To address the diverse challenges in education systems in Africa and to ignite the potential of school leadership to improve quality of education, VVOB in partnership with the government of Rwanda, the Belgian government, the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and with support of The Mastercard Foundation is establishing The African Centre for School Leadership.
According to the 2022 Global Education Monitoring Spotlight Series Report - Born to Learn, one in five primary school-age children in sub-Saharan Africa are out of school and among those who do finish primary school, only one in ten achieve the minimum proficiency level in reading.
The objective of the African Centre for School Leadership is to support governments and governmental agencies in the education sector to build a supportive school leadership system leading to improved teaching, and in turn, improved learning outcomes to address learning crises.
Why school leadership?
Drawing on the conclusions of an empirical review of research on school leadership, effective school leadership is critical to addressing the underlying factors of the learning crisis impacting the African continent, such as unprepared students, poor teaching quality, weak school management, and a focus on educational inputs that do not drive learning.
School leaders play a key role in ensuring effective use of resources and supporting teachers, and investing in successful school leadership strategies is likely to have a large payoff given the scope of principals' impacts on students and schools. However, school leaders tend to focus on administrative and supervisory activities rather than instructional leadership, and many school heads in Sub-Saharan African countries are ill-prepared to meet the challenges posed by their job. Training school leaders to undertake instructional leadership and providing coaching and support for developing such skills can help shift towards instructional leadership at the school level.
As the 2022 Born to Learn report outlines, little attention has been paid to school leaders whether in policy or practice despite the research that points to “schools with competent head teachers typically are early adopters of changes in pedagogical practices and their students have better learning outcomes”.
Support areas
Currently, the Centre is in a foundation phase whereby we have been developing strategic plans, reviewing evidence and developing a research agenda. Our research has revealed gaps in school leadership support and recommended four areas of support that the African Center for School Leadership can offer to African governments and government-affiliated providers of school leadership continuous professional development:
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The development of school leadership policies and guidelines and effective and scalable professional development programmes for school leaders.
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The delivery of professional development programmes for school leaders through capacity development of professional development providers.
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Monitoring, evaluation and research on the effectiveness of school leadership and school leadership development.
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Knowledge mobilisation, advocacy and sector coordination through multi-stakeholder partnerships and dialogue.
To tackle educational challenges jointly and comprehensively, we know that solutions should be observed in different domains of expertise to generate the most effective, positive and sustainable changes. That’s why partnerships and networks, as well as cocreation and mutual learning, will be key to the Centre’s work.
Collaboration to address challenges
In late 2022, VVOB entered a partnership with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) to support effective school leadership through the Centre. ADEA's vast network of education experts, policymakers, and practitioners will contribute to addressing challenges in the education sector and creating innovative solutions.
Speaking of The African Centre for School Leadership, Albert Nsengiyumva, Executive Secretary of ADEA said there is a number of improvements that he would like to see in Africa’s educational system, with school leadership as a top priority:
In early 2023, we also entered into a partnership with The Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA). IEPA is a leading educational institution in Ghana with a strong track record in providing high-quality training and research in educational planning and administration, a vast network of partnerships with national and international institutions, which would provide valuable support to The Africa Center for School Leadership in implementing its programmes and initiatives.
The Centre also builds on the experience and expertise of VVOB and the Ministry of Education in Rwanda and the Ministry of Education in Kenya on promoting effective school leadership. Currently, in Rwanda, our LEAD project (2022-2026) focuses on strengthening the competencies of school leaders to rely on and use data to improve teaching, learning and school-based teacher professional development with the aim to address repetition, drop-out, and equity gaps in learning outcomes. In Kenya, our INCREASE project (2022-2026) supports school leaders in junior secondary education to acquire strong instructional leadership skills and organise quality teacher professional development at school-level, supporting the effective implementation of a new competence-based curriculum.
The ambitions of The African Center for School Leadership
The Centre plans to work in Rwanda, Kenya, and Ghana initially, with plans to expand to additional African countries in the future. While the Centre is hosted in Rwanda, it aims to become the 'go-to' place for research and information on school leadership in Africa and build a strong network that brings together scholars, policy makers and practitioners interested in school leadership and leadership continuous professional development on the African continent.
How to get involved
Whether you’re a representative of an African government, a government-affiliated provider of continuous professional development for school leaders in Africa, a funder interested in investing in a key driver for SDG 4 in Africa or anything in between, please contact our team through ACSL@vvob.org. to learn how you could get involved.
