Investigating Teacher Leadership Practices,Promotion,and Challenges In Context Of Pakistan

The study served the purpose of investigating the practices,promotion,and challenges of teacher leadership in public schools in the context of Sindh Pakistan.The study is conducted by adopting a mixed-method research design,which included focus groups and semi-structured interviews,and a questionnaire survey to answer the research questions of the study.The study was conducted in eleven public schools of Sindh.Findings of the study revealed that teacher leadership practices exist in most of the public schools informally,voluntarily,and school-based initiatives for different administrative functions of the school from the role of first-assistant to in charge of extra curriculum activities.Finding regarding the promotion of teacher leadership demonstrated that school heads promote teacher leadership in different ways.Most commonly adopted ways to promote teacher leadership practices in Sindh Pakistan include assigning different administrative roles to the teachers,being a personal guide to the novice teachers,conducting meetings with the teachers,building a team,and working partnership with teachers.This is informed by(Bolden,2011)He talked about the allocation of responsibilities,and resources,and(Katzenmeyer &Moller,2009)talked about the school heads' responsibility to awake the sleeping giant of teacher leadership.School heads perceive that the bossy style may not work in every situation,and the bossy style likely to cause clashes among school heads and teachers,while democratic and distributive approach helps to run schools smoothly.School heads also use certificates,words of appreciation,medals,and opportunities to promote teacher leadership.The study identified a variety of challenges that school heads and teachers face for teacher leadership,those challenges include improper administration by district educational officials,insufficient operational funds,teachers' associations,lack of trust among school head and teachers,lack of interest of deputy commissioner in the public schools,shortage of teachers and lower staff in the schools,and poor infrastructure and utility facilities at schools,The correlation among teacher leadership practices,promotion,challenges,and SCEP factors show the opposite relationship between promotion and challenges and SCEP factors,that if challenges and SCEP factors increase,then the promotion of teacher leadership is affected negatively and if these challenges and influence of SCEP factors decrease,then the promotion of teacher leadership increases.SCEP Factors and Challenges have a positive relationship with each other,that SCEP factors may increase and decrease the challenges for teacher leadership in Sindh.The regression coefficient shows the significant influence of promotional,challenge,and SCEP factors on teacher leadership practices with an estimated impact of 0.27,0.40,and 0.39 respectively.These results depict those fewer efforts are taken for the promotion of teacher leadership in Sindh,while there are more challenges for teacher leadership in public schools of Sindh.The study is expected to open understanding opportunities for teachers to grow and improve public schools in Sindh.The study is a literary and empirical contribution to the theory and practice of teacher leadership literature of Sindh Pakistan.The findings of the study are limited to the northern part of the Sindh province that may not be generalized for other parts of the country.The scope of study may be extended for future study in other parts of the Sindh province and most likely in other provinces of Pakistan too.