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African Centre for School Leadership Foundation Phase Project
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Challenge
Access to basic education has significantly increased in most countries in Africa over the past two decades. However, progress towards access to quality basic education for all is still slow in the region, especially among children from poor families and remote areas. The main challenges identified include unprepared students, poor teaching quality, investment in resources that fail to reach classrooms or impact learning, such as textbooks that remain unused or technology that is rarely utilised, and weak school management.
To address these challenges and to ensure school leaders improve the quality of education, the African Centre for School Leadership has been set up. Effective school leaders play a pivotal role in supporting teachers and ensuring the efficient use of resources, ultimately leading to improved learning outcomes.
Goals
The Foundation Phase project of the African Centre for School Leadership strengthened school leadership support systems at the regional and national levels, to promote effective leadership in schools. During the Foundation Phase project, best practices have been collected and disseminated from Rwanda, Kenya and Ghana.
As part of VVOB’s Learning Unlimited. strategy, Effective School Leadership has been identified as a key factor in the promotion of quality education. It is highlighted as a flagship programme, where VVOB is proactively developing an evidence-informed, evidence-generating and scalable approach to promoting school leadership together with our partners. The flagship programme aims to generate new evidence and facilitate deep learning across contexts, making use of multi-disciplinary partnerships to achieve broader impact and scalability.
Project Partners
- Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA)
- Ministry of Education Rwanda (MINEDUC)
- Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB)
- Institute for Educational Planning and Administration Ghana (IEPA Ghana)
- University of Rwanda - College of Education (URCE Rwanda)
- Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI)
Approach
The activities under the Foundation Phase project aimed to improve the Centre’s institutional structure and expertise. This preparation was essential to proceed to the full implementation and further scaling of the Centre in cooperation with governments and governmental agencies in the field of effective school leadership on the African continent.
The Centre supports educational policymakers and school leaders’ professional development providers in the following core areas:
- Policy: the development or re-reform of school leadership policies and guidelines.
- Practice: the development and delivery of professional development programmes for school leaders.
- Research: on the effectiveness and impact of school leadership and school leadership development.
- Mobilisation and dissemination of knowledge and learning, advocacy and communication on the role of effective school leadership as well as support in sector coordination on the promotion of effective school leadership, through multi-stakeholder dialogue.
By the end of the programme
- Policy makers and professional development providers have improved access to:
- exemplary practices and policy advice.
- a broader range of school leadership professional development options based on best practices and evidence.
- In turn, school leaders in Africa receive improved support.
- Different perspectives on context-specific approaches to school leadership are explored through research.
- In the long run, school leadership in Rwanda, Kenya and Ghana will be more proficient, contributing to better teaching and learning conditions in schools.
- The foundation is set for further scaling of the approach on the African continent.