Instructional Leadership Development Practices in Ethiopia: Curriculum Development and Implementation Practices, and Career Development Frameworks

Abstract

The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the curriculum structure for instructional leaders’ training and development against the desired competences; and to evaluate the career development framework of instructional leaders. With these ends in view, the study examined the instructional leadership framework, the curriculum document, and the instructional leaders’ recruitment, selection and retention strategies. Unstructured interviews were made with purposely selected thirty-one (31) interviewees until information saturates. Hence, the perspectives of instructional leadership trainers, instructional leaders, zone education department heads, and national level education experts who were selected using a purposive sampling technique were explored through one-on-one interviews. The data analysis and presentation was made based on the major themes identified as purposes of the study. In the light of these, the qualitative data analysis discloses the absence of national instructional leadership framework from which instructional leadership curriculum should have emerged. It was also understood that the loosened curriculum development culture ultimately resulted in the curriculum’s lack of relevance to the desired competences for instructional leadership development. It was further learnt that there existed an absence of context specific recruitment, selection and retention strategies for instructional leaders. It is, therefore, concluded that the instructional leadership development practices of Ethiopia, seemed to have been deviating from expectations. Hence, it is recommended that there is a need to design a national instructional leadership development framework based on which the instructional leadership curriculum development and implementation practices could be managed. The recruitment, selection, and retention strategies should also involve incentive packages that could attract competent candidates to the profession. It is further recommended that there is a need to promote positive mindset exercises for instructional leaders to take their own professional development initiatives.