RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

In­ef­fi­cien­cies in school man­age­ment have long been a chal­lenge in the na­tion’s schools, and while some prin­ci­pals have suc­cess­ful­ly man­aged lead­er­ship through net­work­ing and sup­port, oth­ers strug­gle with ba­sic tasks.

This is why Gov­ern­ment has start­ed train­ing prin­ci­pals in trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said trans­for­ma­tion­al lead­er­ship was the key to mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in schools. 

“We have start­ed Mas­ter Prin­ci­pal ses­sions at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to in­spire prin­ci­pals to think big­ger,” she said. 

As part of its pro­gramme, the min­istry has de­vel­oped a Mas­ter Prin­ci­pal Con­fer­ence aimed at shar­ing best prac­tices to im­prove school man­age­ment.

“The Mas­ter Prin­ci­pal Con­fer­ence emerged from the cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tive, which be­gan in 2023. We re­alised that while some prin­ci­pals were able to im­ple­ment most of the man­dat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, oth­ers strug­gled,” the Min­is­ter ex­plained. The ini­tia­tive aims to en­sure all stu­dents re­ceive equal op­por­tu­ni­ties and core val­ues.

Ex­pe­ri­enced prin­ci­pals who suc­cess­ful­ly im­ple­ment­ed these ac­tiv­i­ties were in­vit­ed to share their ex­pe­ri­ences.

“They shared what they did, the chal­lenges they faced, and how they over­came them. This is how the Mas­ter Prin­ci­pal Con­fer­ence was born,” she added.

The con­fer­ence cov­ers ar­eas like phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion, emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, pos­i­tive val­ues and be­hav­iours, life skills, and com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, guid­ing and sup­port­ing all schools in meet­ing these crit­i­cal man­dates to achieve cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion.

Out­lin­ing the min­istry’s goals, Gads­by-Dol­ly said the ini­tia­tive seeks to raise the stan­dard of all schools across the coun­try, not just a few. 

“We want prin­ci­pals to un­der­stand that this is achiev­able, and it leads to pos­i­tive out­comes for both stu­dents and the wider school com­mu­ni­ty,” she not­ed.

Up­com­ing con­fer­ence pre­sen­ta­tions will pro­vide up­dates on cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion and its im­pact on Schools of Fo­cus, iden­ti­fied as show­ing sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment. Gads­by-Dol­ly ex­plained that the con­fer­ence will al­so cov­er ac­tiv­i­ties like No to Vi­o­lence, show­cas­ing an­ti-vi­o­lence pro­grammes, and For­eign Lan­guage Day, pro­mot­ing team­work and com­pe­ti­tion.