Critical Leadership Urgently Needed to Improve Global Education – Global Issues
NAIROBI, Oct 31 (IPS) – Education around the world is facing a critical time amid severe challenges. Millions of children are out of school, learning rates are falling, and millions are leaving school without the skills they need. New out-of-school statistics show that global progress in reducing the number of out-of-school children has been just one percent since 2015, leaving 251 million behind.
Although some 110 million children are enrolled in school, there has been only a 1 percent increase in out-of-school rates. If the same rate of progress was maintained from 2010-2015 to today, there would be 27 million more children in school. These findings are contained in a new UNESCO GEM report released today, October 31, 2024.
It has a title Leading Learningthe report explores the critical role of leadership in driving educational change while highlighting progress towards SDG4. Although the numbers of young people completing high school have improved by 40 million since 2015, 650 million still leave school without a high school diploma.
Manos Antoninis, GEM Report Director, told IPS that the key to changing the trajectory of education is leadership.
“Instructional leadership is critical to addressing the education crisis, especially in Africa, where one in five people cannot read well. Good school leaders not only inspire change but are critical to improving student outcomes. However, many lack the necessary training and resources to make a real impact. We must provide our educational leaders power so they can face these challenges and create an environment where all children can succeed in their education,” Antoninis told IPS.
The report finds that leadership accounts for 27 percent of the variance in student outcomes and that less than two-thirds of countries are competitive in recruiting school principals. Gaps in governance and diversity also persist. Overall, almost half of the core training programs focus on core leadership.
Half of principals in high-income countries have no pre-service training. Although autonomy is positively associated with better student outcomes, currently, “37 percent of principals control the content of the school, and 28 percent have an opinion on teachers’ salaries. About 40 percent of all countries do not recognize the autonomy of higher education institutions by law.”
Principals in low- and middle-income countries spend 68 percent of their time on administrative tasks and one-third of public school principals in the richest countries report not having enough time to focus on teaching and learning. In total, 29 percent of countries make decisions about the hiring and firing of teachers based on political views, adding to the instability of education systems.
Without investment in strong, trained leaders to reverse this trend, the global community risks deepening inequality and losing another generation. However, according to the report, “funding in most low-income countries (LICs) and low-income countries (LMICs) remains low. In 2022, LICs and LMICs, on average, spend only USD55 and USD309 per child per year, respectively – far below what is needed to ensure quality education and address the learning crisis.”
In addition, “for every USD 100 spent per child in high-income countries, less than USD 1 reaches children in low-income countries, exacerbating inequality. Low-income countries face the greatest debt pressure, six out of ten vulnerable countries in Africa , countries will spend almost as much on debt service by 2022 as they do on education.”
Of the 251 million children and youth who are out of school worldwide, 71 million are out of primary school, 57 million out of primary school, and 120 million out of secondary education. Of these, 122 million are girls and 129 million are boys, a significant disparity seen in poor countries. While only 3 percent of children in rich countries are out of school, that number rises to 33 percent in the poorest countries.
According to the report, “since 2015, total enrollment in early childhood education programs—those under the age of three—has increased by more than 10 percent in sub-Saharan Africa and enrollment in primary schools has remained at 19 percent since 2015. More half of all out-of-school children in the world are in Sub-Saharan Africa The out-of-school rate in sub-Saharan Africa dropped from 22 to 19 percent in primary school, increased from 32 percent to 33 percent in secondary school, and then decreased slightly 47 to 46 percent in high school.”
However, “sub-Saharan Africa’s share of the world’s population has grown, from 32 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2023, and much faster than the number of out-of-school youth worldwide over this period.” , from 25 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2023. Notably, the number of out-of-school children in sub-Saharan Africa has not changed since 2000, while the number of youth and young adults out of school has. unchanged between 2000 and 2015 but increased by 26 percent from 2015 to 2023.”
The percentage of children who can read at the end of primary school has decreased from 31 percent to 30 percent and in mathematics from 12 percent to 11 percent in Africa. The Assessment for Minimum Proficiency Level (AMPL) is a new source of evidence of learning in Africa and was administered in English and French at the end of primary education in six African countries, including Burundi, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal and Zambia. Each country sampled between 220 and 300 schools.
Selected results from the six countries running AMPL at the end of primary education in 2021 and 2023 show that almost one in ten students reached the minimum reading level, except in Kenya, where one in four students did. In contrast, outside Côte d’Ivoire, a large proportion of students achieved a low level of proficiency in mathematics: 16 percent in Zambia, 20 percent in Lesotho, 24 percent in Burkina Faso, 34 percent in Senegal and 37 percent in Kenya.
Significant progress has been made in access to basic drinking water in sub-Saharan Africa—from 44 percent in 2016 to 53 percent in 2022 in primary schools and from 54 percent in 2015 to 63 percent in 2023 in schools high school. Meanwhile, spending on education is roughly the same across the region—ranging from 3.6 to 3.7 percent as a percent of GDP and 16 to 15 percent as a percent of total government spending.
Overall, the 2024/5 Heritage Report calls for strong leadership to improve education around the world. It shows that school leaders in particular are important in improving learning outcomes at the school level and should be invested in. It also shows that school leadership styles in Africa differ from other areas.
A review of six studies in Africa revealed that few school principals were expected to be instructional leaders. But in high-income countries, especially in English-speaking countries, the rise of standardized testing and accountability methods have placed high expectations on principals to be held accountable for student achievement.
African countries are working together to strengthen the programs for selecting principals so that they have strong people leading schools, but challenges remain. For example, since 2008, Rwanda has prioritized merit-based selection of school principals. The Kenya Teachers Service Commission has developed guidelines for teacher career progression and a merit-based selection policy for school principals that prioritize qualifications, experience and training.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
