Competences and competencies for primary school leadership practice: how far do they travel?

Abstract

The quest for quality in education has necessitated the need for innovative leadership in Ghanaian schools. In pursuit of this, teacher educational institutions have through the traditional and distance education systems revised their programmes to ensure that appropriate leadership qualities are developed in teachers to enable them provide the needed classroom and school level leadership for facilitating teaching and leaming in schools. Achieving this feat requires relevantleadership competences. in this paper; we explore some indicators of leadership competences within the Ghanaian cultural context. Drawing on literature from Western authors, and an intetpretive study involving thirty Ghanaian primary headteachers, we contrast competences from competencies and conclude with a discussion on the interplay of the two notions in shaping the professional performance of primary school headteachers in the country.