The role of school leaders in spreading national security awareness among Kuwait high school students

Abstract

Sultan Ghaleb Aldaihani and Ahmad Salamah Alanezi

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of school leaders (both principals and teachers) in spreading awareness of national security among Kuwaiti high school students, and identifies the main obstacles to increasing awareness of national security. The study was descriptive in nature and evaluated administrative body and the teaching body ' perceptions by using a questionnaire that was designed by the researchers. The questionnaire consisted of 3 axes along with basic data for the respondents. The first axis measured the teacher’s role as a classroom leader, the second axis measured the role of principals, as school leaders, and the third axis measured constraints on the development of national security awareness among students. The sample of the study is composed of a total of randomly selected of 728 male and 944 female respondents from the six school districts (Capital, Hawali, Alfarwnia, Mubark Alkabee, Alahmadi, and Aljahran). The analysis revealed that the perceptions of teaching and administrative staff regarding the role of the teacher as a leader in spreading the national security are valued very highly. Furthermore, participants indicate that the role of the school principal is highly valued. According to the participants, the most important obstacles are as follows: time constraints; national security awareness not being considered a priority for the school administration; a large number of administrative and technical burdens placed on school staff; diversity and complexity of the issues in national security awareness; and diversity of students’ interests and needs. On the other hand, a T. Test shows that there are no statistically significant differences between males and females in the role of the teacher as a leader, the role of the school principal as a leader or the obstacles axes. The result revealed that there are differences in the respondent’s job (teaching body or administrative body) only in the role of the school principal as a leader. Finally, results show that the scores regarding the role of teacher as a leader in Alfarwnia and Alahmadi are higher than the scores given by those working in Aljahraa. The scores regarding the role of school principal as a leader in Hawali are higher than the scores given by those working in Alfarwnia, Mubarak Alkabeer and Aljahraa. The scores regarding obstacles in Mubarak Alkabeer and Aljahraa are higher than the scores given by those working in Alahmadi.