Current Practice Of Community Participation In Implementing School Improvement Program: The Case Of Secondary Schools Of Gindabarat District

Abstract

School Improvement Program (SIP) is one of the six programs that have been incorporated in the General Education Quality Improvement Package (GEQIP) of Ethiopia. The program has been assumed to strengthen shared governance by providing opportunities where the school and the nearby community stakeholders collaboratively plan and identify interventions to address priority improvement areas in order to enhance students‟ learning outcomes. The program has four domains: teaching and learning, leadership, conducive school environment, and community participation. Thus, the core assumption underlying this program is that if the four domains are effectively implemented in a harmonized manner, students‟ learning outcomes will be improved. Thus, this study aimed at investigating the extent to which SIP has been effective in terms of fulfilling its aspired objectives in the government secondary schools of Gindabarat District. To this end, four secondary schools out of the total six secondary schools found in the district were taken as samples in the study. Descriptive survey research method was used in the study. Data were gathered from primary and secondary sources using questionnaire, interviews, and document studies. The collected data were analyzed using mixed method approach. The findings of the study revealed minimum level of practices of SIP in the sample secondary schools. In other words, except the teaching and learning domain, all the other domains are found to be practiced at a very minimum level across the sample secondary schools. The challenges that hinder the effective implementation of the program are: less attention given to the program by the leaders of the education sector, absence of adequate resources in the respective schools, lack of commitment on the part of the school community, high teachers‟ workloads, considering SIP as a politically motivated initiative rather than a strategy that enhances the quality of education, and the likes. Recommendations that are assumed to alleviate the above challenges and thereby facilitate the effective implementation of the program are forwarded in the thesis