Teacher as the curriculum leader in primary schools: Perceived roles and problems encountered

This paper aims to explore how curriculum leadership occur and carried out by teacher leaders inside primary schools in school-based curriculum reform context. About 100 newly appointed PSMCDs completed and returned an open-ended questionnaire on their perceived roles as curriculum leader, difficulties encountered and self-evaluation on performance in discharging their curriculum leadership role in their own schools. Preliminary analysis indicates that they give more attention to the first two roles. The most difficult problems they encountered are the passive attitude or resistance from colleagues, lack of support from principals, and heavy workload. The findings should be useful for extending our understanding of how teachers would grow up as curriculum leaders from teacher perspective and strategies for building such curriculum leader force for the teaching profession.