On this World Teachers’ Day, the African Centre for School Leadership stands in solidarity with the teachers of Africa. Every day, in crowded classrooms, with limited resources and through demanding curriculum reforms, they give young people a real chance to learn, to work and to lead. We honour that commitment.

We also restate the conviction that drives our work: teachers do their best work in schools that are well led. A head of school who listens, gives professional guidance, protects time for teaching and opens space for participation shapes whether teachers feel valued, grow in their practice and stay in the profession. Collaboration among teachers does not happen by chance. It is led.

That is why, on a day dedicated to teachers, ACSL speaks about school leaders. Investing in the people who lead schools is one of the most direct ways to invest in the people who teach in them.

Strengthening school leadership across Africa

ACSL is a coalition coordinated by ADEA, ESSA, FAWE and VVOB, working with governments, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, to build school leadership systems that improve teaching and learning. Across the continent, that work is already delivering:

• Evidence on where systems stand. With ministries of education and Leaders in Teaching (LiT) partners, ACSL has completed national school leadership mappings in Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and at the continental level, giving governments a clear picture of gaps in policy, professional development, research and coordination, and a roadmap to close them.
• African-led research. Through our Research Grants Programme, ACSL has awarded 39 research grants to researchers in 14 African countries, building evidence on what effective school leadership looks like in African schools. A second cohort is now in progress.
• Stronger providers of professional development. ACSL works with the institutions that prepare and train school leaders, strengthening how they design and deliver blended, practice-based programmes so that support reaches leaders at scale.
• Providing policy and professional development support for school leadership. This is through our engagments with country-level and continental partners including reviewing and updating the continental school leadership policy framework. 
• Continued support to Kenya, Rwanda and Ghana. Building on ACSL’s foundation phase in these three countries, the Centre continues to accompany national efforts [e.g. supporting the Rwanda Basic Education Board on a national CPD framework for school leaders; and extending technial support to Kenya, through the Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI).

Tanzania: school leadership at national scale

In Tanzania, ACSL leads the LEAD component of the Leaders in Teaching initiative (LiT-LEAD), working with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and the Agency for the Development of Educational Management (ADEM). This is where our continental commitments become concrete for teachers.

• Building leadership capacity nationwide. In August 2025, ADEM and ACSL signed a partnership to deliver a certified blended leadership programme. Launched in Mwanza in May 2026, it will train 16,000 heads of school, deputy heads and Ward Education Officers over five years, reaching about 6,000 secondary schools on the Mainland and in Zanzibar. Its focus is instructional leadership, coaching and mentoring: the skills leaders need to support teachers through competency-based curriculum reform.
• Training the trainers. ACSL is strengthening ADEM’s capacity to design and facilitate blended professional development, so that quality leadership training becomes part of the national system, not a one-off project.
• Tanzanian evidence for Tanzanian decisions. ACSL is supporting a national research agenda on school leadership, and Tanzanian researchers are among the recipients of ACSL school leadership research grants.
• A sector that works together. At Tanzania’s School Leadership Engagement Week in Dar es Salaam in July 2026, more than 100 stakeholders from Tanzania, Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda took stock of the evidence. One concrete result: a School Leadership Sector Coordination Working Group, with ADEM as its secretariat.
• Policy that recognises the role. ACSL is supporting the development of a contextualised school leadership policy framework, including gender-responsive guidance on appointment and career progression, so that more women can lead.

What Tanzania’s school leaders are showing us

The leaders we work with already know what support for teachers looks like. For one head of school, it starts with listening:

“I listen to and consider the needs, experiences and challenges of teachers by meeting them individually, listening to their challenges and seeking solutions without discrimination based on age, gender or experience.” — Fadhili Nko, Head of School, Kyaka Secondary School, Missenyi District, Kagera

Another helped a struggling Geography teacher make lessons work without buying materials:

“I was able to help the teacher develop their capacity using real objects from the environment they work in instead of relying on materials bought from shops.” — Audax Mutungwa, Head of School, Mutukula Secondary School, Kagera

A third leader guided a teacher away from punishing learners with a stick. Students re-engaged, and results improved. None of this required new budgets. It required leaders with the skills, time and confidence to coach.

Yet research in Tanzania points to real gaps in leadership and management skills among heads and deputies, limited involvement in teachers’ professional development, and heavy administrative workloads that crowd out instructional leadership. One leader put the need plainly:

“When a school head is appointed, they should receive leadership training before beginning their leadership responsibilities.”

Our commitment

On this World Teachers’ Day, ACSL renews its commitment to teachers by committing to the leaders who support them. We call on governments and partners to treat school leadership as a core part of every teacher agenda: clear professional standards, structured and certified professional development, fair and gender-responsive career pathways, and systems that free leaders to focus on teaching and learning.

To every teacher across Africa: thank you. We will keep working so that every one of you is led by someone equipped to support you.

About ACSL

The African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL) is a coalition of partners coordinated by the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA), Education Sub-Saharan Africa (ESSA), the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) and VVOB – education for development. Working in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, ACSL collaborates with governments to strengthen school leadership systems that enhance teaching, learning and student well-being across Africa.