MANAGEMENT PRACTICES OF HEADMASTERS OF UNDERPERFORMING JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS IN THE ATWIMA NWABIAGYA DISTRICT..

ABSTRACT This study primarily aimed to investigate management practices that are used to manage teachers, students, material resources and stakeholders’ in the underperforming junior high schools and to examine the management practices that affect teaching and learning activities. The study also aimed at recommending strategies for improving management practices in the underperforming junior high schools in the Atwima Nwabiagya district. The research consisted of a mixed method approach and data was collected using questionnaires and semi-structured interview guide. The study employed a case study design. Convenience and snowball sampling strategies were used to select 225 educators in fifteen underperforming junior high schools. In order to determine the strategies for managing underperforming junior high schools, five headmasters were interviewed. It evolved in the findings that, the necessity of improving the performance of schools is one result of participative management strategies. In addition, it emerged that heads do not put in place, disciplinary systems to manage and check defiant behaviours among students and teachers. Moreover, heads do not stimulate collaborative team building among teachers and they delay in ordering teaching and learning materials. The heads of school and the educators of these junior high schools are therefore encouraged to adopt participative management styles, encourage collaborative decision-making processes and formation of school teams, implement teachers’ systems like the performance appraisal and attendance monitoring systems and accept change when it presents itself in their management practices. Again, the Ghana Education Service (GES) could put up a ‘deadline with punishment’ system on heads who delay to present their list of teaching and learning materials to the offices of the GES, on time.