Makhasane, S. D.Sasere, Oluwasola Babatunde2024-02-122024-02-122023http://hdl.handle.net/11660/12404Thesis (Ph.D.(Education Management and Leadership))--University of the Free State, 2023There is a growing body of knowledge that focuses on effective teacher professional development (TPD) with a consensus that skews in favour of decentralised, school-based and teacher-centred approach to TPD as opposed to the centralised, traditional and top-down approach. On the contrary, developing countries such as Nigeria still practise a centralised education system where traditional top-down TPD remains the norm with the attendant consequence of professionally-deficient teachers in the classroom. This situation has left a lacuna vis a vis the leadership roles of school administrators in teacher development. Hence, the study investigated the leadership roles of school administrators in teachers' professional development in Nigeria. The study was a qualitative multiple-case study research informed by interpretivist paradigm. The study was lensed with two complementary theories, namely, Distributed Leadership Theory (DLT) and adult learning theory (ALT). Three schools were selected using a combination of purposive and snowball techniques was used to select four participants from each school. The participants comprised one school administrator and three teachers in each school, totalling twelve participants. The main data-generating instrument was a semi-structured interview supported by document analysis. The data was analysed using thematic analysis (TA). The findings showed that school leadership was perceived as a delegation of responsibilities by super-ordinate to sub-ordinate. It was also discovered that participants' perception of TPD is limited to the traditional centralised models. School administrators' support for TPD was also discovered to be limited by policy. The result further indicated that the Ministry of Education was responsible for TPD. Unfortunately, such training does not cater to teachers’ professional needs. The study proposed a data-informed model for the execution of school-based TPD. Recommendations were made based on the findings.enAdult learning theorydistributed leadershipschool administrators' rolesschool-based teacher professional developmentprofessional developmentThesisUniversity of the Free State