Strengthening instructional leadership

Over the past few years, African education systems have been continually striving to develop policies and strategies aimed at improving the quality of pupil learning. Making pedagogical support to teachers more effective through mechanisms set up in each country is high on the list of priorities.It is recognized that teachers benefiting from continuous professional support are more inclined to implement innovative and effective pedagogical practices, which in turn have a positive impact on pupil performance and, overall, on the quality of education. As such, the core mission of a national pedagogical support system is to accompany, support, and motivate teachers.However, while educational policies and strategies devote a good deal of time to these mechanisms, in which they have equally high expectations, the unanimously shared observation is that results in terms of pupil learning or quality of education are more limited. This raises questions, particularly on how these mechanisms are designed and organized, what resources are available to them, and how effective they are in real terms, with a view to solving the learning crisis.By accompanying eight national teams in diagnosing their practices, IIEP-UNESCO Dakar’s programme to support the management of education quality brought to light several major elements enabling these questions to be addressed. At the same time, the programme was able to identify several levers for action to strengthen and enhance instructional leadership practices.