School Leadership in Latin America and the Caribbean

Gaining clarity and consensus on the role and responsibilities of school principals and their management teams in improving learning outcomes

Panel sessions examined the current school management policies in the region, and their benefits and shortcomings. These sessions were followed by peer discussions to share ideas on ways to strengthen existing policies and develop new programmes. In addition, during the introduction segment of the workshop, Ms. Melissa Adelman, Senior Economist at the World Bank Education Global Practice, presented the results of a WB regional study on management in education, and shared overall trends in school principals’ work across the LAC region. Ms. Adelman also presented statistics about the time usage of school principals, principals’ autonomy and quotas of administrative labors across the region. These findings were an important resource for reflection and discussion during the workshop. 

Results 

New knowledge  

The Dominican Republic and Guatemala greatly benefited from the wealth of knowledge and experience shared by professionals of the participating countries. Critical knowledge was gained of how to effectively develop the definition of roles and responsibilities for school principals through consensus building. Some examples of new knowledge gained included effective ways to train school principals to become change agents and ways to collaborate with teachers’ unions to improve learning outcomes.  

Enhanced skills 

Participants were exposed to different approaches in professional and managerial training for school principals. The approaches included: executive management courses; effective teaching practices; the establishment of enabling learning cultures; tools to monitor students’ learning progress; development through observation and monitoring; and ways to measure and strengthen leadership skills using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. 

Enhanced connectivity   

The regional workshop gave participants opportunities to network and interact with their peers and counterparts from the Latin America and the Caribbean Region. Beyond the formal sessions, discussions and sharing of technical concerns and interests continued among participants, guest speakers and World Bank team members. Participants, especially from Guatemala, Paraguay and Uruguay, expressed interest on behalf of their countries to host similar workshops in the future.  

New and improved actions 

The closing session of the workshop provided an ideal forum for the Minister of Education of the Dominican Republic to launch a new and innovative principal training programme. This modular programme combines online and face-to face formats, and covers the following crucial skills and qualities — leadership, integrity, critical thinking, effective communication, results-based management and knowing how to improve learning outcomes. Althoughthe training programme was designed prior to the knowledge exchange, its implementation is likely to benefit from the knowledge and good practices shared during this workshop.  

The World Bank Education Global Practice task team for education projects in the Dominican Republic and Guatemala shared their ideas for a regional knowledge exchange with other World Bank Education Global Practice teams in the region, well in advance of the proposed dates. This made it possible for LAC Education task teams to reach out to their respective country counterparts and gauge their interest in participating. As a result of this client outreach, more widespread interest in the regional knowledge exchange was generated with more countries than expected enthusiastically confirming their participation. Having more countries join enriched the quality of the sessions and the peer learning, and provided a wider variety of good practice and experiences to share.  

Moving forward  

The knowledge exchange served as an effective platform for sharing experiences and inspiring participants to consider new strategies and approaches that can be implemented by the ministries in both the Dominican Republic and Guatemala. Application of the rich knowledge gained could help improve learning outcomes and strengthen capacities of school leadership. It is expected that this knowledge exchange will positively contribute to the implementation of education reform projects in both the Dominican Republic and Guatemala.  

The knowledge exchange inspired renewed interest in the professional development of principals in Colombia, Guatemala and Paraguay. In these three countries, the Ministries of Education have since reached out to the World Bank to further discuss possible support for reforming or revamping their school principal training strategies and the overall policy framework on the role and responsibilities of school principals. A meeting between the World Bank Education Global Practice team and Colombian counterparts already took place. Colombia is considering possible ways of incorporating key themes from the knowledge exchange into a new project. In addition, management of the Instituto Superior de Formación Docente Salomé Ureña (ISFODOSU, Higher Institute for Teachers’ Training) of the Dominican Republic has expressed interest in continuing the inter-country dialogue. ISFDOSU is exploring the possibility of establishing a technical working group to improve policy and reform implementation.