Education News from the Caribbean
as of
|
Letter: Leadership training for school leaders
|
| Published on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 | Email To Friend Print Version
|
Dear Sir:
Many Caribbean countries have now realised that in order for their schools to perform effectively, that the leadership provided by school managers is a significant factor in making this happen. As a result, several countries have been running various leadership and management programmes that would equip these professionals with the competencies necessary to maximise the performance of their institutions.
Many of these programmes consist of seminars, workshops, and in some cases formal courses leading to a credential. However, some of these comprise mere general management and leadership principles, with little practical field experience in dealing with educational institutions different from those of the participants. The result is that very little seems to have rubbed off, and many school managers return to their institutions and continue business as usual, the result being little, to marginal progress in school performance.
If Caribbean schools are to perform at optimum levels, a new kind of school leader needs to be trained with the latest techniques,knowledge and skills that would significantly transform their institutions, motivate their staff, and inspire their students. This is necessary if Caribbean society is to benefit from the efforts of its educational institutions, and achieve the growth and development many so need at this time.
Recently, The Times Educational Supplement has made mention of a headteachers' qualification in the United Kingdom, which is mandatory for would be school leaders. The National College for School Leadership runs the programme. The course covers six areas which include shaping the future, leading, learning and teaching, self-development and working with others, managing the organisation, securing accountability, and strengthening community. I will now comment briefly on each of these.
These areas to me seem highly relevent to the modern functions that school leaders are to perform in this technological and knowledge driven age. The aware school manager or leader definitely needs to influence and shape the future. Education is about looking forward, experimenting with new initiatives, thinking outside of the box, challenging received wisdom, and seeking and implementing the best and most successful educational practices that would transform both institutions and their clients. School leaders need to create new worlds, as well as new possibilities for their clients, challenge them to realise their best selves, help to create new and more meaningful ethical environments, so that respect, trust, understanding and compassion would be integral to the way students treat others, as well as how they operate in their various societies. These are the ingredients that shape a new kind of future, as well as create more noble persons, and more responsive institutions.
Leading, learning and teaching are important attributes that help to shape the culture of educational institutions. When the school manager leads, it instills confidence in others, and generates further support enabling the objectives of the school to be achieved with enthusiasm and commitment. Leadership by the manager also generates hope, and creates a sense of purpose among school staff, so that the workplace does not become a drudgery, but is one in which true professionalism flourishes. Learning and teaching emerge from leadership, since it is the activities of the leader that open up new situations and experiences from which new learning contexts surface, which produce new knowledge and solutions to existing issues. Teaching is important here, since the creation of the new learning environments require that they be explained, discussed and further refined. New methods and paradigms therefore come to the forefront, carrying new values as well. Both the school and the wider society then benefit.
If a school leader is to keep current with new advances in his or her field, then he or she needs to attend to their self-development, and become involved with others to achieve goals. Self-development involves improving knowledge and understanding, appreciating what is good in others, learning to respond in the right way at the right time to the right situation, enhancing emotional intelligence, and transforming the personality, so that one appears more pleasing and pleasant without being seen as a bore. Working with others has to do with giving them their due, empathising, respecting different views of staff members, and enabling others to achieve higher professional objectives. It further means giving others challenging tasks to perform, and being helpful and caring. This creates an educational workplace that produces team work and comaraderie.
An educational leader must possess the requisite managerial skills which would enable him or her to shape the direction of the organisation, and competently manage the staff and students, as well as situations in the wider community with whom the educational institution has to deal. Objectives can then be targeted and measured, so that the leader would know when intentions have matched results, and when to make the required changes, so that more efficient management strategies could be implemented. Managing the organisation is therefore critical to the achievement of tasks and the realisation of aims.
Accountability and strengthening the community are important aspects of training for school leadership. Accountability ensures that there is oversight so that objectives are always tracked, and that linkages of the school with the community are regularly maintained. With accountability, the community and the school become one in using the expertise of both to enhance the skills of the other. When the leadership of the school is deeply involved with the community, more effective communication results, and greater collaboration is fostered. The culture and social and intellectual lives of both are enriched, and they are better off as a result.
Training for school leadership is therefore a serious business, which needs to be engaged in by serious professionals. Leaders are promoted based on real accomplishments and not as happens in some of our Caribbean countries, on how long one has been in a position, or on a decision that it the time for someone else to move up. Education is too important a practice to be left to those without the proper leadership training. The proper training of our educational leaders in the Caribbean should therefore receive first priorty, if our region is to become a leading example of how good training can transform institutions, individuals, and foster a development oriented culture.
Oliver Mills | | | | Reads : 848 | | | |
|
|
 
Click here for Education News archives prior to February 16, 2007...
|
