Being a school leader often feels like being the mayor of a small town. However, the ability to transform school culture into success through leadership very much depends on many external influences. Access to wider power is as key as anything a leader can change within the school itself.
There are also external parameters that cannot be ignored by any school leader such as standards and safety regulations, inspections, funding, funding tied to success criteria, curriculum and qualifications, and the list goes on.
All school leaders need to be fully aware of these wider arenas but more importantly, the need to be aware of the role a school leader can play in utilising the relationships for the good of their “small town” as an ambassador for the school community.
The need to be collaborative, building up networks and an open facing approach is essential here. There is a delicate balance to strike between the need for a schools-led system and autonomy against centralisation from an education ministry.
The recent education paper in England by the then secretary of state, Nadhim Zahawi, proposed very dramatic changes in clawing back central powers and control over a number of areas, that the academies model had long enjoyed having this autonomy in state schools.
A successful lobbying campaign and the insider power the Confederation of School Trusts has within the department of education, soon saw this paper disappear. The Labour Party has already announced they will remove charity status from independent private schools in the UK and this has already seen a galvanised approach from the sector to challenge this policy especially from smaller independent schools already on wafer thin operating margins.
“There is a delicate balance to strike between the need for a schools-led system and autonomy against centralisation.”
Through my experience of seeing education leadership in a number of global contexts, I am aware that in countries like the UK and US, there is a more developed, politically literate relationship between school leaders and policy makers at both local and national level.
As a head of one school, me and my team had been lobbying the ministry hard to get substantial grant funding for much needed capital investment. We finally got the green light only for it to be changed as a “loan” to the school and a huge additional amount on top of a very balanced budget.
It is rare that I have done this as a school leader but I called the local MP immediately, who we had a very good relationship with and he was able to lobby on our behalf and get the loan back to a grant. Being a marginal seat and my school having around 400 potential first time voters in the next election may have also played a small part.
“In countries such as the UK and US, there is a more developed, politically literate relationship between school leaders and policy makers.”
It is regular practice for school leaders in the UK and US to be involved in policy discussions and literally “speak truth to power”. Before I left for Moldova in 2019, I was invited to an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on languages and international education in a committee room in the Houses of Parliament with MPs and members of the Lords to put across the “industry view”.
In stark contrast, I know from the former Soviet countries I have worked with that there is still a hangover from the deferential authoritarian model and this was true in Indonesia with the legacy of the Suharto military dictatorship and the school leadership teams we worked with in West Java.
The idea that a school head or director should challenge the local and central government for more funding or for a change in educational policy is still a delicate issue in some countries with this legacy. School leaders really do feel powerless to influence in these circumstances.
“I know from the former Soviet countries I have worked with that there is still a hangover from the deferential authoritarian model.”
In Tomsk, Siberia, in 2006-7, I worked with schools on developing sustainability projects into a new “green curriculum” as well as developing a more socially responsible model of student leadership.
We even got as far as presenting it to the regional governor in the oblast who then laughed at the proposals and told the teachers present not to focus on such “dangerous ideas” such as teaching “political literacy”. If only he knew the lectures I had been giving at Tomsk State University to history teacher trainees on the way we taught Stalin and the USSR in the UK.
In Moldova, the pandemic actually benefited the whole national education community on one level, when the minister and his team came to Heritage in early March 2020 on a weekend to learn about our online learning model so it could be adopted for the whole country. Still one of my proudest “speak truth to power” moments and a wonderful example of what can be achieved when we can influence policy makers from a school.
I am a member of the Varkey/TTF 2030/Unicef Global Leaders Networks and one of the aims of this network of 100s of school leaders from around the world, is to develop a range of strategies, to be useful in local contexts and to give a voice and support for school leaders.
As the demands of being a school leader become even more complex in the 2020s this is going to increasingly be a key skill for school leaders to find the way to influence those who make decisions that impact the daily lives of our schools and life chances for our students.
We certainly need more, not less, political literacy for global school leaders as a key leadership skill of the 2020s.