Nadiem Anwar Makarim, Indonesia’s Minister of Education has spearheaded the foundations of systemic change at scale in the world’s 4th biggest education system through the holistic reform Emancipated Learning – Merdeka Belajar.
Showing signs of impact on students’ learning gains and general change in mindsets, this reform has required major public campaigning to build consensus and overcome massive resistance. The reform has also launched 27 major policies to support school transformation and ensure that various rules, regulations and practices are coherent throughout the system and clearly communicated.
Effective high-level leaders also take the time to engage with stakeholders in the places where policy impacts are experienced the most—including in schools, communities and school district administrations—to understand and respond to different concerns.
Traits and behaviors such as these are also seen in the dynamism of leaders such as Awut Deng Acuil, South Sudan’s first female Minister of Education who is a vocal advocate for inclusive, quality education.
She has dedicated herself to supporting a system transformation vision through global and national advocacy, explaining that her country’s focus on inclusive education is more than just a policy. It’s a lifeline to cohesion and social justice for thousands of children affected by conflict and displacement, and a commitment to rebuilding a nation through the power of learning.
Steering capacities for change: Leadership in the messy middle
Midlevel leadership often lacks the visibility conferred to decision makers higher up in the hierarchy but is no less critical to effective systems transformation.
Midlevel leaders and managers within central, regional and provincial education authorities hold important responsibilities for following through on bold policy shifts and radical reforms. They build ownership and buy-in across the organizational culture and coordinate across complex education ecosystems to connect the dots and ensure coherent decision making. Their relationships with the education workforce—and especially teachers—are central to mobilizing and incentivizing support to reform efforts.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the Education Ministry has strengthened the institutional leadership and positioning of the Support and Coordination Unit as designated actor for the oversight of the partnership compact. This is to ensure that leadership and delivery roles and responsibilities are clearly mapped and understood.
To this end, technical steering, coordination and leadership capacities are being reviewed, in consultation with concerned directorates of the ministry, to ensure capabilities for pursuing and monitoring the theory of change and generating more connected decision making in targeted priority areas.
In Uganda, the experiences of the international nongovernmental organization STiR Education have underlined the existence of a “missing link” between education leaders/officials and teachers, showing how closer professional relationships between them can impact teachers' intrinsic motivations to support system transformation.
STIR’s partnerships with government have highlighted the need to redefine relationships so that officials can play a more dynamic role of coach, mentor, facilitator or ‘critical friend’ to teachers, and the need for teachers and their peers to reflect on their experiences, share challenges and find creative solutions to delivering on system transformation.
Making a difference in schools and classrooms: School leadership practices
The roles and behaviors of school-level leaders have many important impacts on school culture and the quality of classroom instruction. School leaders ensure an efficient, safe and healthy environment for learning, optimize resources to overcome everyday challenges and raise awareness in the community on the importance of school attendance, especially for girls.
Many GPE partner countries have recognized the need for change in how to strengthen competencies for and provide support to school leaders.
In Guyana, the ministry of education has put strengthening culturally responsive and effective instructional leadership as well as improved accountability (at district and school levels) at the heart of its priority reform. Here, ‘leadership’ is envisaged as an umbrella concept covering many dimensions, including culturally responsive leadership, school-improvement planning and instructional leadership.
With innovative pedagogies and technology integration at the heart of many education approaches to improving learning outcomes and transforming systems, a KIX-supported leadership program in Nicaragua and Honduras has focused on equipping school leaders and teachers for innovation and change.
Such leadership programs, based on practice-based peer learning, can positively affect school performance and help address gender bias, school-based violence, resource scarcity and dropout rates. Thanks to changes in teachers' leadership skills and related pedagogy and curriculum, students have increased confidence and excitement for learning.
Given the evidence on how female school leaders and teachers positively impact learning outcomes for girls, the Ministry of Education inMadagascar is prioritizing a more structured competency framework and career development processes for female primary school leaders.
This initiative, supported through the country’s partnership compact, holds promise to contribute to overcoming gender-based barriers to becoming a school principal.
By fostering a culture of shared leadership, education systems can become more resilient and effective in meeting the diverse needs of all learners.
High-level leaders provide the vision and advocacy needed to initiate change, midlevel leaders ensure the implementation and sustainability of reforms and school-level leaders confront complex challenges in everyday learning contexts.
Their combined actions and dedicated support to ensure different types of leaders have the agency and resources needed to enact reform objectives are pivotal to system transformation.
This blog is part of a series on system transformation, sharing voices and insights from partners and practitioners on what we are learning about education system transformation in different contexts and what it takes.
