On 24 August 2026, the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL) convened a meeting with key partners to review its Continental Framework for School Leadership Policy Development, designed to guide policymakers in strengthening school leadership in their respective countries. The discussions focused on the framework’s relevance to African education systems, its alignment with existing continental frameworks, and how it can be translated into effective policy implementation at country level.
Developed in 2024, the framework provides an inspirational reference tool for policymakers and other education stakeholders across Africa seeking to strengthen effective school leadership through policy development and implementation. It addresses the conceptualization of school leadership in the African context, leadership roles and competencies, career pathways, recruitment, preparation, licensing and professional development.
Senior officials who participated in this initial session, alongside ACSL representatives, included: Dr. Maurice Odondo, Chief Executive Officer of the Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI), Prof. George K.T. Oduro, Advisor to the Minister of Education in Ghana, Dr. Mugenyi Cleophus, Commissioner for Basic Education at the Ministry of Education and Sports; Dr. Maulid J. Maulid, Chief Executive of the Agency for the Development of Educational Management (ADEM), Prof. Steve Chidi Nwokeocha, Executive Director of the Africa Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities (AFTRA), Abuja, and Prof. Michael Boakye-Yiadom from the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA), University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana.
An African perspective on school leadership
The main objective of the review was to ensure that the framework reflects the realities, values and diversity of African education systems. This means moving beyond generic descriptions of effective leadership to considering what school leadership means in practice in the African context: the behaviours, values and principles as well as the practices that enable school leaders to work with teachers, learners, communities and education authorities.
Participants considered how concepts such as “Ubuntu” can inform the understanding of effective school leadership, while avoiding the assumption that there is a single model of “African leadership”. The aim being to have a framework that offers a meaningful continental reference while allowing countries to adapt it to their own contexts.
Building on what already exists
Policy coherence emerged as a key message. Participants emphasized that improving school leadership policy should not mean creating new frameworks in isolation but connecting and making better use of the continental instruments and evidence already available. These include existing African Union instruments addressing standards and competencies, school leadership development initiatives, and continental guidance for education systems.
Prof. Steve Chidi Nwokeocha, noted that only around 10% of frameworks developed on teachers and school-level education have been communicated, underlining the need to make greater use of what already exists.
“The African Union guidelines have been in place since 2019, yet they have not been communicated to the people expected to use them. We should build on the existing African Union guidance at school level, strengthen alignment and make better use of the evidence that is already available.”
— Prof. Steve Chidi Nwokeocha
Closer alignment can reduce duplication and give countries clearer guidance, positioning the revised framework as a bridge between continental guidance and national implementation rather than a parallel policy architecture.
From competencies to professional pathways
The review examined how school leadership can be positioned as a distinct professional pathway rather than an extension of the teaching profession. This calls for greater clarity on the minimum requirements, recruitment, preparation, competency assessment, certification, licensing and career progression.
Participants highlighted the need for pathways through which teachers can prepare for leadership responsibilities before taking up school leadership positions, with continuous professional development once they are in post. Effective school leadership requires more than teaching experience alone: school leaders need specific knowledge, competencies and professional support to lead teaching and learning, manage people and resources, engage communities, navigate change and respond to challenges within their schools.
Removing gender barriers in school leadership
Removing the barriers that limit women’s progression into school leadership was identified as an area requiring stronger and more actionable attention within the framework. Women make significant contributions to education systems across Africa, yet their representation in school leadership remains uneven.
The review considered how policy can move beyond recognising disparities to removing the barriers that produce them, through practical measures in recruitment, preparation, career progression and the institutional conditions that enable women to enter and remain in school leadership. Discussions also pointed to the historical and structural factors that continue to shape education leadership in different African contexts, including the legacy of colonial education systems.
From framework to implementation
Participants stressed that a continental framework should offer practical value to countries rather than remain a high-level policy reference. The revised framework will therefore give greater attention to how policy commitments are translated into implementation through governance arrangements, partnerships, communication, resource mobilisation and monitoring.
This includes identifying the actors required to support school leadership, from ministries and education authorities to teacher training institutions, professional bodies, school leaders, teachers and communities, while remaining flexible enough to accommodate different education systems and levels of institutional capacity.
Next steps
ACSL will consolidate the feedback from the Nairobi discussions and finalize the draft framework. The next stage will involve engagement with selected continental and international partners through the “Strategic Thinking Team”, which includes African Union institutions and partners working on teacher development, school leadership and education policy, the organization of another physical workshop to further elaborate on the editorial aspects of the document and to provide additional technical perspectives before a continental level validation event.
The review forms part of ACSL’s wider effort to establish school leadership as a critical component of education system transformation. The ambition is not only to define what effective school leadership looks like, but to help African education systems build the policies, professional pathways and enabling conditions that allow school leaders to lead effectively and improve teaching, learning and learner outcomes.