PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING DECENTRALIZED EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT: THE CASE OF SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF HAWASA CITY ADMINISTRATION.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to assess practices and challenges of implementing decentralized educational management in the case of government general secondary schools of Hawasa city Educational Administration department. The study employed descriptive survey design along with both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The main participants of the study were 153 teachers and 21 principals, however, 14 students’ council, 14 PTSAs, and 14 KETBs were involved to triangulate the study. Stratified random sampling technique was employed to select teachers, PTSAs, and KETBs from general secondary schools, but all principals and all student councils were taken by availability sampling. The study used questionnaires, interview, and document review to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Descriptive statistics such as percentage, mean, standard deviation were used to analyze the quantitative data and inferential statistics - independent samples t-test was also employed to examine view/outlook differences between teachers and principals, specifically their perception. On the other hand, the qualitative data were narrated systematically using content analysis approach. The results of the study revealed that the implementation of educational management decentralization practices in enhancing stakeholders’ participation; in the effectiveness of power devolution; the overall practices at schools’ level were poor. Moreover, there exists statistically significant mean scores difference on the perception towards the implementation of decentralized educational management between teachers and principal. As a result most teachers have negative, but principals have positive perceptions towards the practices. As to the challenges, lack of sufficient budget; lack of skillful and competent school principals; turnover and shortage of manpower in both teachers and principals; lack of motivation and commitment of teachers and school’s community; lack of co-operation between school leaders and stakeholders; absence of support from the City educational experts; lack of good governance and high politician interferences to educational administration were identified as major challenges that hinders the effectiveness of the practices. Consequently, this study suggests to school leaders, educational experts and other concerned government bodies such as school directors as well as PTSA and KETB should build the knowledge, skills and the capacity of those responsible for educational management decentralization and to which stakeholders’ management functions are to be devolved and should to give more emphasis to review the practices and implementations continuously.