The Role of Ubuntu Ethics in Promoting Citizenship Values: An Investigation into the Foundations of Social Harmony

In the post-industrial revolution world, social change is often studied and understood in the context of change in means of production, mobility, urbanization and change in the constitution of workforce. Role of ethical values is generally confined to personal conduct and manners. Industrial society is supposed to have its own work ethics which may or may not agree with personal ethics and morality. Ethics and morality are generally considered, in the Western thought, as a social construct. Therefore, with the change in means of production or political system, values and morality are also expected to be re-adjusted in order to cope with the changed environment. Sometimes a totally new set of values emerges as a consequence of the change in economic, political, or legal set up. The present research tries to understand the meaning and place of these values in a global socio-cultural framework. Relying essentially on the divine principles of the Qur'ān it makes an effort to understand relevance of these universal and ultimate principles with human conduct and behavior in society.  It indicates that essentially it is the core values, principles, or norms which guide human beings in their interpersonal, social, economic and political matters. Islam being a major civilizing force, culture, and the way of life, provides values which guide both in individual and social matters. The values given by the Qur’ān and the Sunnah are not monopoly of the Muslim. These values are universal and are relevant in a technological society.

Exploring a Female and a Male Secondary School Head Teachers Experiences of Leading School Improvement

Literature (Foster, 2004), agrees that there is a relative absence of research that documents the experience of male and female headteachers leadership in relation to school improvement. This qualitative life history study explores a male and female head teachers' experiences of leading school improvement in two secondary schools of Azeem Education System, Northern Areas of Pakistan. Semi-structured interviews, observations and document analysis were the main source of data generation. The study revealed that the context of leadership and school improvement are relative and are influenced by the contexts of a school and the communities in which the school is situated. The needs, demands and future trends as viewed in these contexts shape and guide headteachers' leadership practices and their school improvement efforts. So, an explanation of headteachers' experiences of leading school improvement also needs to be taken into account not only their personal skills but also to see, how well they were able to respond to the school context. Studies showed that gender may play an important role in teachers' ascend to headship. Male teachers have better chances to avail headship position due to their better academic qualification. While female may need to struggle longer to achieve better academic and professional credential in order to prove their ability of assuming headship position. In order to enhance headteachers' efforts in leading school improvement, some recommendations to the organization were made, that the organization needs to acknowledge headteachers' diverse leadership practices for school improvement. This also requires recognition of headteachers' unique life histories (personal and professional), which shape and guide their unique perceptions and practices of leading schools for improvement. In this connection, the study recommends that professional development programmes for headteachers may include life histories of the headteachers, in order to understand their perceptions and practices of leadership, particularly in the context of their efforts to school improvement.