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ral, I feel the principal as a leader should act as an instructional leader and learner, and be able to create a learning environment. Moreover, the principal should have direct involvement in the design, delivery and content of professional development and Assessment of its outcome. It is because I believe the principal is the one who clearly understands the needs of the school in terms of instructional strategies and their timely modifications.

In my experience when teachers are given in-service courses in far-away centers, very rarely do they practice it in their daily lessons. It may be mainly, I believe, due to the reason that in the work place no one may be there to guide and motivate the teachers to adopt the new instructional strategies learned and at the same time, the principal is not so aware about the content of the course and the methods taught. So those programmes aimed at improving teachers’ instructional skills have shown little fruit. Therefore for a professional development to be fruitful and effective, I believe, the principal should take the initiative and the role of leadership.

I have realized that only the principal with a strong leadership quality can lead others in their professional growth to benefit the school as whole. I will try to relate my earlier experiences in bringing changes to the school learning environment. These reflections on the resistance of the teachers towards changes, I hope, will help as a guideline in this course and to enrich my leadership qualities. So I will be looking into the aspect of the effective roles of the principal’s leadership in professional development of teachers. Therefore, this dissertation attempts to answer the question: What is the role of the principal concerning the professional development of teachers to reduce the achievement gap in the school?

I will be presenting this dissertation in the following manner: Following the introduction, I will discuss my reflections on this issue and then refer to the published works in this area as a part of the literature review. Next I will explain the use of questionnaires to collect relevant information from the principals in neighbouring schools on what their view on professional development is, how they have taken initiatives in this area and what challenges they have faced in the process. Next the interpretation of the data will be presented, after which I will be discussing the issues. Then this dissertation will be concluded by analyzing my understanding, limitations and the opening for further research on this issue.

I intend this dissertation to be useful for any school which tries to close the achievement gap by the way of professional development of teachers through the initiation of the principal. I believe the leadership quality of a principal is crucial for any such initiative to become successful. Thus, the principal’s organization along with strong leadership skills and the understanding of the importance of professional development can become more successful. Therefore, I believe a principal who wishes to act as a leader as well as a learner will be able to take up this kind of challenge.

LINIKG THEORY AND PRACTICE

In this chapter, first, I will present my reflections as a school principal in initiating the professional development programmes, and link these reflections to relevant literature. Next, based on the litera