Strengthening school leadership towards improving school resiliency: final technical report

“Strengthening School Leadership Toward Improving School Resiliency” was a two-year interdisciplinary multi-country development research project exploring how the quality of school leadership could be strengthened as a means of improving education quality in under-resourced environments. The primary objective of the project was to understand whether use of a specific continuous improvement approach, Improvement Science (IS), supports sustainable change in the practices of school leaders. School leaders are acknowledged to have a critical role in improving the quality of teaching and learning within schools. Continuous improvement methods such as IS offer a set of ideas, tools and practices which empower practitioners such as school leaders to take an active role in improvement, crafting a narrative which explains the improvement initiative and helping to remove obstacles and blockages in the improvement initiative, and other actions which move the institution towards its goals. Our analysis revealed that there can be clear benefits for schools when school leaders engage with the IS approach: changes in institutional practices, attitudes and relationships are noted when conditions are favorable. The findings draw attention to the importance of the school leader improvement communities. They enable school leaders to develop a broader vision on their work and strengthen potential for further collaborations towards common goals. These are values and behaviors which support implementation of a continuous improvement approach.