| المستخلص: |
Headteachers play a pivotal role in the education of young people through the leadership they offer to their school. At the same time, Headteachers running public schools are an important link in education administration chain, of Ministry of Education, educational supervision office and the school. This study sought to explore the opinions of Headteachers in Saudi secondary boys’ schools on Headteacher competencies and their experience of headship. The objective was to identify the most useful competencies to provide professional training programmes for Headteachers in Saudi boys’ secondary schools. It was further hoped that a competencies-based approach might help inform Headteacher appointments and performance evaluation. A review of the literature on educational administration, school management and Headteacher competencies helped inform both the context of the present study and the fieldwork instrumentation. The principal data collection instrument was a Headteacher questionnaire administered to a representative sample of Saudi boys’ secondary school Headteachers (n=160), supported by semi-structured interview schedules for Headteachers (n=10) and school management supervisors (n=10 ). Human Resources Management competencies, including promoting staff teamwork, were among the most important ones (field mean 4.43). Competencies in 7 of the other 8 fields attracted field means ranging between 4.22 and 4.43suggesting that they were almost as highly rated. The somewhat lower field mean on the Use of Time items (3.71) was interpreted as indicating that Headteachers appreciated the need to prioritise their work. The research recommends and Focus on the time management administrative competency /skills in the Headteachers training programmes, because this competency rating was the minimum one in the administrative competencies list.
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