Change Leadership for sustainable College improvement - the case of Ghana

The central focus for this paper is to show how effective leadership at teacher training institutions can ultimately enable better teaching at the school level. The role that school and college leaders can play in ensuring... [ view full abstract ]

The central focus for this paper is to show how effective leadership at teacher training institutions can ultimately enable better teaching at the school level. The role that school and college leaders can play in ensuring sustained improvement of learning outcomes of students over time cannot be overemphasised. Whilst the practice of improvement planning has been a core focus of educational institution leadership in developed countries, the same cannot be said with certainty, of developing and low income countries such as Ghana. Despite the fact that, the 40 Colleges of Education in Ghana have by an Act of Parliament in 2008, been granted tertiary educational institution status, these institutions do not yet have the systems in place to function effectively at the tertiary level. At the same time, the capacity of tertiary education regulatory institutions (National Council for Tertiary Education [NCTE] and National Accreditation Board [NAB] need to be equipped to ensure that they appropriately support Colleges of Education. This situation requires that College leaders are empowered to take ownership as agents of change - sustainable improvement and transformation in the delivery of pre-service teacher education in Ghana. 

This paper presents the lived experiences of college principals, in undertaking innovative strategies that are proving successful in enabling their leadership teams and tutors to implement change initiatives through inclusive and collaborative strategic approaches of Development Road-mapping and Improvement Planning. The process to introduce the practice of Improvement Planning in the 40 Colleges of Education in Ghana through a DFID sponsored Programme; T-TEL, is a unique case of combining Quality Assurance strategy and Staff Professional Development with a result based incentive for a sustained change.  Using field observation and focus group discussions, there is emerging evidence of improved leadership skills, gender responsiveness, ownership and partnership building among Colleges. Capacity of NAB and NCTE as a lever for sustainable support to College improvement is also taking root.