Abstract
PurposeThe purpose of the paper is to report the findings of a synthesis of literature reviews and stakeholder interviews conducted in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The synthesis provides an overview of instructional leadership policy and practice in these six countries.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reports the findings of a systematic literature review, and participant interviews, in six sub-Sahara African countries. The research links to the British Council's initiative to develop instructional leadership in developing contexts, including the six countries featured in this submission.FindingsThe findings show diverse policy and practice of instructional leadership in these African contexts. Three have no explicit policies on this important leadership construct, while the others have relevant policy statements but limited evidence of instructional leadership practice.Research limitations/implicationsThe research provides an overview of instructional leadership policy and practice in these six countries, but more school-based research is required to develop grounded evidence on whether and how this is practiced. The pandemic inhibited such school-based research in 2020. The study provides emerging evidence of the impact of instructional leadership on school and student outcomes, confirming what is known from international research.Practical implicationsDeveloping awareness of how instructional leadership can improve student learning, linked to appropriate training, could lead to more effective schools.Social implicationsThe Sustainable Development Goals stress the importance of high quality education for economic and social development. Leadership is an important aspect of quality, and the research reported in this paper shows the potential for instructional leadership to enhance student learning.Originality/valueThis is the first cross-national study of instructional leadership in sub-Saharan Africa.
Highlights
There is growing evidence that high quality leadership is essential for student growth and school improvement, accounting for up to 27 per cent of variation in student outcomes (Leithwood et al 2006). Bush (2020) discusses several leadership models, noting that transformational, distributed, and instructional approaches are prominent in the leadership literature
The findings show diverse policy and practice of instructional leadership in these African contexts
These aims lead to five specific research questions identified by the British Council and addressed by the researchers: 1. Who are regarded as school leaders and what do they do, linked to leadership structures and roles in schools, and who is responsible for instructional leadership?
Summary
There is growing evidence that high quality leadership is essential for student growth and school improvement, accounting for up to 27 per cent of variation in student outcomes (Leithwood et al 2006). Bush (2020) discusses several leadership models, noting that transformational, distributed, and instructional approaches are prominent in the leadership literature. There is growing evidence that high quality leadership is essential for student growth and school improvement, accounting for up to 27 per cent of variation in student outcomes (Leithwood et al 2006). Shatzer et al’s (2014) study of elementary schools in the US reached a similar conclusion that instructional leadership accounted for more of the variance in student outcomes than transformational leadership. Hallinger and Lee (2014: 6) note that ‘instructional leadership from the principal is essential for the improvement of teaching and learning in schools’. They add that ‘in many parts of the world, the practice of instructional leadership remains both poorly understood and outside the main job description of the principal’ (ibid)
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