PRACTICES, CHALLENGES, AND OPPORTUNITY OF SCHOOL IM PROVEMENT PROGRAM IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF SILTE ZONE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the practices, challenges, and opportunities of school improvement program in primary schools of Silte zone, southern Ethiopia. The descriptive research design was employed to conduct the study; the mixed research method was employed to con duct the study, to manage both quantitative and qualitative data. Random sampling technique was employed to select the 10 government primary schools. 260 respondents were selected from10 selected primary schools selected by simple random and purposively schools which was included 176 teacher respondents, SIPC 42, principal 12, student representatives 6, and educa tional experts 21. The data collection instruments were questionnaire, semi structured interview questions for primary data collection and document analysis. Interview was made with 21 educa tional experts who have experience about the school improvement program. The data were ana lyzed by using SPSS software 2 version in which simple descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentile and mean distribution were used for data analysis. The findings of the study revealed that self-enquiries conducted in the primary schools were not continuous and regular as they should have been (55.3%), the program has been strongly influenced by lack of the alloca tion of necessary budget it was not sufficient to carry out the SIP, the program was not well im plemented in most primary school in Silite zone constructive support and regular checking and feedback. The study also concluded that the preparation made by both the school leadership and Silite zone educational office is low and not satisfactory and the major weakness of the implementation of the program is due to schools leadership failure in involving the community representatives and the community at large in key areas of the schools. Finally, the study rec ommended that Silite zone and woredas education office in collaboration with primary school leadership needs to design a strategy to ensure sustainable participation of the community mem bers in both labor and financial support activities to the SIP