Educational stakeholders from Nigeria and the UK converged on Lagos last Wednesday to develop professional standards for school leaders.
The 5-day summit, which was the outcome of a partnership between the British Council and the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), sought to promote excellence in instructional leadership among school leaders in Nigeria.
The standard aims to establish clear performance expectations for school leaders in instructional leadership across different career stages and define the essential knowledge and competencies needed for effective leadership.
British Council Programme Director, Mr. Chikodi Onyemerela, said the professional standards initiative was a product of a study tour which looked at the practice of instructional leadership in the UK, and discovered a gap in the Nigerian educational sector that needed to be filled.
“The British Council has locations in over 100 countries in the world and we bring expertise from these locations to bear on the needs of the country. We found out there was a gap in Nigeria and on return to Nigeria, we wanted to meet those gaps that were discovered. And we engaged TRCN which indicated interest in working with us in filling the gaps in school leadership practice,” Onyemerela said.
He said other critical stakeholders were also engaged to develop a leadership standard which enabled profound student outcomes.
He noted that in terms of policy implementation, there was need for widespread consultation by all stakeholders to gain a buy-in. “We have done well in bringing everybody in the room and now we are trying to develop a document that is widely accepted. The second layer is the system of implementing it. We are trying to operationalise it, we would have operational manual and…measurement.”
The Registrar of teachers’ registration council (TRCN), Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, said the ultimate goal of the programme was to review the current school leadership in Nigeria, noting that school leadership accounts for about one-fourth of learners’ attainment in their schools. “And in Nigeria, we have not concentrated so well on school leadership.”
He said: “That is why we’re bringing out a unique policy document on school leadership especially when we are talking about instructional leadership. So this programme is to bring a spectrum of stakeholders together to look at the documents that we have developed at the level of TRCN and British Council and now we are bringing wider stakeholders together so that they would be able to look at the document and make their input. Ultimately, the objective is to improve on the achievement of our learners and to improve on the delivery of our schools. The school leadership is very critical in school.”
British Council Education Consultant, Jane English, who is a UK-based policy expert, agreed that school leadership is central to student development. She said: “The standards would help school leaders identify areas that need developing and to focus more on the core purpose of their schools. Sometimes, some leaders in their schools focus too much on administration; administration is easy, it feels good but the real focus of school leadership is about the work done in the classroom.”
She said it was important for the training and introduction to be done from Nigeria because “there is nothing better than being trained by your own people.” The job of the facilitation advisers from the UK, according to her, is to get the standards that are right for Nigeria and get the implementation that would work for Nigeria.
Those in attendance included top officials from the Federal and state ministries of education, School Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), unions and school leaders.
The event held under the auspices of British Council’s Schools Connect Programme which partners with governments and educators in the UK and around the world to improve quality in education and bring an international perspective to the curriculum; helps all young people to develop their international understanding and build the skills, knowledge and attitudes they need to respond to global challenges now and in the future.
