The thesis of this article is that the uncritical adoption of Western models of education management and leadership policies results in poor performance in schools in disadvantaged communities in developing countries. The argument shows that this has led to the institutionalization of generic education policies that are not contingent to the circumstances of the small, dispersed, rural and remote schools. In my analysis, I agree with the growing concern in educational development debates over the uncritical transportation or the uncritical international transfer of school effectiveness assumptions and models to African contexts. I use Botswana as a case study to show the continuing mismatch between educational management models adopted from Western countries and the application in the Botswana context, and the related failure of school improvement initiatives proposed by aid agencies. When a school fails the head is charged with the underperformance.

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A descriptive study using questionnaires was conducted in 2004 to assess the effectiveness of instructional leadership displayed by primary school management teams following the implementation of the Primary School Management Project in Botswana. Leadership skills, Coordination of instructional activities, management of curriculum and quality of learners were key variables that guided the study. Respondents were 240 primary school teachers including school heads and 575 learners. Data were analyzed descriptively through the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program using frequencies and percentages. The results reveal school management teams' lack of interpersonal skills necessary for classroom supervision, inability to mobilize parents to participate in school instructional improvement activities, teachers' unauthorized use of corporal punishment and lack of creativeness and innovativeness for management of curriculum change. Regarding quality of learning, the study identifies learners' inability and lack of freedom for self-expression and inadequate acquisition of basic literacy skill at varying degrees between rural and urban schools.

The study aimed to identify the degree of the administrative creativity of the public principals' practice in Tafila Directorate of Education. The sample consisted of 402 teachers (male and female) chosen randomly. The instrument of this study included 36 items. Means, standard deviations, and 3 -way ANOVA were used for statistical purposes. The results indicated that there are statistically significant differences for the interaction of gender with experience, the interaction of experience with scientific qualification and the interaction of gender, experience and qualification. According to the results it is recommended that the Directorate of Education in Tafila Province should hold training courses to develop the principals' competence in administrative creativity skills, motivating the teachers who hold bachelor degrees or less to join high programs in education (General diploma, master) to develop their academic and educational knowledge.