The effectiveness of a university-based professional development program in developing Bahraini school leaders’ management and leadership competencies of implementing effective school-wide professional development and ICT integration

Abstract

With advances in education, the pressure on public schools in Bahrain to improve and raise their quality standards to the level of international best practices has increased and the demands placed on school leaders in this respect have become immense. Many in leadership positions, however, are inadequately prepared to live up to such demands, which explains the dire need for their professional development (PD). In Bahrain, the effectiveness of the one and only university-based program designed for preparing school leaders – the Educational Leadership Program (ELP) – has never been directly measured and there are no research studies in the literature on Bahrain that even mention PD in general, let alone school leaders’ PD. There is also little empirical evidence in the literature in general for how graduating principals actually perform on the job. Assessing the effectiveness of the ELP was therefore necessary, as was filling a gap in the literature on Bahrain in specific and on school leaders’ preparation programs in general. This study attempted to do just that by assessing the impact of two ELP modules, which focus on the management and leadership of teachers’ PD and information and computer technology integration in schools, on school leaders’ competencies and performance.

Keywords:

• Bahrain
• school leaders
• professional development
• information and computer technology integration
• educational reform
• school capacity