From evidence to action: Reflections from Tanzania’s school leadership engagement Week
By Tausi Kigulla, Mamadou Lamine Sow and Sarish Hiribae
The Tanzania School Leadership Engagement Week ended on 17th July. Beyond presenting new evidence, it allowed stakeholders to examine and chart the future of school leadership in Tanzania — and to agree the actions needed to translate evidence into stronger policy, better practice and lasting reform.
Every education system is shaped by the quality of its leadership. Curricula change, policies evolve and investments increase. But sustainable improvements in learning depend on leaders who can translate those efforts into better teaching, stronger schools and improved outcomes for every learner. Across Africa, education systems increasingly recognise school leadership as one of the most powerful levers for improving learning outcomes, and Tanzania is moving decisively to act on that recognition. The direction is set in the Education and Training Policy, 2014 (2023 Edition), which emphasises quality education, effective governance and capable leadership.
That vision was interrogated during the Engagement Week, organised by the Agency for the Development of Educational Management (ADEM) in partnership with the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL) under the Leaders in Teaching (LiT-LEAD) initiative. Officially opened by Prof. Carolyne Nombo, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, on behalf of the Minister, Hon. Prof. Adolf Mkenda, the week provided a national platform to examine new evidence and identify practical priorities for strengthening school leadership across Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar.
Welcoming participants, Sarish Hiribae, Country Programmes Manager for ACSL Tanzania, framed the engagement as an opportunity to deepen a shared national commitment.
“This week demonstrates what is possible when government institutions, development partners and academia come together to ensure that every school is led by a visionary leader who will contribute to students’ success.”
Evidence as a Foundation for Reform
The dissemination of the Tanzania School Leadership Mapping Report and the School Leaders Training Needs Assessment provided the first comprehensive national picture of school leadership in the country.
The Training Needs Assessment found that 85 per cent of respondents identified major gaps in leadership and management competencies — strategic planning, instructional leadership, financial management, conflict resolution and ICT, while 90 per cent called for comprehensive professional development. The Mapping Report showed that many heads of schools assume leadership roles without formal preparation, balance teaching with extensive administrative responsibilities, and use school data primarily for compliance rather than school improvement.
There was encouraging progress too. Nearly three-quarters of heads of schools and their deputies demonstrated readiness to support implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum, particularly through instructional supervision and classroom observation. And research on school leadership has expanded from just three publications in 2010 to thirty-seven in 2024 — though gaps remain, particularly on rural leadership and gender representation among researchers.
Taken together, the reports pointed to a sharper conclusion than either offers alone: Tanzania does not lack school leadership initiatives. It lacks an integrated school leadership system — the standards, preparation pathways, coordination mechanisms and evidence needed to turn individual efforts into sustained institutional practice.
The week’s task was therefore not to introduce a new agenda, but to determine how existing national priorities become action.
From Evidence to Policy and Practice
The conversation quickly turned from what the evidence showed to what it required.
Representatives from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), the President’s Office – Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG), the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training Zanzibar (MoEVT), the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Open University of Tanzania identified three priorities: gender-responsive policies that open pathways for more women to assume leadership positions; continuous professional development grounded in evidence; and development partner support that strengthens government systems rather than substituting for them.
For Zanzibar, a persistent challenge stood out: school leaders often receive conflicting directives from different administrative levels. Panellists also acknowledged that while teacher professional development has expanded significantly, improvements in classroom practice have been slower than expected — a gap that effective school leadership exists precisely to close. Both challenges pointed to the same remedy: strengthening formal recognition of school leadership roles and responsibilities through the ongoing review of the Education Act (Mainland), 2014 and the Zanzibar Education Act, 2006.
The discussion also stretched the definition of leadership itself. A representative from the Open University of Tanzania encouraged teacher education institutions to embrace Ubuntu as a guiding philosophy — leadership as collaborative and relational rather than centred on a single individual, shared among school leaders, teachers, education officers, policymakers and communities.
Research that Serves Practice
Research featured not as an academic exercise, but as a working tool of reform.
The launch of Tanzania’s National School Leadership Research Agenda marked a milestone in connecting research, policy and practice, and the commitment was tested immediately. All fourteen Tanzanian researchers supported through the ACSL Grants Programme presented their proposals to government officials, practitioners and the Research Advisory Committee, receiving structured feedback before implementation begins. Because the studies respond directly to challenges identified in the national mapping, future evidence will speak to national priorities from the outset.
Delivering the keynote address, Prof. Tage Biswalo, a member of the Research Advisory Committee, urged researchers to see their work as a driver of education transformation.
“Research grants are far more than financial awards. They represent strategic investments in knowledge generation, innovation and educational transformation.”
He challenged researchers to produce knowledge that is “for us, by us” — grounded in local realities, shaped by African expertise and capable of informing policy while improving practice.
Sustaining National Collaboration
One message echoed throughout the week: stronger school leadership cannot be built through isolated initiatives. Without a formal coordination mechanism, research findings risk remaining on shelves rather than shaping policy, and well-intentioned programmes operate in silos rather than advancing a shared national agenda.
To address this, participants endorsed the establishment of a National School Leadership Task Force. The Task Force will provide strategic advice to the Ministry of Education on school leadership development, ensure that research findings inform policy and practice, and track progress against agreed results. Its establishment marks a formal shift from fragmented initiatives to a coordinated, evidence-driven approach — closing the gap between what research shows and what policy delivers.
Closing the week on behalf of the Permanent Secretary, Dr Hussein Omar Mohammed, Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, described the dissemination of the two reports as a major milestone. He welcomed the Research Agenda as an investment in locally generated evidence and emphasised that sustained collaboration across institutions will be essential to translating commitments into lasting improvements in policy and practice.
The Tanzania School Leadership Engagement Week marked an important step towards a coherent national school leadership system, and offered a model of country-led, evidence-driven engagement that other African countries can learn from.
The conversations have concluded. The evidence is in hand. The next chapter will be defined by how effectively Tanzania translates it into stronger leadership, better-supported teachers and improved learning outcomes for every child.