Problems Encountered by Head Teachers at Primary Schools in Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

Principals are main agent of school improvements. Head teachers encounter many problems and challenges driven by many internal factors operating in the school. These problems are threat to the continuation of head teachers themselves in their position and the success of school. Thus, the main purpose of the study was to explore the problems encountered by head teachers at primary level in central Punjab and finding out the difference among male and female heads teachers of primary school in Punjab. Data was collected through survey method and study was quantitative in nature.  Population of this study was comprised of all head teachers at primary level in the public schools (32348) of Punjab. After delimitation Lahore district is considered to be the final population that comprised of 523 primary schools. All the head teachers of primary schools in Lahore were selected as a sample of the study and the response rate was 90.7% making the final sample as 475 primary schools. Census sampling technique was used. Self-developed questionnaire was used for collection of data. The numbers of items in head teachers’ tool were 27 and Cronbach’s Alpha value of head teacher instrument was .704. The data was analyzed through SPSS (Statistical Packages for social Sciences). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to calculate the data. In descriptive statistics was used to calculate the Mean, Standard Deviation and frequency.  In inferential statistics, independent samples t-test was used to find out the significance difference among demographic variables (gender). There found significant difference in the opinion of male and female head teachers regarding problem encountered. Main problems indicated by the head teachers were student based, teacher based, departmental and personal. It is recommended that school education department should develop a committee in which solutions to such problems should be addressed and resolved in order to quality educational management of public sector schools. The study suggested further qualitative in-depth research to pose solutions of these problems so that policy makers may develop a systematic structure and proceedings of the committee.