Global evidence confirms that the quality of school leadership is one of the most powerful determinants and enablers of teacher quality. The National Leaders of Education programme in England, which used the expertise of high performing school leaders to improve the leadership and teaching capability of their peers, resulted in a more rapid improvement of student outcomes than the national average. Based upon this evidence, a system leadership model has been developed which contextualises this world-class methodology for low income settings. Under this model leaders from high-performing schools are paired with statistically similar but lower performing schools. The coaching and mentoring skills of these high-performing leaders, called ‘system leaders’, are developed and then they support the beneficiary leader to bring about rapid and sustained improvement in their school.
The system leadership model was piloted in low-cost private schools in Nairobi and Mumbai over a 7-month period. The evaluations of both pilots showed statistically significant improvements in leadership competence of both the system leader and the beneficiary leader, as well as in the teaching quality at the beneficiary school. Strong qualitative evidence of change in the agreed school improvement priority was also demonstrated. The most common area of change was improved teacher outcomes through, for example, increased teacher monitoring and motivation, improved teacher retention and attendance and the greater use of child-centred pedagogy.
This pilot has established a proof of concept that the ‘system leadership’ model impacts leadership and teaching outcomes in low resource settings. It demonstrates the strong potential of the model in enabling skilled practitioners to act as change agents to raise standards in peer schools. By building the capacity of the system to improve itself, this model provides policy makers and practitioners with a sustainable, low-cost, high-impact approach to the improvement of teaching and learning across the system.
