The Intervening Role of Human Resource Development Interventions on the Relationship Between School Leadership and Academic Performance in Public Senior High Schools in Ghana

Since independence, enhancing secondary education in Ghana has been a major focus of reforms. However, despite these efforts, academic performance in second-cycle schools has not fully met expectations. According to the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education, pass rates in core subjects have improved from 2006 to 2021. However, performance in these subjects still falls below 40%. This persistent underperformance has been attributed to school leadership and their capacity to effectively implement a vision for enhancing teachers’ skills and knowledge. This study examines the moderating effect of human resource development interventions on the relationship between school leadership and academic performance in public senior high schools in Ghana. Grounded in distributed leadership and social learning theories, the study uses a positivist approach to analyze these relationships systematically. A cross-sectional design was employed, utilising self-administered questionnaires to collect data from a target population of 928 public senior high schools listed by the Ghana Education Service as of December 2023. A cluster-stratified random sampling technique selected 2176 respondents from 16 strata. Data was processed and analyzed using SPSS version 27. The analysis included both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found a positive significant correlation (R= 0.669) between school leadership and academic performance. The study further found that human resource development interventions significantly moderated (R= 0.289) the relationship and strengthened the effect of school leadership on academic performance. The study recommends that the Ministry and relevant agencies appoint competent school leaders to senior high schools. Furthermore, the study emphasises the need for professional development initiatives for teachers. The study advocates for policies that prioritise human resource development interventions and suggests future research to focus on similar studies on both public and private senior high schools, as well as vocational and STEM institutions.