Abstract:
The main purpose of this study was assessing the school principals’ recruitment, selection, placement and its implication to students’ academic performance in government secondary schools of Ambo town. To accomplish this purpose, descriptive survey design was used which is supplemented by quantitative and qualitative research to enrich data. The study was carried out in four comprehensively selected secondary schools of Ambo town. Then 88 teachers were randomly sampled, 6 education office expertise for focus group discussion and 9 school principals for interview through purposive sampling techniques were involved in the study. Questionnaire was the main instrument of data collection. Semi-structured interview & focus group discussion were also utilized to substantiate the data obtained through the questionnaire. Descriptive statistics; frequency distributions & percentage for respondents’ demographic information, mean and standard deviation were employed in analyzing and reporting the results of the teachers’ questionnaires. Qualitative data obtained through focus group discussions & interview was verbally and thematically narrated. Findings revealed that secondary school principals’ recruitment, selection, placement criteria were found to be at moderate level (M=2.49 and SD=.768), school principals play the principal ship roles moderately at(M= 2.98, SD .699 )standard deviations, and the assigned school principals’ role implies the students’ academic performance at moderate level with the mean value of 2.78 and standard deviation of .630. The researcher concluded that most of secondary schools principals were not selected by giving priority for potential candidate pulling to the position but by political royalty and intimacy were observed. Some of drawbacks that operate against roles of the school principals are lack of leadership & management, insufficient experience in principal ship, less parental involvement of support and cooperation, work load, shortage of time, lack of internal as well as external support, lack of budget, and the assigned principals’ role has the implications on students’ academic performance because principals always supervise teaching methods adopted by teachers, whether teachers prepare professional tools such as schemes of work, lesson plan, records of work and sometimes, lesson notes as well as supervising teachers’ class attendance. Finally, the researcher recommended Ambo town education office, secondary schools, Ambo University and stakeholders to work on in improving principals’ recruitment, selection, and placement criteria through providing capacity building training and supervising the implementation of the set criteria jointly.
