Challenges Faced by Head of Departments (HoDs) and Strategies used to Improve Faculty Performance in Public Sector Universities of Punjab, Pakistan

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to assess the challenges faced by Heads of Department (HoDs) while improving their faculty performance and examined the strategies they used to overcome these challenges. For this, researchers purposefully selected the twelve HoDs from various departments of three different public sectors universities of Punjab, Pakistan. Data was gathered by conducting semi-structured interviews which was prepared after reviewing of extensive literature. After collecting the data, these interviews were transcribed into English and verbatim transcribed. Researchers used the themetic analysis to analyz the collected data. This study found that HoDs faced various challenges as immature attitude of newly recruited faculty member, irresponsible behavior of faculty, induction and pedagogical trainings of faculty members’, insufficient teaching resources, low morale of teachers’, unnecessary absenteeism, poor interpersonal relationships, communication gap and discrepancies between HoD and teachers’. Second, HoDs also described the strategies they used to overcome these challenges including provide guidance to newly recruited faculty member, organized pedagogical content knowledge training, disciplining irresponsible faculty member, provide accessibility to pedagogical resources, structured induction training, conduct instructional meetings, installation of biometric attendance system, arranged seminars and formal dinners to motivate faculty members’. They also struggled to maintain very good interpersonal relations and overcome communication gaps with them. Based on the findings of the study, the current study proposed a well-structured pre-service training for newly recruited faculty members’, access to ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers’, encouragement to take professional courses on regular basis and improved working relations with faculty members’ by the heads. In addition, it is also suggested that HoDs should take training in administration of academic departments.