Challenges Faced by Principals in Adjusting to School Culture: A Comparative Study of Public and Private Secondary Schools

Abstract

The present study was conducted to check the challenges faced by principals in adjusting the school culture. The study was a comparative study between private and public secondary schools. This study seeks to contrast between the public and the private schools in the Rawalpindi District to develop the insights on the topic school culture, the leadership role of the school principal in enhancing the cultural development of the school and the way through which schools adjust to the institutional norms. The District Education Office (DEO) of the Rawalpindi District and Central President Private Schools Association (CPPSA) has stated that there are a total of 1,028 secondary schools in the Rawalpindi district, comprising 520 public and 508 private secondary schools. 440 participants were constituted in the Rawalpindi District on both the government and the privately owned secondary schools. Through the mixed-methods approach to research which involved regression analysis and descriptive statistics, the research points out contrasting results in the cultural adaptation process of the public and the private school principals. The findings of the regression analysis further identified gender and education as significant demographic predictors of cultural adaptation challenges in both sectors, while experience showed limited impact. The study rejects hypotheses concerning the similarity of leadership experiences (H01), the direct link between adaptability and follower trust (H02), and the equivalence of induction training effectiveness and policy execution (H03) between public and private schools. The results underscore the critical need for targeted interventions in public schools, including increased principal autonomy, stabilized policies, enhanced professional development, and robust strategies to build trust and manage resistance.