Research On The Improvement Of The Principals' Leadership Efficiency In The Rural Areas

The aim of this dissertation is to explore the decisive importance of principals' leadership efficiency in improving the performance of rural schooling; improving rural schooling performance through enhancing the leadership efficiency of presidents; making rural primary and secondary education in line with rural economic and social development, so as to forge a benign circular for rural education, to improve the quality of rural population and promote rural economic and social development in China.Significance of this study: First, it locates a breakthrough for improving the performance of rural schooling among many constraining factors, advancing the development of rural primary and secondary education and improving the quality of rural population so as to contribute to the building of new countryside; second, it puts forward the proposals of accelerating the reform on rural primary and secondary education, improving management on rural schools and promoting the development of rural education.Through expounding the status and role of principals in rural primary and secondary schooling based on related theories, this dissertation clarifies the relationship between the leadership efficiency and school performance; principals are educators, leaders and managers of rural schools, and they are organizers and practitioners of rural schooling as well as leaders guiding reform and development of rural education. Principals of rural primary and secondary schools play a vital role to the survival and development of the schools. Their role in schooling and management decide on the school performance. To strengthen capacity building of presidents and improve their capabilities in schooling and management have become the most urgent task after the reform on management systems and investment guarantee systems governing rural compulsory education. In order to realize moderately prosperity in rural areas, quality of rural population must be improved; to this end, the popularization and quality of rural compulsory education must be consolidated and improved. For this, management and schooling efficiency must be improved to seek for a balanced development among urban and rural areas so as to realize the mission of rural education. The key to all these issues is to improve the efficiency of leadership of presidents.Major issues in this dissertation: Suppose the leadership efficiency of principals rests with their own qualifications, behaviours, working environment and conditions, then to improve their leadership efficiency is, under the precondition of ensuring their full competence, to create sound working environment and conditions as much as possible for them, establish working rules to regulate their behaviours, at the same time, to set up effective systems on the supervision, examination and evaluation of principals. Therefore, issues this study is to address are: How is the status quo of leadership efficiency of presidents? What are the factors affecting their leadership efficiency? How to create better working environment and conditions for the presidents? How to guarantee their good qualifications? How to regulate their leadership behaviours? How to establish effective systems on the supervision, examination and evaluation of presidents?Points of this dissertation: School performance is mainly decided on by leadership efficiency of principals, which plays a decisive role in improving the schooling performance. On the contrary, low schooling performance testifies possible weaknesses in principals' leadership efficiency. For example, investment in rural primary and secondary education in Guangxi is no less than the investment in other similar provinces; however, the schooling performance in Guangxi fails in satisfying expectations. In specific, rural schooling performance is poor, and rural primary and secondary education contributes little to rural economic and social development. The key reason lies in the poor leadership efficiency of their principals.Studies have proved that factors affecting leadership efficiency include investment mechanism, necessary conditions for schooling, teaching staff, teaching and management mechanism as well as competence of their principals. To sum up, there are three factors affecting principals' leadership efficiency, i.e. personal qualifications, leadership behaviours and working environment and conditions. Based on these factors, this dissertation puts forward strategies to improving leadership efficiency of principals in rural areas. From the perspective of education management system, reform on rural compulsory education system should be deepened, management system on "county-centred" rural compulsory education should be improved and responsibilities of local governments should be clarified; establish new type of politics-schooling relationship to ensure independent schooling; further improve principals responsibility system; foster a new mode with participation of family and community in schooling. From the perspective of management system on presidents, relevant systems should be improved in accordance with the rules of education development and human resource development to regulate leadership behaviours of the principals so as to establish effective systems on supervision, examination and evaluation of principals. From the perspective of personal qualifications, efforts should be made to upgrade qualifications of principals and improve their leadership style, so that the principals can better accommodate and serve the interests of teachers and students. Principals should be encouraged, in proper ways, to do more contribution to the school.