondary Schools in Rwanda

Abstract

Educational quality is developing countries has been an issue where government of different developing countries have shown commitment to overcome challenges which impede the quality of their educational system. Rwandan government through ministry of educational and other stakeholders have started quality awareness campaign with intention of identifying and assessing the challenges which educational system are still facing and hinder improvement of educational quality (MINEDUC, 2018). Improving educational quality begins with teachers as they are the ones who work daily with students, therefore working environment which empower teachers to do their work effectively is a crucial step in improving educational quality. This paper came up to establish the relationship between school leadership and teachers’ empowerment in public secondary schools. The combination of correlational and descriptive research design was used. 167 teachers answered questionnaire designed to test teacher empowerment, 11 head teachers and 11 deans of studies were interviewed in guided interview. School leadership was independent variable while teachers’ empowerment was dependent variable. Data collected was analyzed using SPSSS version 21 and Karl Pearson Coefficient of Correlation was calculated to determine the relationship between school leadership and teacher empowerment. Analysis of the data collected from respondents shown that 27% of teachers confirmed use of autocratic leadership style, 83.5 % of teachers confirmed use of democratic leadership style while 79.2% confirmed use of Laissez-faire leadership style in school management. Data collected from questionnaire; 77.3% of teachers said that they are involved in decision making, 81.6% of teachers said that they are given opportunity to grow professionally. The study found low degree of positive correlation between professional development of teachers with being motivated and more creative where (r) 0.494. the study found a high degree of positive correlation between involving teachers in decision making with being motivated and more creative (r) 0.805 and there was also high degree of positive correlation between delegation of responsibilities with motivation and creativity among teachers (r) 0.777.

Keywords: Leadership, School Leadership and Teacher Empowerment.