Md. Robiul Islam, Protiva Rani Karmaker, Ashim Kumar Paul

Bangladesh in the 21st century has been experiencing a revolutionary emergence in her educational sector since the government of Bangladesh has already started working on the implementation of the grand project of United Nations (UN) titled ‘Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)’ where quality of education has been given the top priority. Hence, apart from primary, secondary, higher secondary education and equivalents, higher education is also prioritized equally. At present, the higher education of the country is provided by degree colleges, universities and other specialized professional institutions. Among the higher educational institutions, the tertiary colleges affiliated with National University (NU) are receiving prominent attention from the educational department of the government for they are to perform momentous responsibilities in transforming a great number of youths into skilled manpower.

To fulfil the vision of SDGs in tertiary education, ‘Head of the Department’ (HoD) plays one of the most important roles for the ongoing well-being of academic life. The instructional leadership of the Heads of the Departments (HoDs) is fundamental to the effective progress of teaching and learning. The HoDs as the instructional leaders generally provide direction, manage resources, support lecturers and students, ensure a sound climate for teaching and learning. They coordinate, assist and evaluate learning program, do action research, organize in service programs for teachers. Besides, they help teachers to identify, analyze, and solve learning problems, provide timely and constructive feedback, identify strengths and weakness to guide teacher on the way for improvement. They also increase teacher’s decision-making responsibilities, support teacher autonomy, take risk, observe classrooms and protect instructional time. Moreover, the HoDs monitor student progress, recognize and celebrate student and staff achievements, develop professional opportunities with recourse, create a common vision for improving students’ learning. They set goal to boost students’ achievement, organize and coordinate effective and efficient outcome, maintain good relationships to create collaboration and commitment among teachers. In fact, instructional leadership of the HoD aims at achieving academic excellence within a particular subject area.

In Bangladesh, the department-based academic and administrative activities at tertiary colleges are done by the direct instruction and supervision of HoDs. In this situation, the HoDs at the tertiary colleges of Bangladesh are, by default, in challenging positions to effectuate efficacious leadership in terms of realizing effective instructions. While their accomplished decisions and guidance shape the overall success of the tertiary institutions, and as such have significant impact on higher education, the HoDs at tertiary colleges of Bangladesh constantly encounter multifaceted challenges arising from specific political and social situations, traditional methods of teaching and other human and non-human factors which they need to deal with conspicuously.

For examples, top leading authorities pay little attention to the preparation of HoDs. Indeed, most of the HoDs have no clear understanding of their job responsibilities. In addition, they have very little recognition, power or authority to enforce compliance, reward good work or ensure cooperation. On the contrary, in many cases, they lack the training to conceptualize leadership. Their role has not undergone much scrutiny or clarification. Many HoDs do not feel comfortable to take a supervisory role and do not feel that they have the authority to enforce administrative decisions and manage teachers. The HoDs have both administrative and teaching responsibilities but they are often conflicted as to which role to occupy. Role conflict and role ambiguity cause emotional distress and high job dissatisfaction. There seems to be some disparity between how the role is viewed by the administrators and the HoDs themselves. Nothing can affect instructional improvement more than lack of leaders’ will, vision and courage. Besides, economic, political, social or technological variations, lack of skill and training, absence of cooperation from superiors and community, inadequate amount of time and resources, etc. are cited as challenges to the effectiveness of HoDs. Negative attitudes, ambiguous beliefs, fragmented or unclear concepts of education, lack of resources and inadequate preparation of teachers are challenges in implementing effective education. Moreover, the tertiary colleges are, although, affiliated with NU, the instructional leaders, teachers and staff are governed by the Ministry of Education (MoE). So, the gap between NU and MoE in academic management and operations bars a smooth presence of healthy and effective learning atmosphere as well as potential instructional leadership practice.

According to a report of Ministry of Education, Bangladesh (2010), lack of leadership knowledge and administrative skills, scarcity of educational materials and finance, insufficient incentive for teachers, problems with promotions, poor infrastructure, inadequate technical support, lack of commitment, insufficient posts, high workload, unwillingness to use modern technology and scarce support or acknowledgement are the common challenges faced by the HoDs in Bangladesh. In addition, other challenges faced by the HoDs include disconnection with departmental subcultures, norms for teacher autonomy, inadequate preparation of teachers and insufficient training opportunities. The HoDs can offer support and facilitate change but how and why, is a matter of debate.  

So what are the aftereffects? Challenges faced by the HoDs at tertiary colleges in Bangladesh undoubtedly affect the success of their role and responsibilities. More precisely, role ambiguity, uncongenial working environment, insufficient professional development and resources, insufficient pre-service preparation, absence of passable mutual trust amongst the colleagues, rigid educational framework, scarce knowledge on pedagogical contents, teachers absenteeism etc. are  found accountable for the managerial ineffectiveness of an academic HoD. Besides, their effectiveness as instructional leadership is barred by the lack of willingness to assess staff, organize the community, courage to undertake, as well as reluctance to devote more time for instructional issues.

However, our study has made some recommendations about challenges of the HoDs as the instructional leaders. These recommendations are particularly related to policy-makers, principals and the HoDs. For sustainable development in instructional leadership practice, the main components of HoDs (mind, knowledge, and strategy) should be developed. Since negativity of mind cannot be controlled without mentoring and spirituality, instructional leaders should be given spiritual training (demonstration on building a free mind through proper handling of ego, greed, jealousy, anger, self-centredness, etc) and mentoring by spiritual mentors. In middle age, this type of training was given to make highly wise and positive minded leaders at Paharpur and Moinamoti in Bangladesh. Thus, re-establishment of mentoring system can be a solution.  

Our study also reveals that most of the HoDs at tertiary colleges in Bangladesh do not have proper training on leadership and guidelines regarding administration. As a result, they are not aware of their roles and responsibilities. Therefore, the pre-service and in-service training of department heads should be ensured. Besides, orientation programme for the new HoDs with the involvement of experienced HoDs is also suggested accordingly. Above all, to avoid role ambiguity, letters of appointment to the HoDs should include detailed specification of roles and responsibilities.

To ensure the effectiveness of their instructional leadership, existing promotion system might be revised as it does not encourage professional development.

Promotion based on research experience and publications of article in journal should be initiated immediately at tertiary colleges and the HoDs should be chosen based on their management skills. More importantly, the HoDs should be properly empowered to perform the best of their ability to improve departmental success and accordingly, provided with training on the use of ICT tools and the facilities to ensure a supportive learning environment for the students in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

(This article is an abridged version of a research paper published in the IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science)

Md. Robiul Islam is Assistant Professor and Head, Department of English, Ishwardi Government College, Pabna, Bangladesh;

Protiva Rani Karmaker is Associate Professor and Director, Institute of Modern Languages, Jagannath University, Dhaka, Bangladesh;

Ashim Kumar Paul is Lecturer, Department of English, Ishwardi Government College, Pabna, Bangladesh