Making schools count

To be effective, school principals need not only the necessary qualifications and technical expertise to manage schools but also autonomy and space. This means subjecting school leaders to a continuous professional training regimen cannot on its own help them find the silver bullet.

The system can pride itself in having invested a lot of money into the professional development of school managers but alas with no return on investment. The long and the short of it is that having a trained manger is important but that does not guarantee improved learning outcomes. School principals understand that their core business is to provide an exciting, lively and rich learning environment.

This is an enabling environment permitting both teachers and learners to unleash their best selves and potential. However, the one constraining factor especially in our jurisdiction is lack of space, freedom and autonomy. Ours is a centralised system. There are rules to follow. Over the years, our system built and nurtured a dependency syndrome which deprived school managers of the opportunity to plan, execute and explore possibilities for improvement without external influence. In other words, school managers are not empowered. The control over a creation of a rich learning environment lies elsewhere. Only the courageous ones can break a few protocols to get things done for the good of their schools. But planning and executing what is good for learning requires complete control over resources.

Editor's Comment
Congratulations Anicia Gaothuse!

The contest had 10 beautiful young girls as finalists and unfortunately only one could wear the crown.The judges picked Anicia Gaothuse. To all those who feel their contestant should have won ahead of Anicia for whatever reason, hardly; the judges found Anicia to be the best among the best, so desist from disrespecting our newly crowned queen on social media or anywhere else, for that matter! Each of the 10 beautiful young women had supporters...

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