Of course there is no denying the fact that there is more than one way of transforming struggling and underachieving schools. Improving school funding, building more infrastructure, trimming the overloaded curriculum, reducing student-teacher ratio, overhauling the content based assessment, infusing technology into teaching and learning and strengthening community support, are some of the important measures that can be taken to improve access and raise academic achievement levels. However, leadership is indispensable.
There is no known turnaround process that ever succeeded without inspirational leadership. Schools can do without sufficient funding and can navigate the challenge of limited community engagement but the absence of strong leadership can collapse and ruin an adequately resourced school. Therefore, the one thing that schools must never lack is a great leader.
Seeking to turnaround schools through strong principalship has proven to be the most potent and viable vehicle. Consequently, there should be a deliberate effort to channel more funds and energies into raising great school leaders. Links should be established with other jurisdictions such as the Harvard Graduate School of Education that have developed and sustained a strong culture of strong professional development. Teachers and principals get a little rusty in the process and therefore a revival programme is a must. There should be no room for respite in the quest for improving leadership and student outcomes in schools.
There is need to adapt pre-service to ensure that teacher producing institutions incorporate school leadership development programmes to grow a pipeline of leadership. Also in a bid to address instructional gaps, the teacher training institutions should revise their curriculum so that they could churn out products ready to meet the education needs of the 21st century learner. Each day presents an opportunity for every school to get better. The challenge is that schools always carry the baggage of the past into the New Year. That is to say even when a problem has been identified, it takes time to fix the problem. Problems should never be allowed to grow out of proportion. School recess should be offering a golden opportunity to fix problems identified during the course of the term.
If there is one area where the Ministry of Education was strong was the in-service department. The column advocates a return of the in-service unit. The ministry was blessed with passionate subject based education officers whose primary focus was improving instruction in the classroom. Continuing in-service of teacher paid dividends and there is need to restore the culture that worked. Education officers right now are saddled with too many non-academic responsibilities and this is distracting them from the core business. Great school leaders don't allow the environment in which they work in to limit the potential of students and teachers.
They always strive to inspire teachers and students to down play negatives and switch into the positive mode. For example, many schools in the country have allowed the challenges of shortage of critical inputs (books and furniture) and lack of incentives to derail them from their purpose. Only few institutions that are fortunate to be endowed with inspirational leadership continue to thrive in the midst of adversity. For example, inspite of the economic hardships that visited the town of Selebi-Phikwe following the closure of the copper mine, the schools working under their inspirational leadership continue to sustain a culture of good teaching and academic excellence.
External factors however strong they may be, should not be permitted to derail the purpose of a school. And Phikwe has set a precedent, which other areas elsewhere in the same predicament should emulate. It seems to me that the subject of governance in schools should be accorded a greater share of the budget than it is currently receiving. Great leaders are ever conscious of their game changing responsibility. They are highly accountable and do not shift the blame to external factors.
Great school leaders thrive on building an inclusive climate guaranteeing the success of every learner and leaving no single learner behind. Great school leaders know that success can only come about where there are clear and shared expectations. Great school leaders are conscious of the fact that schools require a rigorous total focus on improving learning outcomes. There should be no doubt about the purpose of a school and what is expected of every member of the team.
Great leaders distinguish themselves from the crowd by rallying their charges behind a common purpose and destiny. Clarity of purpose plays a significant role in helping overcoming negative tendencies such as working in silos. Where the purpose is unclear, individual interests supersede the interests of the organisation. Prospects for a turnaround are slim in an environment where people who are otherwise supposed to be working together as a team are preoccupied with divisive sectional interests and care less about the bigger picture.
