Sustancia pensante y principio de la copia

Headmasters play a crucial and versatile role in leading positive and productive instructions for schools, resulting in a favourable workplace for teachers and effervescent learning environments for students. Successful school leaders affect student achievement by means of two essential pathways. These include supporting and developing effective teachers and implementing useful organizational processes. Headmasters should act as educational visionar- ies, instructional and curriculum leaders and assessment experts. Secondly, they are also expected to be disciplinarians, community builders and public relations experts, as well as budget analysts, facility managers and special programs administrators. Moreover, they are the guardians of various legal, contractual and policy mandates and initiatives (Schiller, 2003). According to Al-harbi (2003), in the middle of such commotion, new systems of superior durability have become apparent with the competence to adapt to the imperative changes. In order to persevere through global developments, calls for educational restructuring and the introduction of content-related restoration have been continual, at the educational administration level and inside the schools themselves. The school headmaster, playing a strategic role in the educational process, is assigned with a decisive burden, being in command of the diverse aspects taking place inside and outside of the school.

Bestowed with the executive responsibilities involved with the school headmastership, such as decision making, communication, motivation and performance appraisal, it is apparent that the mastermind of such undertakings is the school headmaster who is at the pinnacle of the administrative hierarchy.

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Moral purpose is required from headmasters, especially in terms of formulating and achieving goals. They should work to achieve an improved life and thinking of the final outcome is vital in this process, as well as the means by which it is attained. The view of the purpose of education is clear; that is to produce students who would be continual learners. To achieve this is a critical issue since technology has altered the way life operates in the same way that it is changing the manner in which headmasters must handle their moral purpose. Of course, moral purpose is, or should be, a natural tendency, but unless it is cultivated and adapted to daily operations, it will not flourish (Yuen et al. 2003).

Bingimlas (2009) stresses that the role of the headmaster in ICT implementation is very important. He says teachers who are supported and encouraged by the headmaster apply ICT in their lessons more in comparison with those who do not get support or encouragement from the headmaster. Furthermore, the headmaster should ensure that students have as much access to technology as their teachers so that the flow of learning and communication will be developed (Schiller, 2003).

Studying the role of school leaders in the utilisation of ICT in Saudi Arabian secondary schools, Albugami and Ahmed (2015b) found various levels of encouragement and support given to class teachers for use of ICT. About 54% of headmasters often encouraged and supported the schoolteachers in using ICT in their classrooms, with 22% only doing it sometimes.

Arnolds (2006) found out that Saudi Arabian teachers are inflexible to innovative ideas and prefer to stick to established rules and traditions in teaching. Interestingly, most teachers in Saudi Arabia are unhappy with their lesson and weekly plans, curriculum and administration, but they rarely deviate from their prescribed roles (Al-Sulaimani, 2010). No doubt, these conservative attitudes may prevent teachers from using ICT in classrooms if they are not encouraged and stimulated to do so.

It has been mentioned earlier, in chapter two, that the concept of leadership is crucial for the successful integration of any organizational change. The case of ICT implementation in education is not an exception. Leadership, either formal or informal, is a critical component for the adoption of ICT tools throughout the education process in a variety of subjects (Blackmore et al. 2011).

Additionally, an overview of literature revealed that the key school-level barriers to ICT-based education are lack of resources, poor access to ICT tools, lack of teacher training and the like. Thus, it is the role of a school headmaster to create facilitating conditions, such as to provide

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an ICT infrastructure, find and allocate resources and to determine processes and discourses. While teachers have an impact on students’ attitudes towards and use of ICT tools in classroom activities, school headmasters encourage teachers to exercise ICT practices through creating an appealing learning environment (Blackmore et al. 2011).

Interestingly, there were few studies that examined Saudi headmasters’ role regarding ICT, which in turn confirms the significance of this study. However, some studies showed that most Saudi headmasters are not qualified in using ICT tools in their duties. For instance, Albugami (2008) investigated the role of the Saudi headmaster, as a facilitator or hindrance to ICT implementation in Saudi schools. He concluded that 81.8% of headmasters are not a specialist in any area of ICT. Regarding attendance to any training course on ICT within the past three years, only 25% of them affirmed, while 75% negated the statement.

Another role of the headmaster in facilitating ICT is to provide teachers with more free time for preparation (Al Mulhim, 2014; Jones, 2004; Tearle, 2003). Time limitations and difficulties of scheduling adequate time for technology-oriented classes is actually a significant barrier to the use of technological resources in teaching. This issue does not leave Saudi teachers enough time to apply ICT tools in classroom activities (Al-Alwani, 2005).

In Saudi Arabia, the average teacher’s schedule involves 18-24 lessons per week (working from 7.00 in the morning until 2.00 p.m.), with each lesson lasting 45 minutes, leaving a very limited amount of time to work on integrating technology into their instructional practices (Al Asmari, 2011; Al-Alwani, 2005; Sicilia, 2005). This was confirmed by Al-Mulhim (2014). In his results, most of the respondents in multiple interviews and studies reported that they needed more time to consult internet resources, prepare materials, or attend training (2014). Al-Alwani (2005) found that an overloaded schedule does not leave teachers enough time to apply audio- visual equipment in classroom activities. Thus, Al-Mulhim (2014) concluded that administration of schools needs to encourage teachers to use ICT tools in the educational process by providing them with more free time for preparation.

Based on the evidence presented above, one may realise that the role of a school headmaster in ICT implementation is extremely important, since it impacts upon teachers’ use of ICT tools in their classrooms. In the scope of functions imposed on a school headmaster, the key one is to establish collaboration and understanding with another important stakeholder in ICT implementation (Mulkeen, 2003; Schiller, 2003).

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The foregoing are clearly compatible with the study framework, which suggested that the headmaster's roles should be supportive, encouraging, collaborative and facilitative of ICT implementation in school. The literature also indicates the importance of the headmaster’s skills in ICT. All these factors will be investigated, in more detail, in chapters 5 and 6.