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According to the current situation, the most controversial issues emerging in developing countries are the excellence and quality of the national education. Several escalating challenges, especially those related to the secondary school administration, are inevitably responsible for poor administrative and academic performance. In addressing those challenges, school administrators are expected to take full accountability for the implementation of educational policies into practice efficiently. The key objective of the study is to explore the prospective challenges principals are encountering in low-performing public secondary schools. To fulfil the research purpose, a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was developed. A sample of 122 secondary school principals in Faisalabad District was selected by taking advantage of purposive sampling technique. As a result, a total of 24 challenges were collectively validated through questionnaire survey. Frequency analysis approach was initially applied to figure out the most critical challenges. Accordingly, 7 challenges were found statistically significant with a frequency ≥50% for each factor. Additionally, school-type-based (rural vs. urban) analysis was performed by applying Chi-Square test. Furthermore, a taxonomy was developed to classify the identified challenges into nine basic knowledge-areas of school administration. The results revealed ‘Governance and Relationships” is the most significant knowledge-area attribute for school improvement.