Are school leaders working as instructional leaders? Exploration of school leadership practices in rural Pakistan

Abstract School Leadership is widely acknowledged as a prime determiner of school improvement. Among the various leadership models, Instructional Leadership (IL) is considered as having greater impact upon the school, teachers, and student achievement. Consequently, an increasing attention has been paid to IL across the globe. However, we lack any empirical evidence regarding how IL unfolds in rural contexts characterized by many challenges. Hence, this research explores IL practices in a secondary school in rural Sindh, Pakistan. Data are collected from school leaders and teachers through focused group and semi-structured interviews, observations of leadership practices and document analysis. The findings of the study revealed that school leaders played restricted role as instructional leaders (ILs). Their priorities were more administrative and managerial related tasks rather than student achievement, teachers’ professional development (PD) and creating learning culture as suggested in educational literature. The outcomes of this research provoke thoughts in relation to school leadership in the developing world especially in rural contexts having significant implications for policy makers, educational reformers and school leaders.


Introduction
School leadership (SL) is widely recognized as a critical factor in improving the capacity of schools and teachers ultimately leading to the enhanced achievement for students (Fullan, 2007). Although a variety of leadership models have been presented in educational literature, IL, owing to its focus on teacher development and students' achievement (Leithwood et al., 2008), has been gaining an increasing attention across the globe. The need for SL as an instructional leader arose during the 1980s as a result of the demand for "instructionally effective elementary schools" (Hallinger, 2005). The focus of IL was to turn around schools, the schools which, according to them, were failing to respond to the rapidly changing educational needs (Bossert et al., 1982). With schools being continually under pressure to improve classroom practices and student achievement, the need and demand for IL is still around with the assumption and evidence that this model has the capacity to refine instructions and to cater the needs of individual students and thus enhancing achievement for all learners (Shaked & Schechter, 2014).
Although Pakistan has been a signatory to many world declarations on education, enhancing achievement for all learners or closing learners' achievement gaps still remains limited to the slogans and promises. A report suggests that 65% of 6 th grade students in rural areas could only read a 2 nd grade-level story in Urdu or their local language (South Asian Forum for Educational Development, 2014). Although, some authors attribute this to the poor quality of teaching resulting from the poor quality of teachers (Rizvi & Elliott, 2007), there are so many other differences between rural and urban schools resulting in poor academic performance for students. Saeed and Fatima (2015) depict the difference in the following words.
For rural areas, there is a limited access to educational institutions particularly at higher levels of education. School infrastructure in terms of classrooms, drinking water and toilets is poor. Many schools even do not have class rooms and students had to sit in an open area. Schools become non-functional during rains. Students often face poor access to information and technology in rural areas. However, in urban areas, there is accessibility of educational institutions; better infrastructure (both in terms of human and Physical facilities) and good quality of education are some important incentives which motivate students to participate in schools. (p. 11) To address this situation, the government of Sindh, Pakistan has handed over the management of several schools to a public sector university with the assumption and expectation that this university will enhance the capacity of those schools ultimately providing quality learning environment to the otherwise marginalized students. These schools have been named as Educational Management Organization (EMO) schools. Coupled with many other interventions, the university has hired new leaders for EMO schools who are expected to work with the existing leaders to develop the school capacity. However, no systematic research has been carried out to understand how these leaders work on improving the capacity of teachers and the achievement of students. In other words, we do not know what IL roles the school leaders are practicing in EMO schools. Against this background, the current research aimed to explore the IL practices of school leaders respond to a bigger research question of how IL is enacted in an EMO School in the context of rural Sindh, Pakistan.
Although the research has been limited to rural Sindh, it has wider implications. Firstly, the insights emerging from this research add to the existing knowledge on IL practices in rural contexts of developing world which the existing literature is surprisingly silent about Hallinger & Chen, 2015). Secondly, the findings provide a base to the university management to reflect on their practices aimed to bring improvement in the schools which they have taken over from government education department. These insights will also provoke thoughts and provide lens to the educational reformers in rural contexts to rethink of their school leadership and improvement models. Leithwood et al. (2004) presented three dimensions of IL which include setting direction, educating and developing staff, and restructuring the organization. The first dimension, setting direction, is the most significant element of IL as it determines goals to be achieved or a destination to reach at. The goals are mainly in the form of enhanced student achievement. Once a direction is set, the leader focuses on developing the staff to enable them to choose the right direction in order to reach the desired destination. Educating and developing the staff is essential because student learning is based on the motivation and competencies of teachers, supervisors and other staff acting individually and collectively (Leithwood et al., 2004). The existing structures of the organization may not allow such initiatives. Therefore, the leadership restructures the organization to facilitate staff development and other initiatives to achieve the desired goals. Osman and Mukuna (2013) further extends the model and categorized IL practices into four dimensions. The first dimension is goal emphasis where the instructional leader sets instructional goals and high expectations and focuses on students' achievements. Although a different vocabulary has been used, this dimension is congruent with setting direction suggested by Leithwood et al. (2004). The next dimensions presented by Osman and Mukuna (2013) are in way detailed explanations of the other two dimensions of Leithwood et al. (2004). For Osman, the second dimension is coordinating and organizing the task to achieve the goals and objectives. The third dimension is the ability to make a rational decision with a focus on protecting resources, having options, and assisting in enhancing the teaching and learning process. The last dimension is about human relations as an instructional leader is expected to deal effectively with staff, parents and students. The most influential model of IL that has frequently been used by academics and practitioners concerned with IL is given by Hallinger and Murphy (1985). This model consists of three main dimensions and many sub-dimensions. The first dimension is defining the mission that includes sub-dimensions of framing school goals and communicating schools goals. These components have been well established in relation to school leadership. Bush and Glover (2003), for example, believes that it is the vision of a school that distinguishes an effective leader from a less effective leader. Similarly, when the school vision and goals are conveyed to the stakeholders, they work more diligently and in a more informed way to achieve the set goals (Ghavifekr et al., 2017). The second dimension as proposed by Hallinger and Murphy (1985) is managing instructional program. Its sub-dimensions include supervising and evaluating instruction, coordinating curriculum and monitoring student progress. Research also confirms a positive impact of these dimensions on student achievement owing to their enhanced possibility of checking students' progress employing a variety of monitoring and evaluation techniques (Ahmad & Hussain, 2015). These dimensions also enable maximizing the capacity of teachers through extending support at classroom level, providing constructive feedback and appraising them to ensure high quality teaching with the ultimate aim of high-quality learning for all children (Okendu, 2012;Ovando & Ramirez, 2007;Tedla, 2012).

Instructional leadership practices
The third and last dimension is promoting school climate (Hallinger & Murphy, 1985). It consists of five functions, namely, protecting instructional time; promoting professional development; maintaining high visibility; providing incentives for teachers; enforcing academic standards and providing incentives for students. A bulk of literature supports these functions of leadership highlighting their importance in strengthening collaboration, improving relationship, enhancing teachers' capacity and motivation, focusing on student learning and making teachers accountable (Goldring et al., 2008;Millar, 2009;Murphy et al., 2006;O'Sullivan, 2018).
A critical analysis of the literature presented above in relation to the practices and dimensions of IL bring forth certain components that are almost common in each of the models. The most explicit dimension explicitly emerging from each model is setting vision and goals. The vision and goals are mainly in the form of student achievement. To achieve this significant goal, the models also focus on developing staff especially teachers through creating a variety of PD opportunities, instructional supervision, reorganizing organizational structures and cultures with a focus on learning, enhancing collaboration, improving relationship and motivating staff.
The empirical studies on IL as reviewed by Leithwood and Jacobson (2005) present plenty of examples of highly successful practices. These studies also show how leaders perform different strategies in different contexts as successful ILs. School leaders in Australia, for example, support and encourage their teachers in situations that are otherwise too challenging for them to cope up with. These leaders work in close collaboration with teachers which not only ensures their visibility but also allow the teachers to avail great learning opportunities through working in collaboration with the school leader. Norwegian school leaders, as noted by Leithwood and Jacobson (2005) engage teachers in constructive debate to allow them to learn new ways of doing their practices through putting their own ideas under scrutiny. The school leaders from the United States, on the other hand, work more like mentors and demonstrate essential instructional practices for teachers. Leithwood reveals that the most successful leaders, as emerged from the studies in Sweden and Denmark are visible, approachable and readily available to give any help required by their staff. Another successful model of IL has been reported from Kenya (Juma et al., 2021) where the school leaders engage their juniors or deputies to ensure IL practices that is a move from traditional model of school leader as a sole instructional leader. These studies also show many other qualities of a successful ILs such as skilled communicator, careful listener, open minded, creative, lateral thinker and problem solver. It suggests that although deep instructional knowledge is a condition (Goldring et al., 2019), a successful IL possesses not only deep understanding of instructions but also other leadership skills because it is the leadership behavior which makes a difference (Carrier, 2017).
The literature analyzed above shows that we have sufficient understanding on the concept and practices of IL mainly coming from the developed context. Studies also suggest that in many contexts, the concept as well as the development of IL practices is still at its embryonic stage (Harris & Jones, 2015). Hallinger et al. (2020) noted that the knowledge related to IL is well established in Western countries but has just lately begun to exist on continents such as Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Therefore, studies on the practices of IL in Asian countries remains scarce (Hallinger & Bryant, 2013;Hallinger & Chen, 2015). The existing knowledge, a recent literature review (Ikram et al., 2021), for example, reveal that principals in Asian countries pay more attention on administrative tasks. With regard to the practices of IL, they focus more on instructional programs and less on curriculum management. Another study on IL in relatively developed countries of Asia, namely, Japan, Singapore and South Korea (Kim & Lee, 2020) shows that principals' IL has stronger influence on mentoring, peer observation and coaching compared with other form of traditional professional development. It suggests that IL has greater potential to facilitate teachers' collaborative learning given that collaborative models rely on interactions and co-development of expertise.
Although some studies have been conducted in Pakistan on IL, due to certain limitation, those studies have limited contribution to our understanding of IL practices in Pakistan. Adeel et al. (2020), for example, portray a promising image of IL, their study was, however, conducted in Punjab, a wealthier province where the quality of schools and education is quite high compared with schools in the province of Sindh (Mansoor, 2011). Secondly, the existing research on IL mainly depends on self-reported data of the school leaders (see, for example, Nader et al., 2019), whose reliability is usually questionable. Studies conducted on school leadership in Pakistan suggest developing an understanding in relation to IL practices in this region (Khan et al., 2020). Against this background, using the lens of IL, the current study explored the practices of school leaders in an EMO school in northern Sindh, Pakistan.

Research method
To explore the IL practices in an EMO school, a qualitative approach was used with the assumption that this approach will allow examining the phenomena in its originality and with rich detail (Ary et al., 2018). Within this approach, an intrinsic case study was conducted to understand and provide a thick description of the particular case (Fraenkel & Wallen., 2003). The case was bounded to IL in an EMO school in a particular region, Sukkur, a district of Sindh Province in Pakistan. The EMO school was selected mainly because there was a greater possibility to observe IL practices in this system since the schools have been taken over by the university compared with other schools still under public sector and characterized by traditional practices. There are two school leaders working in the EMO managed schools, one appointed by the public sector (called principal) and the other (called manager) recruited by the university (For further detail on EMO system schools, see the Introduction section). Since both the leaders are responsible for both academic management of the school, they both were taken as purposive samples (Bloor, 2001) with the assumption that they will provide more relevant data on IL. To enrich and triangulate data, 10 teachers were also taken as research participants. While selecting the teachers, the subjects they teach and the level they work in (e.g., middle and secondary) were also considered to draw representative samples. Figure 1 below presents brief demographics of the research participants.
To ensure credibility , the research used a variety of data collection tools and procedures such as interviews, observations and document analysis. The school leaders (principal and manager) were interviewed individually using semi-structured interview procedure which allowed both the interviewees and interviewers to discuss the area in a detailed way (Croker, 2009). Teachers were interviewed in two groups, each group consisting of five members. Interview questions were framed around the various dimensions of IL as reviewed in the previous section. These questions included the role of school leaders in framing and communicating school goals, managing instructional program and promoting school climate. Factors influencing the enactment of these IL practices were also pondered into. The interviews were taken twice, each interview lasting 40 to 60 minutes. With the permission of the participants, the interviews were audio-recorded.
In addition, each leader was observed through shadowing to get a detailed description of their everyday practices with a focus on IL. Lastly, some relevant documents such as job descriptions of the school leaders, annual plans and some available meeting minutes were also analyzed to enrich data in relation to IL practices in the school. The analysis of these documents provided insight into other components of their lived experiences (Hodder, 1994).
Data collection and analysis was a simultaneous process as suggested by Bogdan and Biklen (1998). While in the field, the researchers critically analyzed the emerging data to ensure its relevance and to come up with initial findings. The field notes coming from observation and document analysis were developed into reflections systematically recording the understanding in relation to IL practices. Such simultaneous analysis also guided the subsequent data collection by making the process more specific and focused on more relevant data. Once the data collection was completed, the interviews were transcribed. Next, all data set such as reflections and interview transcripts were organized and systematically analyzed using thematic analysis procedure (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998;Braun & Clarke, 2006). While doing the final analysis, first, the organized data were coded labelling the data with certain words and phrases that represents the topics, behaviors and ideas in the data. Then the codes were read again and again to identify patterns to sort and put together relevant codes. As codes were categorized into patterns, patterns were then categorized into broader themes merging many relevant patterns together. However, some patterns were raised to themes as they were broad enough to stand alone. Before, moving to presenting findings as emerged from ongoing analysis of data, research trustworthiness and ethical considerations employed in the research are presented briefly.
To maintain trustworthiness and to overcome the challenge of subjectivity, this research employed strategies, namely, adequacy of sampling and reflexivity. To ensure the adequacy of sampling, as suggested by Strauss and Corbin (1998), this research recruited participants who were assumedly more informed and represented the field at multiple levels such as school leaders and teachers. Another strategy to overcome the challenge of subjectivity was reflexivity-questioning own assumptions and critically looking at any impacts that might influence data collection and interpretation (Engward & Davis, 2015).
As an ethical consideration, an informed consent was taken from the participants to enable them enter the research project voluntarily understanding the nature of the study with the possibility to withdraw from the research at any time (British Educational Research Association

Figure 1. Demographics of the research participants
[BERA], 2018). While reporting the research outcomes, as suggested by Bogdan and Biklen (1998), participants' identities are kept anonymous, and we do not present the personal and private information gathered from them in a way that could lead readers to deduce their identities. Pseudonyms are used instead of real names throughout the research report.

Findings
The practice of data analysis as mentioned above was carried out several times leading to the emergence of the following five major themes. Findings of study are presented and interpreted under these major themes.

Priorities of SLs
As presented under the literature review, the priorities of IL revolve round student learning, teacher development and creating learning culture inside the school. The school leaders who participated in this research were asked about their priorities to understand their alignment with the dimensions of ILs as presented in literature. It was interesting to note that, as reported by the leaders, their priorities were more related to managerial tasks such as managing teachers' attendance, ensuring teachers' presence in their respective classes and monitoring the completion of the syllabus. As Leader A 1 reported, "my main priority is that teachers should go to the classes and teach there". Coupled with teachers' presence in their respective classes, the focus of Leader B 2 was ensuring the completion of the syllabus on time. He stated: Our focus is to make teachers punctual and make sure that they complete syllabus on time.
For this, we ask teachers to complete syllabus by completing all exercises given in the book and maintaining students' copies. Also, I am responsible for maintaining school discipline and cleanliness. I try to manage the school's garden and keep everything organized.
As this representative quote suggests, the focus of the SLs is on making teachers punctual and ensuring the completion of the syllabus, a common practice of SLs in the context where this research was conducted. A teacher is expected to regularly attend his/her classes and to cover the syllabus. A successful leader in this scenario is the one who makes this possible. Consequently, these leaders boldly share their priorities-making teachers regular and ensuring the completion of the syllabus. They also instruct teachers to complete the exercises in the textbooks and to maintain student copies. These are the tangible evidence to show to the parents and to the evaluators in relation to performance of teachers and students. It is also interesting to note that the focus of the leaders is on maintaining school discipline, cleanliness, and keeping everything organized. These are the areas more related to management rather than academic.
The researchers were interested in understanding the time these school leaders spent during their stay in the school. A close observation of their practices revealed that they maintained teachers' attendance on attendance register and made lists of exchange periods, the periods of absent teachers assigned to those present teachers who were free during that time period. When the leaders were out of their office, they were observed walking through the corridors and peering into classrooms to ensure teachers are there. The researchers also observed them asking the sweepers to improve the quality of cleanliness. Thus, as emerged from the interviews of the leaders and observation of their practices, their main focus is more on managerial related tasks. The major dimensions of IL, namely, enhancing student achievement, developing teachers' capacity and creating learning culture do not explicitly emerge from the views and practices of these two leaders.

Formulating and communicating school vision
When the priorities of the school leaders were identified, a significant area to be explored further was the vision of the school because the priorities are determined by the vision and mission of an organization. The very first dimension of IL commonly emerging from all the models as presented in the literature review section was defining the school vision. It was quite surprising to note that the school where this research was conducted lacked a vision in written form despite the researchers analyzed various documents to see any vision, mission goals or objectives of the school. When asked about the school vision, the leaders conveyed that no vision has been communicated to them. "I didn't receive any vision in written form so far", the Leader A said. Same were the remarks of the Leader B. It suggests that the school leaders consider the upper management responsible for developing a vision and communicating it to them. Literature on IL attribute this role to the school leader (Leithwood et al., 2004). However, the leaders lack either awareness or authority to develop a vision for the school. When probed further, Leader B intimated that he had a meeting with the upper-level management where they raised this issue. As he revealed further: Honestly speaking, when I joined this organization, there was no vision and mission stated or given by higher authorities. However, we had a meeting with senior management in this regard. So, now, we will formulate a vision and a mission for the school. We will also involve the other SL (leader A) in the process of developing the school vision.
As this quote shows, Leader B is conscious to the importance of the school vision. However, raising the issue to the senior management suggests that the leader lacks the authority to develop the vision at their own. When asked what their future vision for the school would look like, Leader B stated that: Earlier the focus of schools was on covering the syllabus, however according to the new theories and trends in the education system, our school's focus will be on discovering the student. We will try to discover students' interests and intelligences and then teach them accordingly.
This view of the school leader in relation to their future vision is quite encouraging in a context which lacked a vision so far or where the syllabus coverage was the major priority of the school. Although, the leader recruited by the university had a different vision in relation to student learning, so far, he has followed the conventional practices and failed to take any serious initiatives to put his vision into practice. However, as emerges from his views, he is committed to develop a vision for the school with a focus on discovering the potential of the students. How successful he will be depending on how influential he is as a leader and how the school and upper management encourage and support his initiatives.
Lack of school vision was also highlighted by the teachers interviewed for this research. The teachers stated that the leaders might have vision for the school, however, nothing has been communicated to them. As Arif 3 stated, "honestly speaking, I don't know what is the vision or mission of the principal for this school. We could have known that if it was shared with us. He never told or talked to us about the mission or vision of this school". As revealed by the teachers, the completion of the syllabus was all what the leaders expect from them. The focus of both the leaders is the completion of the syllabus which has also been communicated to the teachers. Consequently, what the teachers strive for is the completion of the syllabus. All these are in contrary to the practices of IL as portrayed in educational literature. Ideally, a school leader develops a vision with a focus on student achievement and then communicates that vision to all stakeholders including teachers (Hallinger & Murphy, 1985). The vision not only connects them like a glue but also makes them strive for a common goal. In the context of this research, what school leaders and, consequently, teachers strive for is being regular in the class and completing the syllabus.

Managing the instructional program
Using the lens of IL, the researchers further explored the practices of the SLs to understand their roles in managing the instructional programs of the school. Both the leaders were of the view that they extend instructional support to the teachers by visiting the classes and observing the instructional practices. "I visit classes on occasional basis and observe teaching", Leader A informed. The teachers also intimated that the SLs occasionally visit their class and spend some time there observing their teaching. However, despite observing both the leaders for a whole week, the researchers did not find them formally observing classroom teaching and learning practices. Sometimes they were walking through the corridors to ensure that teachers are in their respective classes. On the other hand, as both the SLs and teachers reported, there was not any post observation meeting with the teachers to let them know the areas where they need improvement. In other words, the instructional support is limited to the occasional classroom visits, and there is no feedback provided to the teachers in relation to their teaching practices. As Leader A stated: I do not give them the feedback, nor do I set some targets. They all are experienced teachers, they all know how to teach, and they are experts in their subjects, so there is no need of feedback.
This quote represents a general perception prevailing in this region that senior teachers because of their long experience have developed required knowledge and skill of teaching, and therefore, do not require any further improvement. On the contrary, senior teachers in this context require greater support and continuing professional education with the fact that the pre-service education they have attended hardly equip them with practical ideas to be implemented in the classroom (Siddiqui, 2007).
The teachers were also of the view that there was very limited supervision of the instructional practices. Majority of the interviewed teachers especially the junior ones favored such mechanism where their teaching is systematically observed, and they are provided with feedback for improvement. As Hafeez commented during the focused group interview: I think there must be supervision and evaluation of instruction in our school. Our leaders should observe our teaching and give feedback, so that we come to know that we are going in the right direction and learn new things. Leaders can use methods like peer observation, peer teaching and mentoring to improve our teaching by helping each other.
As the quote suggests, teachers also look for learning opportunities through interacting with their colleagues using peer coaching and mentoring strategies. Teachers also expect positive feedback from their leader so that they will not only understand their areas for improvement but also get practical ideas to overcome those areas. As Rehmat reported, "leaders have to identify our areas for improvement and talk to us in private using a variety of strategies to make us realize our improvement areas and then tell us how we can improve those areas". Although reluctant to receive feedback in group, the data suggest that at least some of the teachers have a disposition for learning which can be built upon to engage teachers in school-based learning activities by using their own human resources. However, for this shift to happen, the SLs require to exercise IL with a focus on creating learning culture inside the school.

Monitoring students' progress
As presented in the literature section, monitoring students' progress is a dominant practice of ILs. The major focus of an IL is said to be the achievement of students which he/she constantly monitors. In the school where this study was conducted, the achievement of students is assessed through the summative test results. The main responsibility of recording the test results and communicating them to upper management rests with Leader B. coupled with the test results, students' achievements are determined by the coverage of the syllabus. The assumption is the greater the syllabus coverage the higher the student achievement. Leader A shared his way of monitoring students' progress by stating that: To check student's progress, I went to classes and asked teachers about the course they have covered. Then, I ask questions from students through which I come to know how much they have learned.
Teachers reported that student progress reports were not shared with parents. Majority of students attending this school, as shared by Irfan, "come from low income or poor family background. As the school does not share progress reports, parents who are mostly uneducated are unaware of their children's academic achievements". Teachers were of the view that sharing students' progress with parents will bring a huge difference in their academic achievement as students will be more careful. Another strategy to effectively monitor student progress which the teachers share was showing visibility. Kaleem suggested that "leaders should maintain high visibility. That probably will show they are concerned and they care for the students. When we will see the leaders personally being around and checking out things we will feel that they are interested in what we do. This will make us inspired and more serious in our work." Interestingly, high visibility is one of the dimensions of IL as suggested by Hallinger and Murphy (1985).
Consequently, monitoring student achievement was the other neglected area in this school. Ideally, as presented in literature, ILs set instructional goals and high expectations in relation to student achievement that are also communicated to all stakeholders (Osman & Mukuna, 2013). Then, through a systemic planning, both teachers, school leaders and even parents have to monitor the achievement of those goals. Moreover, instead of depending simply on summative test results, formative and ongoing assessment practices are carried out to provide constant data in relation to student learning and to inform further practices. In the studied school, the only ways to monitor student achievement are the summative test results, school leaders occasionally visiting classes and asking some questions from students and keeping a check on the coverage of syllabus.

Promoting PD
One of the major dimensions of IL is promoting PD of teachers (Hallinger & Murphy, 1985). This dimension is of particular importance given the fact that the achievement of students depends upon the capacity of teachers and the capacity of teachers, on the other hand, depends upon the PD opportunities teachers receive (Guskey & Sparks, 2000). How SLs, as ILS, in the studied school promote PD of teachers was, therefore, a significant question to ponder upon. Leader A believed that the "teachers at my school have already received pre-service teacher education and, thus, got required training to be successful teachers. I don't think they need any further PD". However, as he added further, whenever he receives any call from the higher authorities in relation to the training of teachers, he immediately releases those teachers to allow them to attend the trainings. These views of the Leader A suggest two major insights in relation to the PD of teachers in the studied school. Firstly, with the assumption that those who have received pre-service teacher education, Leader A is satisfied with the existing capacity of teachers and, therefore, do not feel the need of further PD opportunities for them. Secondly, some of the teachers are released for externally held workshops on the advice of the higher authorities. The school, consequently, lacks any workplace structure and culture to facilitate PD of teachers. It suggests that the SL lacks orientation on the importance and possibility of engaging teachers in ongoing professional learning (Easton, 2008).
Likewise, leader B acknowledges his limited role in PD of teachers. He believes that promoting PD of teachers does not come under his jurisdiction. As he explained: My role is to provide data to the district coordinator regarding the number of teachers in school and the subjects they teach. Then they organize PD activities for teachers, and I facilitate teachers in getting those training sessions.
However, a careful analysis of the available documents on PD reports a different story. There was a well-thought plan for PD where three months had been allotted during an academic year to develop the teachers in the areas, namely, curriculum, lesson planning, school environment and IT skills. As noted in the plan, once these PD activities were organized, SLs were supposed to conduct classroom observations to ensure the implementation of the newly learnt ideas and skills in the classroom. On the basis of their observations, they are required to report the improvement in the practices of teachers and areas for further improvement to be focused on the future PD programs. However, what was mentioned in the document as barely in practice as evident from the views of participants and observations by the researchers.
The teachers further affirmed that they lacked PD opportunities. They acknowledged that some of them have availed external PD opportunities, however, as they revealed, the externally conducted trainings hardly addressed their real needs and, therefore, they did not bring any change in their practices as a result of attending those trainings. As Amjad stated: Our leaders send us to external PD sessions. However, I did not find those trainings helpful to bring any improvement in my teaching. The reason could be that my need is different, and those trainings are conducted by someone who do not understand our need. It seemed as if these trainings were just for the sake of taking pictures and sending higher authority a message that we have utilized the budget you have given to us for these PD training.
Some of the teachers reported a lack of coordination resulting in less effective PD. Asif revealed that "principals, teachers and PD providers are not on the same page with regard to what type of trainings need to be conducted, who those trainings are for and what we need to implement as a result of those trainings". Teachers suggest that PD activities should be planned and implemented systematically through involving all stakeholders which hardly happens currently. Thus, as the data presented above suggest, teachers lack effective PD opportunities to develop their practices on an ongoing basis. The SLs, as ILs, have very limited or no role in promoting PD of teachers. Consequently, one of the most significant dimensions of IL-promoting PD of teachers-is missing in this context.

Discussion
This research revealed leadership practices that are less aligned with the dimensions stated in IL model of Hallinger and Murphy (1985). The priorities of the leaders at the studied school were more related to managerial tasks such as managing teachers' attendance, ensuring teachers' presence in their respective classes and monitoring the completion of the syllabus. An explicit vision for the school emerge neither in written from the views of the school leaders. The leaders have very limited role in organizing instructional programs such as observing teaching practices and extending support to teachers at classroom level. Monitoring student achievement is a neglected area. The leaders extend limited support to teachers to enhance their professional capacity.
These apparently simple findings emerging from this research merit consideration and discussion. The need for and importance of IL in this region is more paramount with the fact that schools require a drastic change to improve academic achievements for students and, to achieve this, to enhance the capacity of teachers through promoting PD and creating learning culture inside the schools. However, IL is more a myth rather than a reality in the region where this research was conducted. The very first dimension or practice of IL as presented in educational literature is formulating a vision and setting directions or goals, and then communicating the set goals to the whole stakeholders (Hallinger & Heck, 2002;Sun & Leithwood, 2015). The studied school lacked any explicit vision or goals to guide the priorities and activities of the stakeholders. What the leaders explicitly want to achieve is making teachers regularly attend their classes and complete the syllabus. Consequently, these are the areas which the school leaders monitor, and the teachers strive to follow. Student achievement to be the focus of ILs as presented in literature receives limited attention. Student learning is assessed by the test results, coverage of the syllabus and some verbal questions from students asked by the leaders during their occasional visits to the classrooms. Such test-driven assessment system barely allows teachers to focus on the holistic development of teachers (Kaparou & Bush, 2015;Lee et al., 2012). The contemporary approaches, on the other hand, move beyond simply performing well on the standardized test and encourage the concept of deep learning that promotes critical thinking and problem solving, while also empowering students to learn through self-directed learning approaches (Martinez, 2020).
Engaging students in such type of learning requires quality teachers. Although, evaluating teachers' capacity was beyond the scope of this research, the existing studies conducted in Pakistan critique the pre-service teacher education (Siddiqui, 2007) and argue that unless teachers have access to quality continuing PD, their very practice is questionable (Hussain & Ali, 2010). IL because of its focus on promoting PD of teachers seems an effective model in this background. However, the school leaders had very limited role in PD of teachers. As Leader A believes, teachers have required capacity and, therefore, they do not need any further development or instructional support. Leader B believes that PD does not come under his jurisdiction. As Leader B stated, he will facilitate teachers if the upper management organizes any PD program for them. Current trends in PD shift from one-time external workshop to ongoing learning at the school context using a variety of PD models (Easton, 2008). However, both the leaders lack awareness and orientation in relation to the importance and possibility of school-based PD models. Some of the teachers are sent to avail external PD opportunities as instructed by the higher authorities. However, as the teachers shared, such PD programs barely benefit them owing to their lack of relevance to their real needs, a common phenomenon reported from other regions of Pakistan (Nawab & Bissaker, 2021). Consequently, no serious efforts have been taken by the SLs to engage teachers in PD aimed to improve their professional capacity. Similar to what has been reported from Portuguese (Rodrigues & Ávila de Lima, 2021), the SL in the studies school was found to be quite remote from the real classroom life who hardly allocates time to manage instructional activities.
A burning question for an inquisitive mind in this background is why there is no clear and explicitly stated vision and goals and who is responsible to formulate and communicate them to the stakeholders including teachers, parents and students? Literature suggests that one of the most critical practices of the SL is developing and communicating vision and mission to staff (Naidoo & Petersen, 2016). Hallinger (2003) supports this by stating that SLs are responsible for communicating clear school vision, mission and goals to school staff to ensure that the goals are well-understood by them. However, as emerged from the views of the SLs who participated in this research, they look at upper management for not only the vision but also any other instructions with regard to school management and improvement. An apparent conclusion emerging from this scenario is that power and authority rest somewhere else and these leaders are more like managers or administrators to implement what is directed from above. Research from other Asian context such as Vietnam (Huong, 2020) also support this view indicating that the degree of autonomy given to schools is one of the major factors facilitating IL. This may be true if some examples such as the SLs looking for upper management for the school vision is considered. However, as revealed earlier, some documents showed many responsibilities such as conducting PD shifted to the SLs. However, the SLs had not taken any initiative in relation to the PD of teachers as described in the documents.
There are certain contextual factors which lead to the above scenario in relation to the practices of IL in this region. If the SLs have failed to perform the roles and responsibilities assigned to them, these roles might not have been clarified to them or there may be a lack of monitoring and accountability as identified in previous studies (see, for example, Nawab, 2020). It also appears that the school leaders lack proper training and orientation on IL. Studies from other Asian contexts (such as, Kim & Lee, 2020), suggest organizing IL focused training for school leaders. In addition, traditionally similar to other Asian countries as reported by Ikram et al. (2021), the focus of school leaders is more on administrative tasks rather than instructional tasks. It is mainly because school leaders are the sole custodian of schools expected to perform all the roles and responsibilities, be it academic, administrative, financial or related to the community. Given the rapidly shifting demands from schools, leaders are expected to perform a variety of roles. This scenario may better be captured by the words of Hargreaves et al., 2014, p. 4) who observe that "leaders trying to focus on one initiative find themselves repeatedly sideswiped by another. Competing mandates pull them in opposite directions".
Although these insights are seemingly simple, they carry tremendous implications for educational reformers. Educational change is not about brining improvement in school infrastructure or general structure unless something changes for students at classroom level (Wedell, 2009). In the developing world, many external agents intervene or take over schools claiming that they will bring improvement in the otherwise traditional practices of schools aimed to enhance the achievement for students. However, what they mainly do is bringing changes in structure, for example, renovating the building or providing additional staff. Nothing changes for students at classroom level. They are taught by the same traditional teachers using the same conventional practices. If change agents and educational reformers seriously want to improve academic achievement for students, they should weigh their every intervention in relation to their impact on classroom practices.
For the shift to happen, students' achievement, rather than other structural change, must be the priority of the educational reformers. The sole responsibility of school leader should be enhancing academic achievement for students through instructional leadership, and the school leaders should be accountable for student achievement rather than swept by competing mandates. However, the existing capacity of school leaders will not allow them to practice instructional leadership in its real sense even if management permits them autonomy. The major initiative and step in this regard, therefore, should be developing SLs as ILs (Bellibas & Liu, 2021). Those who lead school should be systematically developed to enhance their capacity, skills and attitude with a focus on improving student achievement, creating learning structure and culture in schools and supporting teachers in their PD. An ideal professional development opportunity as suggested in recent research should come from top-down being informed by the real needs and career stages of the SLs (Liljenberg, 2021). Once SLs are developed using the lens of IL, they should be empowered, encouraged and supported to plan and implement improvement initiatives. While extending support to the schools, the focus of the school supervisors should also be on teaching rather than on supervision (Stosich, 2020).

Conclusion
This research explored leadership practices using IL lens in a remote and rural context of Pakistan, a region characterized by the low academic achievement of students especially in the public sector schools. IL owing to its focus on student achievement and teachers' capacity building apparently seems an ideal strategy to address the issue of low achievement of students. However, as this research revealed, the various dimensions of IL as portrayed in educational literature coming from the western or developed context were barely practiced in the studied school. Although the purpose of this research was not to generalize the findings to other schools, with the fact that the public sector schools in Pakistan share many similarities, the findings may provide them with an opportunity to reflect on their existing school leadership practices. These insights may provoke thoughts and discussion in relation to the intervention procedures of the educational reformers and external change agents working on capacity building of schools both in Pakistan and in the developing world. Change in school infrastructure and structure can never lead to enhanced student achievement unless something changes for students at classroom level. The focus of change agents, therefore, should be on bringing improvement in classroom practices aimed to benefit students. This can be achieved through developing SLs as ILs-the leaders who will constantly work on enhancing academic achievement for students, developing capacity of teachers and creating learning culture in schools.
This study mainly relied on the data provided by school leaders and teachers. Due to time constraints, it was not possible to take views of students who, it is assumed, could have provided interesting data on the recent shift in school management. Further studies are suggested to include the views of students on their experience of what changes, if any, have happened at classroom level as a result of shifting the school management from the government education department to EMO. Such study will either refute or confirm the findings of the current research showing a limited changes at classroom level as a result of the shift in school management.