The fourth recommendation in the 2024/5 GEM Report on leadership in education focuses on the need to develop education officials’ capacity to serve as system leaders.
Who are education system leaders?
System leaders are education officials, at the central and local levels, who help achieve system-wide education goals by setting directions, ensuring monitoring and supporting, developing and leading school actors. They may be in the civil service, they might be school inspectors, district officers, or superintendents, those working on education boards, or as assessment or curriculum specialists, for example.
Yet education system leaders are among the least studied education actors. The 2024/5 GEM Report dedicated a chapter to their leadership role, helping shine a light on their contribution to a functioning education system.
Despite their absence from many discussions about education systems, system leaders have major responsibilities to implement education reforms instigated by the government and to support quality assurance processes.
System leaders can help maintain a focus on learning outcomes and school support.
- By ensuring alignment between education goals, clearly articulating priorities and values, and helping implement policies. System leaders can ensure coherence between goals and policy implementation by setting expectations for those working towards these goals and by embedding directions in plans and regulations. In the Canadian province of Ontario, a major education reform in the 2000s included a leadership framework, aimed at professionalizing district education officers, and outlining a set of practices they were expected to adopt. Emphasis on system leadership had a significant influence on student learning outcomes at scale.
- By monitoring whether and how goals are reflected in curriculum, pedagogy, materials and assessment. Monitoring should not be limited to administrative compliance or else there is a risk that its transformative potential is lost. District officials should not simply pass data from schools to the central government but should use the outputs of management information systems to interpret and inform decisions.
- By providing guidance and support to schools to help them thrive. System leaders are important as they can advise and influence several school principals at once. In the United States, the functions of educational officials have evolved from a focus on supervision to coaching and mentoring. In the United Republic of Tanzania, the number of school visits and the way visits were conducted were among the most important influences on improving learning. In Kenya, curriculum support officers combine monitoring with instructional support.
- By working with other actors to drive change, helping information flow and encouraging two-way communication with and among local authorities and schools. In response to declining student outcomes and student populations in rural areas, two Finnish municipalities – Åland and Mäntsälä – initiated reforms based on school-to-school networking and collaboration supported by local education administrators, with positive returns for student learning outcomes.
However, the professionalization of civil servants encounters several obstacles. Many of those who are supposed to play a system leadership role:
…do not have a clear understanding of their roles. A survey of education officials in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Peru showed that they could not identify up to four of the five tasks they were expected to perform. The lack of understanding of their roles was negatively associated with school learning outcomes in their districts. They also tend to see their role as one of control rather than support. Appraisal mechanisms often lack measurable objectives, which could be used to give feedback.
…lack the space to be leaders. Yet local leaders need to be able to contribute to policy design and implementation. In Brazil, the municipality of Sobral in the state of Ceará benefited from high autonomy in defining education policies and in supervising schools, including hiring and firing school principals and teachers, developing professional training programmes, and maintaining school infrastructure. This governance system, which has led to a significant and steady improvement in learning outcomes, is being adopted in other municipalities in the state.
…need support through training. Such training can be critical in some contexts. Only 12% of planning officers in Ethiopia and fewer than 10% in Guinea had an education background in planning and management, for example. In South Asia, the practice of frequent and discretionary transferring between posts is pervasive in some countries, especially at the subnational level, hampering long-term planning; officials may even lack key knowledge of the education sector. In Australia, the Centre for Leadership and Learning, established in 2011, designs and delivers training for between 9,000 and 11,000 employees every year. Its leadership development programme focuses on providing civil servants with capabilities associated with the practice of ‘using influence to bring about change’.
…are often not selected to serve as system leaders. Defining the qualification requirements and competencies for education officials who could potentially serve as system leaders would help make sure the right people are selected for the posts. Often, simply the length of service of candidates, often as former secondary school teachers without any specific managerial training, is considered to be a sufficient requirement to fulfil roles within many education administrations. But that discounts any assessment of specific skills or qualifications.
Open and competitive recruitment procedures will ensure the best talent is selected. Currently, recruitment and selection processes for system leaders are slow to change because public administration reforms move at a slow pace. In addition, political influence on staffing negatively affects the effective functioning of education systems.
In short…
System leaders influence how an education system works at different levels. Central officers initiate reforms and monitor policies and progress. Local officers ensure coherent policy implementation through data use, teacher professional development planning, and support to school principals. However, their roles have been under-researched and underestimated. The 2024/5 GEM Report issues a call for countries to recognize the roles of system leaders in driving forward change, and to invest in them as key partners in the bid to create quality education systems and achieve SDG 4.