The Capacity Development Opportunities of Sri Lankan Government School Principals

Human resource is more important than any other resource in every institution or organization. In a school, the principal is the chief manager who supervise the human resources. Therefore, there should be proper professional development programmes in the system of Education to enhance the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the principal. Through that more systematic, effective and productive Education service can be delivered to the community. It has become a necessity to pay attention to the capacity development of principals. Therefore, it was necessary to do a research on identifying the capacity development areas of Sri Lankan government school principals. The main aim of this study was to find out the capacity development opportunities for Sri Lankan government school principals. With special focus to 60 principals in Hambantota district, 6 directors of Education and 5 trainers of principals data had been collected through questionnaires, interviews and documents. The methodology used was mixed method approach and the data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Through this study, the necessary capacity development areas for Sri Lankan government school principals were identified where suitable suggestions were made for modifications. It could be concluded that the principals were in need of appropriate pre-service or in service professional development. The awareness of the principals regarding the nature and the duration of the existing capacity development programmes was not satisfactory. Over half of the selected principals in the sample have pointed out that the capacity development programmes for the school principals are not conducted based on their capacity development needs.