Author: ADEA Secretariat

Mwanza, Tanzania, 28 May 2026 — The Agency for the Development of Educational Management (ADEM) and the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL) on Thursday May 28th, delivered three interconnected milestones, including the official launch of the LiT-LEAD Programme for Tanzania, the commencement of school leadership training with regional and District Education Officers from six Lake Zone regions and the introduction of the school leadership training manual that will underpin the training programme. Together, these three outputs represent Tanzania’s most comprehensive single-day investment in school leadership development, and a concrete demonstration that the country is poised to build a solid school leadership system.

Implemented through a partnership between ACSL and ADEM under the Leaders in Teaching (LiT-LEAD) initiative, the LiT-LEAD programme will train 12,000 secondary school head teachers and deputy head teachers across Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, improving learning outcomes for more than 2.8 million learners.

The launch was officiated by Prof. Carolyne Nombo, Permanent Secretary in Tanzania’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and brought together representatives from government institutions, development partners, faith-based organisations, civil society, and secondary school students — a reflection of the broad national ownership the programme has earned before its first cohort completes training.

In her remarks to launch the programme, Prof. Nombo set the standard the programme is designed to meet: “It is essential for school leaders to have the ability to manage their institutions with efficiency, accountability and academic integrity to ensure that every learner has access to quality education and improved learning outcomes.”

The training programme will combine face-to-face and online learning, equipping school leaders with practical skills in instructional coaching, school improvement planning, and evidence-based leadership. Crucially, it is not a standalone initiative. Through a Memorandum of Understanding signed between VVOB — under the ACSL partnership — and ADEM in May 2025, the programme is formally embedded in ADEM’s national professional development portfolio and aligned with leadership appointment standards. Certified school leadership training will become a permanent part of how Tanzania selects, prepares, and recognises its secondary school leaders — independent of any single project cycle.

The launch comes at a pivotal moment for Tanzania’s education reform agenda. As the country advances competency-based curriculum reforms placing learner-centred teaching and critical thinking at the heart of classroom practice, effective school leadership has been identified not as an administrative function but as the primary driver of whether reform reaches learners. LiT-LEAD is Tanzania’s institutional response to that recognition.

For ACSL, the launch represents the kind of systems-strengthening outcome its continental mandate is built on. But for ADEM, it reflect the sort of partnership the agency craves, to ensure it can achieve its mandate to Tanzanians. “This partnership marks a significant step forward in our national efforts to professionalise school leadership,” said Dr. Maulid J. Maulid, Chief Executive of ADEM. “By providing structured, high-quality training aligned with national priorities, we are laying a foundation for sustainable improvements in teaching and learning.”

Alongside the programme, ACSL officially launched the school leadership training manual — the curriculum resource developed by ACSL to drive the LiT-LEAD training across Tanzania. The manual provides school leaders with a structured, evidence-based learning pathway covering instructional leadership, school improvement planning, professional learning communities, and leadership within the context of Tanzania’s competency-based curriculum reforms.

The manual is an ACSL intellectual product — designed to be contextualised for Tanzania while drawing on the comparative school leadership evidence that ACSL has generated across multiple African countries through its continental mapping exercises. It will serve as the primary training resource for the 12,000 school leaders the programme will reach, and as a lasting curriculum asset within ADEM’s professional development system beyond the LiT-LEAD programme itself.

Its launch on the same day as the programme’s formal inauguration is significant: the curriculum and the system that will deliver it are being introduced together, signalling that Tanzania is not waiting for infrastructure to catch up with ambition.

Within hours of the launch ceremony, the transition from launch to implementation began. ACSL and ADEM convened Regional Education Officers and District Education Officers from six Lake Zone regions — Mwanza, Shinyanga, Simiyu, Mara, Geita, and Kagera — for the first formal training session under the LiT-LEAD Programme.

As the first regions to implement the programme, the Lake Zone cohort will generate early evidence on delivery modalities, participant uptake, and system readiness that will directly shape the national rollout across all regions of Mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. The sequencing is intentional: by beginning in the Lake Zone before scaling nationally, LiT-LEAD builds in the learning loop that large-scale education programmes so often skip.

With 12,000 school leaders to be reached and more than 2.8 million learners standing to benefit, LiT-LEAD is among the most ambitious school leadership programmes on the African continent, and Tanzania’s most significant investment in school leadership to date. It contributes to a growing continental movement — one that ACSL is helping to lead — to reposition school leadership as a professional field with its own preparation standards, career pathways, and accountability systems. This shift is being built — in Tanzania, by Tanzanians, with the technical partnership of ACSL and the institutional commitment of ADEM. The programme, the curriculum, and the first trained cohort now exist. The work of reaching 12,000 leaders has begun.

New research grants programme is translating continental mapping findings into an African-led evidence agenda — targeting the systemic gaps that have left school leadership policy without the evidence base it needs

NAIROBI, 15th May 2026 – The African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL) is pleased to announce that 39 beneficiaries have received research grants under the Cohort 1 of its Research Grants Programme, committing USD865,000 to school leadership research across 14 African countries. The Research Grants Programme represents the largest known investment dedicated specifically to school leadership research on the African continent — and a defining step towards building an evidence base that is Africa-led, contextually grounded, and directly connected to the policy decisions shaping how school leaders are trained, supported, and held accountable.

The announcement comes less than two months after ACSL presented the findings of its Continental Mapping of School Leadership Initiatives in Africa at the 1st KEMI International Conference in Nairobi — the first continental-scale evidence synthesis on school leadership ever conducted. The Research Grants Programme is the direct operational response to what that mapping found.

The 2025 continental mapping exercise, conducted across 14 African countries through surveys, interviews, and documentary reviews, confirmed that school leadership research in Africa is fragmented, chronically underfunded, and insufficiently connected to the policy processes it is meant to inform. Most strikingly, 83 per cent of researchers examined school leadership only as part of broader education studies — not as a dedicated field of inquiry. The result is a critical evidence gap at precisely the level of the system where it is most costly. Policymakers designing leadership standards, governments investing in professional development, and school communities trying to hold leaders accountable are all making decisions in a near-vacuum of relevant, policy-responsive research. These findings were reinforced at the 2025 ADEA Triennale in Accra, where African ministers and senior policymakers named school leadership evidence generation as a continental priority for the coming decade — signalling that the growing political recognition of school leadership as a driver of education quality must now be matched by investment in the knowledge systems that can sustain it. The Research Grants Programme is ACSL’s direct answer to both signals.

Selected through a rigorous multi-stage review process led by ACSL’s Research Advisory Committee, the 39 grantees include doctoral holders, postdoctoral researchers, and senior research fellows from Tanzania — both Mainland and Zanzibar — Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Malawi, and nine other African countries. In line with ACSL’s Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) commitments, priority was given to researchers working in arid and semi-arid regions, conflict-affected areas, and rural communities — ensuring that the evidence generated reflects the realities of populations too often absent from current research.

Cohort 1 is organised around eight thematic priorities drawn directly from the continental mapping, co-created continental school leadership research agenda and the 2025 ADEA Triennale outcomes: leadership preparation and development pathways; Afrocentric leadership models and indigenous knowledge systems; equity, inclusion, and social justice in school leadership; digital transformation and educational technology; leadership influence on teacher practice and learning outcomes; system enablers for effective leadership; distributed and middle leadership; and school leadership in emergencies and crisis contexts. The programme’s thematic architecture is aligned with the African Union’s Continental Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 2016–2025), anchoring it within Africa’s broader education transformation agenda. Twenty-five Descriptive Action Research grants of up to USD15,000 per researcher support studies of up to 12 months; fourteen Comparative Action Research grants of up to USD35,000 per researcher support studies running up to 24 months.

The diversity of researchers joining the programme reflects both the breadth of the continental evidence gap and the appetite for rigorous, policy and practice -oriented school leadership research across African institutions. “I am particularly excited because I conceived the original research idea following my years of research involvement in Botswana,” said Obumneke Ugwu, a Cohort 1 grantee affiliated with Rainbow Education Consultancy Services. “This also marks my first international research contract since establishing my consultancy. I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to research that strengthens school leadership and educational transformation across Africa.” Ugwu’s reflection captures something central to the programme’s design intent — not simply to fund individual studies, but to build a generation of African researchers who own and sustain dedicated school leadership evidence base long after each grant cycle closes.

That intent is embedded in the programme’s structure. A critical design feature is its accountability to policy impact, not merely academic output. Every grantee is required to produce a policy brief for submission to the relevant government ministry in their country, alongside at least one peer-reviewed journal article — closing the loop between what researchers find and what policymakers can act on. All 39 grantees will also participate in the ACSL Blended Exchange and Learning Trajectory (BELT), a structured peer learning, mentorship, and coaching platform delivered in collaboration with ACSL’s Research Advisory Committee and Education Sub Saharan Africa (ESSA), ensuring that researchers work as part of a connected, continent-wide community rather than in isolation.

For Dr. Leyla Abdullahi, ACSL’s Director of Research and Programme Delivery, the programme’s significance extends far beyond the immediate research outputs. “The Continental Mapping confirmed something many of us had long observed but had never documented at this scale: across Africa, critical decisions about how school leaders are selected, trained, and supported are often being made with limited contextually grounded evidence,” she said. “This grants programme is therefore not simply about funding research. It is about strengthening an Africa-led research ecosystem that reflects African realities, priorities, and knowledge systems, while ensuring that evidence reaches the policymakers and practitioners shaping education systems.”

She further emphasised that the programme is also contributing to the co-creation of a continental school leadership research agenda and responding to the research needs identified through that agenda by bringing together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to identify shared priorities, emerging gaps, and actionable pathways for strengthening school leadership across diverse African contexts. “The 39 researchers we are supporting in Cohort 1 are part of a growing movement to build a sustainable and policy-responsive research infrastructure that Africa owns and drives.”

Research findings will be shared through relevant government forums, national and international education conferences, peer-reviewed publications, and digital platforms — ensuring that evidence reaches not only academic audiences but also the ministries, communities and schools it is intended to serve.

By Dr. Leila Abdullahi and Ms. Chantal Kabanda Dusabe

This blog draws on reflections and discussions from the 13th AFTRA Conference and 15th Roundtable, Gaborone, Botswana, and on ongoing work under the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL). ACSL is coordinated by ADEA, and implemented in collaboration with ESSA, FAWE, and VVOB – Education for Development.

From 5^th to 7^th May 2026, education leaders, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners from across Africa gathered in Gaborone, Botswana, for the 13th AFTRA Conference and 15th Roundtable. The conference was officially opened by His Excellency Duma Gideon Boko, President of the Republic of Botswana — a signal of the political weight the country places on education, youth development, and continental collaboration. We attended as representatives of the African Centre for School Leadership. We came to the event with questions. We left with a stronger sense of both urgency and direction.

Across three days of discussions, one message recurred with striking consistency: effective school leadership is not a technical sub-issue within the education reform conversation. It is a central determinant of whether reform actually works.

This is not a new argument. The evidence has been building up for years. Effective school leaders shape school culture, strengthen teaching quality, support teacher motivation, improve accountability, and create enabling conditions in which learning can thrive. Leadership is, in many ways, the bridge between policy ambition and classroom practice. And yet, across much of the continent, it remains insufficiently institutionalized. Leaders are appointed without adequate preparation. Standards and competency frameworks are weak or inconsistent. Professional development is fragmented, donor-dependent, and often disconnected from the day-to-day realities of leading a school. The result is a persistent gap between what policy intends and what implementation delivers.

What was encouraging in Gaborone was seeing that gap named explicitly — and at the highest levels. In the communiqué from the Ministerial Session held on 5 May 2026, Ministers of Education across Africa affirmed that effective school leadership is a key determinant of teacher retention, professional performance, improved learner outcomes, and competency acquisition, and committed to strengthening school leadership training as a specialised professional pathway across the continent. Botswana’s Minister of Child Welfare and Basic Education, Hon. Mrs. Kebuang Nono Kgafela-Mokoka, reinforced this, underlining the importance of leadership, policy alignment, and continental collaboration in strengthening education systems. When ministers use a communiqué to name school leadership as a strategic professional track rather than an administrative function, something is shifting in how the agenda is being understood.

Our contribution to the conference drew attention to what that shift must mean in practice. Effective school leadership cannot be understood as the responsibility of individual principals working in isolation. It must be understood as a system function, one that requires coherent structures at every level, from ministries and district offices to teacher development institutions, school communities, and the professional networks that connect them. One of the framings we offered, which generated genuine discussion, was the move from talking about instructional leadership toward talking about leadership for teaching and learning. The distinction matters. The first locates the work at the level of the principal. The second distributes responsibility across the whole system and acknowledges the relational, collaborative nature of leadership as it operates in African contexts.

The conference also brought into sharp focus something we encounter in ACSL’s work continuously: the professional development of school leaders cannot remain a project. It cannot be short-term, donor-driven, or disconnected from national systems. Meaningful leadership development requires continuity — coaching, mentoring, peer learning, reflective practice, certification pathways — embedded within institutions that will sustain them beyond the next funding cycle. Several African countries are already moving in this direction, and their experiences show that progress is possible when governments, practitioners, researchers, and development partners align around shared priorities rather than parallel agendas.

Research was a recurring theme throughout the conference, and rightly so. Much of the global literature on school leadership originates from contexts that look very different from African education systems. International evidence has value, but African systems need stronger, locally generated evidence capable of informing policy and practice on their own terms — on leadership in low-resource settings, on inclusive and gender-responsive leadership, on what works in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, on the relationship between leadership and teacher wellbeing. ACSL’s expanding research agenda is a direct response to this need. But it is also clear that research must not end in publication. Evidence must find its way into policy dialogue, into leadership standards, into the decisions that shape how school leaders are prepared, supported, and held accountable. The link between research, policy, and practice is where the long-term work of system transformation actually happens.

The AFTRA Conference reflected real momentum. The ministerial communiqué matters. The conversations matter. But momentum is not transformation, and commitments are not yet systems. What Africa’s school leaders need — and what learners across the continent deserve — is sustained institutional investment: in leadership policy frameworks, in professional development ecosystems, in coaching and mentoring structures, in evidence systems, and in collaborative platforms capable of holding this agenda across borders, cycles, and changes in government.

Education reform is ultimately experienced in classrooms, schools, and communities. The quality of that experience depends heavily on the quality of leadership — not leadership as administration, but leadership that supports teachers, enables learning, advances inclusion, and builds the environments in which every child can thrive. Gaborone reminded us that more people across the continent understand this. Turning that understanding into sustained action is the work that remains.

Gaborone, Botwana, 6th May – Ministers of Education from across Africa have made a landmark continental commitment to strengthen school leadership training as a specialised professional track — distinct from the teaching profession but fundamentally linked to its effectiveness. The commitment is contained in the ministerial communiqué from the 13th Conference and 15th Roundtable of the Africa Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities (AFTRA), held in Gaborone, Botswana, from 5th to 6th May 2026.

The communiqué affirms that effective school leadership is a key determinant of teacher retention, professional performance, improved learner outcomes and competency acquisition — and signals a shift in continental thinking from treating school leadership as an extension of teaching, to recognising it as a profession in its own right requiring dedicated standards, structured preparation, and sustained investment.

For the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL), whose mandate is built on precisely this argument, the outcome represents a significant policy advocacy milestone.

The ACSL was represented by Dr. Leila Abdullahi, Director of Research and Programme Delivery, and Chantal Kabanda Dusabe, Technical Lead. The two colleagues engaged ministers of education directly — introducing ACSL’s continental mandate, presenting the case for school leadership as a specialised profession, and drawing on the findings from ACSL’s Continental Mapping Report on School Leadership Initiatives in Africa to anchor the advocacy in evidence.

The AFTRA platform was a deliberate and strategic choice. As an intergovernmental body comprising Ministries of Education and national teaching regulatory authorities from across the African Union, AFTRA convenes the exact audience — ministers, regulators, and policy architects — whose decisions shape how school leadership is defined, resourced, and governed within national education systems. Engaging at this level, and securing a ministerial commitment in the resulting communiqué, reflects ACSL’s approach to advocacy: targeted, evidence-based, and focused on the moments when political decisions are made.

The Gaborone commitment adds to a pattern of deepening continental recognition of school leadership that has been building through 2025 and into 2026. Earlier in April, senior technical education officials at the 1st International Conference of the Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI) in Nairobi endorsed the ACSL Continental Mapping Report and its call for coherent, well-resourced school leadership systems. Also in April, the francophone edition of the 2025 Spotlight Report Series — launched with the African Union, UNESCO GEM-R, and the Ministry of National Education of Côte d’Ivoire — reinforced the instructional leadership agenda in French-speaking Africa. Equally, the 2025 ADEA Triennale in Accra, last September, placed school leadership explicitly among the eight pillars required for education transformation across the continent.

The AFTRA ministerial communiqué adds regulatory and professional legitimacy — a commitment not just to supporting school leaders, but to treating school leadership as a distinct professional track, governed by the same standards and accountability frameworks that define the teaching profession itself. ACSL will continue to track implementation of this commitment and to support member states in translating it into national policy action.

The AFTRA conference, convened under the theme “Recasting Teaching as a Collaborative Profession: Implications for Africa” and hosted by the Ministry of Child Welfare and Basic Education in collaboration with the Botswana Teaching Professionals Council (BOTEPCO), was officially opened by the President of the Republic of Botswana, Advocate Duma Gideon Boko. In his address to open the session, President Boko called for a unified continental approach to teacher development and professional standards, stressing that African education systems must adapt to modern demands and that leadership — at the school level and the system level — is central to that adaptation.

Minister of Child Welfare and Basic Education, Kebuang Nono Kgafela-Mokoka, framed Botswana’s hosting of the conference as a statement of commitment to the continent’s education future, noting that partnerships between governments, regulatory bodies, and international partners are indispensable to raising standards and transforming the profession. AFTRA President Ebby Mubanga reinforced the conference’s core thesis — that teaching as a collaborative profession cannot be strengthened by any single country working alone, and that collective effort, shared evidence, and sustained continental coordination are the only path to meaningful transformation.

By Shem Bodo, Nuria Moreno, Mamadou Lamine Sow and Chinedu Anarado  

The Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi fell quiet on the evening of Friday, 17^th April 2026. Five days of high-level engagements on best practices, innovations, challenges, and opportunities around improving school leadership — in terms of policy, practice, and research challenges —came to a close. Over 1,700 participants, joining in person and virtually from the 16 plus countries across Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America began the journey home carrying the weight of what had been said, and the responsibility of what must now be done. 

The 1st International Conference of the Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI) was, by any measure, a landmark event. Crucially, government is showing the sort of leadership that births results. The initiative to hold the conference echoes the consistent push, championed by organizations like ADEA, for government ownership.  

For the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL), it was something more personal. ACSL did not simply attend this conference. As a core partner to KEMI, keynote contributor, presenter of the continent’s most comprehensive school leadership evidence reviews, panel moderator and day chairperson — ACSL was woven into the fabric of every day of the conference proceedings. This blog reflects what we heard, what we contributed, and what we believe must follow. 

What the week confirmed 

The conference opened on Monday with a keynote speech from the ADEA Executive Secretary, Albert Nsengiyumva, that set the tone — anchored on the key policy messages during the official opening — for everything that followed. His argument was precise yet provocative: Africa is not short of knowledge on school leadership. The research exists. The frameworks exist. Think of CESA 2026–2035, the ADEA Triennale, the African Continental Teacher Qualification Framework etc. What is missing is the political will to act, and the accountability systems to ensure that what is promised is delivered. 

By the time the conference closed on Friday, that argument had been tested, reinforced, and deepened across five days of keynotes, panels, roundtables, abstract and research presentations. What emerged was not a new agenda. It was a clarified one — sharper on what is working, more honest about what is not, and more specific about what concrete action must look like. 

On what is working, the conference was genuinely encouraging. Conversations recognized school leadership as a critical driver of quality education outcomes— and this conference is itself a testament to that. Competency-based learning approaches and learner-centred pedagogies are expanding across the continent. Multi-stakeholder collaboration between governments and development partners is strengthening. Afrocentric leadership models — grounded in Ubuntu philosophy and indigenous knowledge systems — are gaining the institutional attention they have long deserved. A good number of school leaders participated in the conference who showed a high level of commitment to achieve excellence on their performance. They featured on panels, sharing their experiences, calling for more support but essentially, demonstrating the value of creativity and impactful leadership. 

On what requires strengthening, the conference was equally honest. The gap between policy design and school-level implementation persists — and in many systems, widens — coupled with weak alignment to regional and continental frameworks. Professional development frameworks for school leadership remain fragmented and unstandardised. Research is not consistently translated into policy or practice. Education financing remains insufficient and unevenly protected. Community engagement in school governance is still largely ceremonial rather than substantive. Achieving gender balance, including strengthening women participation at leadership levels remain crucial.  

These are not new findings. But having them named and validated by over 1,700 stakeholders in a single week — representing governments, universities, development partners, civil society, and school leaders themselves — gives them a weight and a political visibility that isolated reports cannot match. 

ACSL’s contribution across the week 

ACSL’s presence at the conference was substantive and multi-dimensional. Albert Nsengiyumva opened the conversation on Monday with his keynote speech around eight pillars for education leadership transformation. ADEA’s Senior Program Officer, Shem Bodo moderated the first panel discussion on positioning school leadership as a strategic driver of education reforms. Tom Vandenbosch, the General Director of VVOB, delivered the Day 2 keynote address on the future of school leadership professional development, and the closing address, reflecting on the swahili proverb that one finger alone, is not enough (kidole kimoja hakivunji chawa). Joyceline Kirezi and Caren Namalenya presented the findings of the ACSL Continental Mapping Report on School leadership — one of the most recent comprehensive evidence syntheses on school leadership ever conducted on the African continent, drawing on 1,759 research publications and input from 97 stakeholders across 16 countries.  

Chantal Kabanda Dusabe moderated a panel on transforming professional development beyond compliance. Sandrine Ishimwe brought ACSL’s gender and equity voice to a panel on resilience and inclusion. Mamadou Lamine Sow moderated a session on financing education reform. On day 5, Leila Abdullahi moderated a panel on bridging the evidence and policy gap. ACSL also chaired the full proceedings of Day 4 — overseeing sessions on digital transformation, a roundtable with school heads on CBC implementation, and a panel on education financing. 

In between, we presented an abstract on the methodological approaches we adopted for the school leadership mapping across countries.  

Taken together, this represents the most concentrated demonstration of ACSL’s convening depth and technical breadth on a single platform to date. It is how we understand our role in terms of facilitating conversations on school leadership. We came not to observe but to contribute — and the feedback from delegates across the week affirmed that ACSL’s voice in this space is both credible and needed. 

The Continental Mapping Report: a landmark for the sector 

The formal launch of the ACSL Continental Mapping Report on Day 2 deserves particular reflection. This report is not a position paper or a policy brief. It is a rigorous, multi-method evidence synthesis — built on desk reviews, stakeholder interviews, and validation workshops across 16 countries, produced over an extended period of fieldwork and analysis.  

Its findings do not flatter. They document a continent where school leadership is increasingly recognised in policy but insufficiently resourced in practice; where professional development exists but remains project-based, fragmented, and largely disconnected from career progression; where the evidence base is growing but remains uneven, inaccessible, and underutilised. 

But the report also documents genuine momentum — and it provides a fresh continental baseline from which progress can be measured. That is its most enduring contribution: not just a snapshot of where Africa is on school leadership, but a foundation from which the sector can hold itself accountable for where it goes next. 

What must follow 

The conference produced a clear call to action, organised around nine pillars: governance and institutional reform; sustainable and equitable financing; leadership capacity development; collaborative and community-centred leadership; data-driven leadership and research; technology and innovation with an equity focus; equity, inclusion, and social justice; regional and continental harmonisation; and resilient leadership for crisis and emergency contexts. 

KEMI has committed to developing a roadmap and monitoring framework to track implementation of the conference recommendations — reporting on progress at the next KEMI conference, with updates to stakeholders in between. That commitment is significant, and ACSL welcomes it. 

For our part, ACSL leaves the Nairobi conference with a deepened partnership with KEMI, renewed conversations about expanding the school leadership agenda in Kenya beyond the foundation phase, and a clearer sense of the specific policy and practice gaps where our technical support can make the most difference. 

The one message we carry most firmly from the week is the one Albert placed before delegates on the opening day and that echoed in every session that followed. The knowledge exists. The frameworks exist. The tools exist. What determines whether any of it produces change in the life of a child in a rural school in Kenya, or Senegal, or Mozambique — is whether the people in positions of power choose to act on what they know. 

One billion young people are waiting for that choice to be made! 

Nairobi, Kenya | 13th April: The African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL) took centre stage as lead sponsor, keynote speaker, moderator,  and chair across five days of Kenya’s newest flagship education leadership event.

The 1^st International Conference of the Kenya Education Management Institute (KEMI) opened earlier today in Nairobi, under the theme “Catalysts for Transformation: Re-inventing Leadership in a Sustainable and Inclusive Education Ecosystem.” Drawing together over 300 education leaders and policymakers, researchers,  and practitioners from across Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. The five-day gathering marks a significant moment for school leadership as a continental policy priority — and the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL) is at its heart.

As lead sponsor of the conference, ACSL’s presence extends far beyond the plenary and panel sessions to the exhibition stand. Across all five days, ACSL colleagues from partner organisations ADEA, Education Sub-Saharan Africa (ESSA), and VVOB are contributing as keynote speakers, panel moderators, lead presenters, panellists, and day facilitators — making this the most concentrated demonstration of ACSL’s convening role on school leadership and technical depth on a single platform to date.

To set the stage, Dr. Maurice Odondo, CEO of KEMI, opened the proceedings by anchoring the conference in the realities of a rapidly changing world and the need for education leadership and management to match evolving demands. “Leadership is no longer administrative; it is transformational, adaptive, and future-oriented,” he said, calling on delegates to commit to “strong, visionary, and ethical leadership as the foundation upon which sustainable and inclusive education systems are built.”

The official opening address was delivered by Dr. Elyas Abdi, Director General of the State Department for Basic Education, on behalf of Principal Secretary — Amb. Julius Bitok. Dr. Abdi called for the week to be treated as a genuine inflection point: “The future of education depends not only on policies we design, but on the leadership we demonstrate. Let this not be just another conference, but a turning point for action and impact.”

The day’s keynote was delivered virtually by Albert Nsengiyumva, Executive Secretary of ADEA and a driving force behind ACSL’s continental mandate. Drawing on the 2025 ADEA Triennale Synthesis Report and CESA 2026–2035, he set out eight pillars for transforming education leadership across Africa — from governance and financing to data systems, technology equity, and continental harmonisation — with resilience as the cross-cutting thread running through all of them.

His framing was provocative. By 2040, Africa will be home to over one billion young people of working age. “One billion minds that will either be equipped — or abandoned. One billion futures that will either flourish — or be lost.” The question he placed before delegates was not whether Africa can transform its education systems, but what governments must concretely do now.

On financing, he was direct: “Africa does not have an education financing problem. It has an education financing priority problem” — noting that median African government education spending fell from 16% to 14.5% of total expenditure between 2016 and 2022, moving further from the 20% Dakar benchmark. On equity, he painted a sharp picture of systemic failure: “A child’s chance of being taught by a skilled, supported, motivated teacher — and led by a competent, empowered principal — depends almost entirely on where that child was born. That is not an education system. That is a lottery.”

His closing injunction carried the weight of the entire address: “Africa does not need more policy documents. It needs the political will to implement what is already known...So, let’s walk the talk.“

The conference’s flagship panel discussion — Repositioning School Leadership as a Strategic Policy Driver for Education Transformation — was moderated by Shem Bodo, ADEA’s Senior Progams Officer and Senior Strategic Advisor at ACSL, bringing together voices from government, research, academia, and civil society to interrogate the persistent gap between policy and on-the-ground investment in school leadership. Panellists examined why school leadership continues to be treated as an extension of teaching in most African educational systems, rather than a distinct professional role requiring structured preparation, defined standards, and protected career pathways.

The opening day also featured the launch of the Kenya edition of the 2025 Spotlight Report Series, presented jointly by Dr. Manos Antoninis (Director, UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report), Martin Kungania (Deputy Director, Ministry of Education Kenya), and Prof. Martin Mutegi (University of Nairobi). The report makes the case that school heads must be understood not as administrators but as instructional leaders whose daily decisions are directly linked to the quality of learning in classrooms.

Day 1 was only the opening chapter. Across the remaining four days, ACSL colleagues will be active in some of the conference’s most significant sessions: On the second day, the conference’s flagship knowledge moment arrives early in the morning. Tom Vandenbosch, General Director of VVOB, delivers the Day 2 keynote — Shaping the Future of School Leadership through Professional Development. He will be followed immediately by the headline event of the conference: the formal launch and dissemination of the ACSL Continental Mapping Report on School Leadership Initiatives in Africa, to be presented by ACSL colleagues, Joyceline Kirezi and Caren Namalenya.

The School Leadership Continental Mapping Report represents the most comprehensive evidence synthesis on school leadership recently conducted on the African continent. Its findings confirm both the growing recognition of school leadership as a driver of education quality and the fragmentation, inequity, and under-institutionalisation that still characterise most systems across the continent.

Later on Day 2, Chantal Kabanda Dusabe moderates a panel on Beyond Compliance: Transforming Professional Development for School Leaders.

On the third day, ACSL’s Strategic Education Advisor on Gender and Equity, Sandrine Ishimiwe, joins a panel on Leading for Resilience: Advancing Equity and Inclusion in Education — bringing ACSL’s gender-responsive leadership agenda into one of the conference’s most substantive thematic discussions.

Day 4 will be facilitated by ACSL’s Communications and Advocacy Strategic Advisor, Chinedu Anarado, who will chair the full day’s proceedings — overseeing a packed programme that includes a panel on Digital Transformation and Innovation in School Leadership, a roundtable with heads of primary and junior schools on CBC implementation, and a panel on Financing Education Reforms: Unlocking Resources for Transformative Change, moderated by ACSL’s Policy Strategic Advisor, Mamadou Lamine Sow.

On the final day, ACSL Research Advisor, Dr. Leyla Abdullahi will moderate the panel discussion on Bridging Research and Policy: Leveraging Education Research to Transform School Leadership and Learning Outcomes. This before Tom Vandenbosh joins the other high-level officials in the closing formalities with remarks.

By Albert Nsengiyumva, Executive Secretary, ADEA

Keynote Address at the 1st KEMI International Conference, Nairobi, Kenya, 13 April 2026

Distinguished guests, colleagues, fellow believers in the transformative power of education.

I want to begin with a number. Not a target, not a projection — a fact. By 2040, Africa will be home to the largest youth population the world has ever seen. More than one billion young people of working age. One billion minds that will either be equipped — or abandoned. One billion futures that will either flourish — or be lost.

The question — the only question that matters — is this: What must governments concretely do now to transform the leadership of those systems?

Drawing on the 2025 ADEA Triennale Synthesis Report and the Continental Education Strategy for Africa — CESA 2026 to 2035 — I present to you eight pillars, and one cross-cutting dimension, where political commitment and institutional courage must converge if we are serious about transformation.

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Pillar 1: Governance and Institutional Reform

Let us start where every education system either stands or falls: governance. 

Decentralisation is not transformation. Decentralisation without accountability is merely dispersal. The Triennale was unsparing on this point — it identified middle-tier leadership: district officers, school support officers, instructional coaches — as the chronically under-resourced link where policy transformations most often fail.

We need Afrocentric professional standards for school principals. We need career pathways with teeth — licensing requirements, performance standards, and real consequences for persistent failure. And we need to invest in and formally recognise the African Centre for School Leadership as the institutional home for this work.

CESA 26-35 is explicit: Objective Six of its Strategic Area on Teachers, Educators, and Caregivers calls directly for investing in school leadership, including the share of female leaders. Not as a footnote. As a strategic objective.

School leaders are not administrators. They are the single most powerful lever in a school system after the quality of teaching itself. And yet in some African countries, a teacher can become a principal without any leadership training. That is not governance..

Governance must also anticipate the unexpected. Crisis management units embedded at every tier — national, district or county, and school — are not a luxury. They are the infrastructure that determines whether a system bends or breaks when emergencies arrive.

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Pillar 2: Sustainable and Equitable Financing

The numbers in CESA 26-35 are sobering. Between 2016 and 2022, the median African country saw education spending fall from 16% to 14.5% of total government expenditure. Moving in the wrong direction. Against a benchmark of 20%. Against a UN recommendation of 6% of GDP. Against a continent that allocates barely 3.7%.

Africa does not have an education financing problem. It has an education financing priority problem.

The Triennale’s most politically significant contribution was to name this clearly: governments must start treating education as a strategic investment, not a cost.

For leadership specifically, this means budget lines for principal training academies, CPD infrastructure, and middle-tier coaching must be protected — especially during fiscal pressure, when they are the first to be cut.

One final point on financing that must be said plainly: education budgets are most vulnerable to cuts precisely when they are most needed — during fiscal crises, conflicts, and emergencies. Ring-fencing leadership development expenditure against these pressures is not a technical matter. It is a test of political commitment.

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Pillar 3: Leadership Capacity Strengthening

I want to be direct: capacity strengthening in Africa has a credibility issue.

Too many of the “capacity strengthening” programmes are single workshops in hotel conference rooms, attended by nearly the same people, producing reports that are hardly read, and changing little.

The Triennale put it plainly: continuous professional development (CPD) needs to be made mandatory, systemic, and embedded in policy. For education leaders, this means annual CPD hours as a licensing requirement. Competency-based micro-credentials replacing generic certificates. Digital platforms that track participation and tie it to career progression.

We must anchor these national systems to the continental architecture that the African Union has already built: the African Continental Framework of Standards and Competencies for the Teaching Profession, the African Continental Teacher Qualification Framework, the Teacher Mobility Protocol. These instruments are not optional extras — they are the foundation on which credible national systems must be built.

Capacity strengthening must also prepare leaders for the unexpected. Trauma-informed leadership, emergency pedagogy, and psychosocial support are not specialist add-ons — they are core competencies for any education leader working in Africa today.

And leadership development must begin earlier. Not with the principal, not at the district, county, or provincial office. But in the classroom. This means leadership modules in pre-service teacher education, mentorship programmes pairing experienced leaders with emerging ones, and professional learning communities that operate with a coaching orientation — not an inspection one.

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Pillar 4: Collaborative and Community-Centred Leadership

There is a leadership model deeply embedded in African philosophical tradition that the world is only now beginning to appreciate. Ubuntu. I am because we are.

And yet our school governance structures often contradict this entirely — communities consulted only ceremonially, School Management Committees with no real authority, parents informed rather than involved.

The Triennale called for governments to empower communities to participate actively and sustain the learning process. Not advise. Not consult. Participate. Sustain. That is a fundamentally different mandate.

And beyond communities — multi-stakeholder education compacts. Ministries, civil society, traditional leaders, the private sector, and learner bodies co-designing national strategies. South-South collaboration platforms through the African Union, ACSL, RTIA, and the AU Regional Economic Communities.

We are not short of African wisdom on education leadership. We are short of the institutional structures that let that wisdom flow from communities into policy.

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Pillar 5: Data-Driven Leadership and Research

You cannot lead what you cannot see. And you cannot improve what you do not measure.

But let me be clear: this is not a call for more data for Ministries. It is a call for quality data — data that reaches leaders. Data that empowers principals to make instructional decisions. Data that enables officers at central and sub-national levels to target support. Data that gives School Management Committees and Parent-Teacher Associations real visibility into how their school is performing.

CESA 26-35 calls this EMIS 2.0 — the shift from aggregate statistics to individual learner tracking. Real-time. Disaggregated. Actionable. Designed not to produce annual reports, but to drive daily leadership decisions.

And alongside robust data systems, we need African research on African leadership. Not imported models that we take as is, but those which we can contextualise. We need African universities and think tanks, resourced to generate the evidence base that informs African leadership.

Because data without political accountability is just a dashboard nobody looks at, the Triennale called specifically for empowering political leaders and policymakers to use available data in meeting the promises they made to citizens. Annual school performance reports that are public. Parliamentary briefings that are regular. Community scorecards that are binding.

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Pillar 6: Technology and Innovation

AI is already here. It is in our classrooms whether we have planned for it or not.

The question is not whether to embrace technology in education leadership. The question is whether we will design it for the last mile — the rural school with intermittent electricity and a principal who has never opened a dashboard — or only for the well-connected urban schools that need it least.

EdTech equity means offline-first tools, local language interfaces, and bandwidth-aware design. Digital CPD platforms that track professional development must work in the schools where leadership is most needed, not only in capitals.

And we must prepare education leaders for responsible AI. Not to fear it — to govern it. To ask: whose values does this AI algorithm reflect? Whose children does this system serve? These are leadership questions. They belong in every leadership development programme on this continent.

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Pillar 7: Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice

In most African school systems today, a child’s chance of being taught by a skilled, supported, motivated teacher — and led by a competent, empowered principal — depends almost entirely on where that child was born. Representation at leadership level shapes every other equity outcome in a school system.

CESA 26-35’s Strategic Area Six — Gender, Equity, and Inclusion — makes the case not only morally but economically. Female school leaders are associated with better learning outcomes for all children. They reduce gender stereotypes. They serve as mentors for girls. And yet in most countries, women remain dramatically underrepresented in school leadership — despite, as the data shows, staying in the profession longer than their male counterparts.

Gender-disaggregated leadership data. Published promotion criteria. Mentorship programmes for women leaders. Quotas where underrepresentation is severe. These are not radical asks. They are basic governance hygiene.

And beyond gender — school leaders must be held accountable for equity outcomes: for learners with disabilities, for conflict-affected youth, for displaced and refugee learners, for girls who are at risk of dropping out.

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Pillar 8: Regional and Continental Harmonisation

We are one continent. Fifty-four nations. Hundreds of languages. Different school systems.

But our biggest challenges — teacher shortages, leadership skill gaps, financing deficits, learning poverty — do not respect national borders. Neither do refugee crises, displacement flows, or the learning losses they leave behind. And our solutions should not either.

CESA 26-35 provides the overarching continental framework. ADEA provides the convening architecture. The African Continental Teacher Qualification Framework provides the portability mechanism. Initiatives like ACSL and RTIA, and the RECs platforms, provide the regional exchange platform.

What is needed now is for governments to actively align national leadership frameworks to this continental architecture — not as an external compliance exercise, but because the continent’s diversity of leadership experience is our greatest untapped resource.

A principal in Kenya who transformed her school’s learning outcomes has something to teach a district officer in Senegal. A Minister in Ghana who built a national leadership academy has something to offer a counterpart in Mozambique. We must build platforms that make this exchange systematic, not accidental.

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The Cross-Cutting Dimension: Resilience, Crisis and Conflict Readiness

I have spoken of eight pillars. But there is a ninth dimension — one that does not sit alongside the others but runs through all the pillars. And on a continent where 244 million children and young people are currently affected by armed conflict, climate-induced disaster, or forced displacement, it is a dimension we cannot afford to treat as an afterthought.

The question is not whether African education systems will face crisis. They already are. The question is whether our leaders will be prepared.

Large class sizes are the daily reality for the majority of African school leaders. Distributed leadership — where teachers lead within their classrooms and communities within their schools — is not a compromise. It is the only model that can work at scale.

Emergency situations demand that crisis-sensitive planning be embedded in normal governance — not built from scratch when disaster strikes. Every dollar invested in preparedness saves up to fifteen dollars in recovery. And risk data must be in EMIS — not only achievement data.

Conflict and displacement test the very soul of educational leadership. Crisis-affected teachers and community members are the most knowledgeable about their context — and the furthest removed from the decisions that affect them. International actors must support local leaders, not bypass them. Trauma-informed leadership is not a specialist skill. It is a baseline requirement.

Local leadership is not a principle to aspire to in times of crisis. It is the only thing that works.

Resilience is not a separate strategy. It is what all eight pillars must be built to deliver.

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Finally: Let Us Walk the Talk

The 2025 ADEA Triennale chose its words carefully when it named its outcome document Walk the Talk. Because the gap between what we know and what we do in African education is not a knowledge gap.

We know what works. We have known for decades. We have the research, the frameworks, the continental strategies, the regional platforms. What we too often lack is the political will to implement — and the accountability systems to ensure that what is promised is delivered.

None of these eight pillars is new. None of them is beyond the capacity of African governments to implement. And none of them will happen automatically — not from a strategy document, not from a conference resolution, not from a keynote speech.

They will happen when a Minister of Finance agrees, in a budget negotiation, to protect the line for leadership development.

They will happen when a district, provincial, or county officer, for the first time, has real-time data on which schools are failing — and the authority to act on it.

They will happen when a female principal in a rural school in the Sahel has the training, the support, and the authority to lead — and knows that her government sees her, and is investing in her.

Education leadership transformation is not a technical problem awaiting a technical solution. It is a political commitment to equity. A cultural investment in African identity and knowledge systems. And a generational responsibility to the one billion young people whose futures depend on the decisions we make — and the actions we take — in rooms exactly like this one.

Africa does not need more policy documents. It needs the political will to implement what is already known.

The headwinds are real. But the direction is clear. Let us walk the talk. Together.

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Albert Nsengiyumva is Executive Secretary of the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) and a champion of the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL). This address was delivered as the keynote speech at the 1st International Conference of the Kenya Education Management Institute, at the Safari Park Hotel, Nairobi, 13 April 2026. ACSL is a coalition of partners coordinated by ADEA, ESSA, FAWE, and VVOB.

Thursday, April 2nd, 2026 

Building on a multi-year continental effort to map and strengthen school leadership systems across Africa, the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL) recently completed a critical two-part engagement in Liberia — conducting a national school leadership mapping exercise and convening a national validation workshop in Monrovia on 31 March and 1 April 2026.

The mapping exercise engaged a wide range of national stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education, the University of Liberia, the Liberia University Commission, district and regional education officers, and school leaders and practitioners from across the system. The goal was to deepen understanding of what works in strengthening school leadership and to identify how best to support policy and practice in Liberia. Working in close collaboration with EDC — the in-country implementing partner for the Leaders in Teaching (LIT) initiative — the ACSL team gathered evidence grounded in the lived realities of Liberian school leaders and stakeholders.

While opening the validation workshop Assistant Minister for Teacher Education, Honorable Clifford Konah, Jr., powerfully framed the stakes of the exercise. He affirmed that visionary and accountable school leaders are indispensable in shaping schools that deliver meaningful learning outcomes, and described the mapping initiative as a critical and commendable step — one that ensures reforms are rooted in the life realities of Liberian schools.

“Central to this mission is the recognition that effective school leadership is the cornerstone of a functional, inclusive, and high-performing education system. Visionary and accountable leaders are indispensable in shaping schools that deliver meaningful learning outcomes. In the face of this goal, the initiative to map and analyze the current landscape of school leadership in Liberia represents a critical and commendable step. By emphasizing evidence-based decision-making, this process ensures that reforms are rooted in the life realities of our schools.”

The two-day validation workshop that followed brought together approximately 30 participants drawn from across Liberia’s education stakeholder community. The workshop was designed as an active, participatory process in which stakeholders led the proceedings and qualitatively shaped the outcomes — not merely as an audience to findings, but as co-owners of the evidence and its implications. Participants confirmed what aligned with their experiences, challenged what did not, and surfaced critical gaps not yet captured in the initial findings. Together, they built consensus around three to five strategic actions to meaningfully strengthen school leadership in Liberia.

On its second and final day, the workshop turned toward concrete action. Participants co-developed a context-driven action plan specifying key activities, roles, responsibilities, expected results, and means of verification for the immediate steps needed to advance school leadership development in the country. These priorities were deliberately anchored to current and future Education Sector Plan dispositions, ensuring the long-term sustainability and institutionalisation of the work.

The Liberia engagement forms part of a broader programme of national school leadership mapping exercises being conducted by ACSL across LIT countries, following similar engagements in Sierra Leone, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda, as well as a parallel continental mapping effort. The validated findings and agreed strategic priorities will directly inform the next phase of ACSL’s LEAD pillar support in Liberia, contributing to a stronger and more coherent school leadership ecosystem both nationally and across the continent.