Zambia adopts a new approach to strengthen school leadership
In an effort to strengthen school leadership, Zambia’s ministry of general education is providing school leaders with toolkits, which give step-by-step guidance on implementing effective school management systems and strategies.
Students in class at the Monze Primary School, Zambia. Credit: GPE/Alexandra Humme
Students in class at the Monze Primary School, Zambia.
Credit: GPE/Alexandra Humme

The Ministry of General Education (MoGE) is implementing an ambitious and comprehensive program to strengthen access to and quality of education with support provided by the Zambia Education Sector Support Technical Assistance (ZESSTA) facility*. ZESSTA directly responded to a need identified by the ministry to be able to provide cost-effective and efficient support to all school leaders as they lead change and improve the performance of learners.

Linking learner outcomes and quality institutional leadership

International research has highlighted the link between learner outcomes and the quality of institutional leadership and management in schools. The current approach to the professional development of school leaders is through a diploma program funded by MoGE. No evaluation of the effectiveness of the program has taken place but anecdotal evidence has found that it is useful for headteachers and of good quality.

However, the program provides a number of challenges for MoGE:

  • It is expensive and can only be offered to a small number of headteachers each year
  • It is residential and takes headteachers away from their school
  • It is predominantly theoretical and assessment is undertaken through examinations
  • It requires reflection on practice but not evidence of practice.

MoGE identified the need for a program that could reach all headteachers and their senior management teams (SMTs), build collaborative management styles to enable widening participation and ownership of school plans and, as far as possible, use existing continuing professional development systems. It was also felt to be important that the program would immediately address challenges in the management of key systems and the implementation of strategies to combat the weaknesses identified by learners, teachers and parents.

Zambia’s response

The Directorate of Teacher Education and Specialised Services (TESS) identified an innovative and cost-effective approach of providing school leaders with toolkits, which give step-by-step guidance on implementing effective school management systems and strategies.

The process of developing the toolkits and support their implementation was as follows:

Step 1: Baseline study

A baseline study was carried out in 12 pilot schools in Lusaka and Central Provinces. These schools were selected to ensure a cross section of rural, peri-urban and urban schools. As part of the study, each group of learners, parents, and teachers were asked to use an innovative card game to identify areas they were most concerned about in order to provide information to schools, zones and districts on the problems they need to address.

The participants in the ‘game’ sorted the cards three times until they had identified which of the concerns were true for them and bothered them the most. Focus group discussions were also held with parents and teachers. While the baseline sample was small and therefore lessons learned cannot be generalized to all schools in Zambia, the information was critical in identifying topics for the toolkits being prepared for the three pilot districts concerned.

The first toolkit was developed to support improvement in two areas which bothered learners most: learner behavior and the condition of the toilets.

Step 2: Creating the toolkits

The topics for three toolkits were identified based on the baseline survey findings and perceptions of MoGE staff. Each set of tools was developed in a workshop with writers drawn from school, district, provincial and HQ offices as well as partner organizations. Lesson learning and materials developed in other countries were used to enrich the development of the toolkits. A further meeting was held to review and validate materials.

Step 3: Orientation of school teams

Two-day meetings were held for headteachers, district and provincial officers who would lead the orientation of school teams from the pilot schools. Following this meeting, each district held a one-day orientation meeting with a school team comprised of the headteacher, the deputy headteacher or senior teacher, the school in-service coordinator and a community or PTA member. The school team were then tasked with implementing the toolkits in their school.

Step 4: Monitoring implementation in schools

Interviews and focus group discussions with members of the SMT, teachers and learners combined with observation of the school environment were used to identify the extent and success of implementation of the toolkits in the pilot schools. This monitoring was carried out by officers from TESS and district and provincial offices as well as a ZESSTA adviser.

Step 5: Revising the toolkit

The toolkits were revised by the writing team based on feedback from the monitoring.

Some of the results and lessons learned:

  • The first round of monitoring revealed that all pilot schools had:
    • developed a school improvement plan with the participation of the teachers, parents and learners and as a result staff felt that parental involvement in the school had improved and that parents were taking an active role in mobilising resources;
    • developed classroom rules with the learners that were displayed on the classroom walls, and learners felt that bullying, fighting and stealing had reduced;
    • put in place measures to ensure that the learners have access to clean toilets (regular cleaning, purchase of chlorine to use as a disinfectant, installation of buckets for flushing and handwashing in schools without running water) and a clean environment (installation of rubbish bins and regular cleaning), although many learners still complained that their toilets smell bad because they are used by too many people.
  • The baseline study was essential in identifying the concerns of learners, and developing appropriate tools to address them.
  • The baseline study challenged teachers’, managers’ and MoGE staff’s perceptions of their own understanding of learners’ needs and concerns and raised awareness that learners have strong views on what bothers them and that even the youngest can articulate these when supported to do so.
  • The engagement of MoGE staff at the school, district, provincial and HQ level in developing the Zambia Education Management Toolkits (ZEMT) resulted in a strong writing team committed to national implementation and sustainability.

Here are some thoughts from the beneficiaries:

"This intervention has come at the right time as Lusaka Province is trying to find ways of improving learner performance in our schools. In 2016, the province did not perform well in the Grade 9 and 12 examinations and literacy levels are low among young learners; this very much points to the capacity of our leaders to manage their schools. The baseline study conducted with support from ZESSTA found low levels of understanding of learners’ concerns among teachers and school managers. This situation cannot be allowed to continue. Implementation of the toolkits will address these challenges." (Former Lusaka Province PEO, Mr. Felix Ngoma, introducing the first toolkit at Lusaka Resource Centre, February 2017)

“The community and school are now working together and parents have since begun contributing to hygiene by donating soap for use after using the toilets and they bought handwashing buckets for the learners’ toilets.” (Senior teacher)

“Since the introduction of the first toolkit in school, the PTA has hired a worker to clean the toilet. As a result, our toilets are now kept clean all the time.” (School in-service coordinator)

Read more about ZESSTA and the toolkit initiative for school leaders in our results paper.

* ZESSTA is funded by the Global Partnership for Education and UK aid and delivered by the British Council.

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Comments

I would like to offer my services to improve teachers. My dissertation was on teacher corps improvement in Southern Africa through in-service planning and program improvement. I am from Zimbabwe and am familiar with educational structures in the area. I look forward to hearing from you.

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