Ugandan secondary school headteachers’ efficacy: What kind of training for whom?

With increasing pressures from growing demand and for higher quality on secondary schools, headteachers play a crucial role in creating successful school environments. Within Uganda, and across many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, headteachers are not adequately prepared for their roles, and few professional development opportunities exist to provide them with the skills they need. This article reports on a study that assessed headteachers’ efficacy in the areas of leadership, management, instructional supervision, and community relations. One of the policy arguments for educators’ professional development is to create a coherent, cost-effective, and scaleable training program, which often results in a “one-size-fits-all” training. However, the findings from this study suggest the need for designing training to target gaps in specific skill domains and to give attention to the differing roles and responsibilities of head and deputy headteachers, the school size and resources, gender, and the location of the population that the school serves. In effect, training should be contextualized and targeted.     

HIV/AIDS‐related stigma and information behaviour: an ethnographic study in the UK

This feature explores the information behaviour of people infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. It investigates specifically the difficult issue of stigma and how this shapes the ways in which people interact with vital information. The study adopted an ethnographic whereby the researcher worked as a part‐time volunteer at an HIV support centre in the North of England for over a year. This is the first time that such an approach has been reported in this feature and is interesting from this perspective alone. The very rich data which was gathered as a result of the approach is also instructive. The study formed part of a PhD thesis, which Robinah Kalemeera Namuleme completed at the University of Sheffield in March 2013.