Collective Instructional Leadership in Senior High Schools in Ghana: Implementation Challenges

Collective Instructional leadership is increasingly recognized as the most powerful approach to improving schools and enhancing student academic achievements. A strong focus on vision, mission, and culture, as well as the improvement of instructional practices, resource allocation, and management of people and processes, contribute to improved students’ academic achievement. Most of the literature on instructional leadership focuses on analyzing teachers' and principals' instructional practices and perspectives. However, there hasn't been much focus on collective instructional leadership, supervision, teacher efficacy, and student academic achievement. This study aimed to examine the challenges that collective instructional leaders in Senior High Schools face in terms of teaching and learning, feeding, accommodation, and resource management. Twelve principals were selected purposively from a population of 56 and interviewed as part of a case study design. The data were examined using thematic network analysis. From the preliminary findings, factors affecting principals' use of collective instructional leadership at Senior High Schools in Ghana include an absence of sufficient classroom furniture, insufficient teaching and learning resources, a delay in the release of government funds for operating the schools, as well as some teachers' lax attitudes. This study informs the academic community on the difficulties faced by Principals’ collective instructional leadership in Senior High Schools in Ghana as well as policy discussion on mitigating the issues.