The 2nd East African Community Regional Education Conference, held in Nairobi, Kenya, brought together policymakers, government officials, researchers, development partners, practitioners and education networks from across the region to reflect on how education systems can move from commitments to measurable improvements in learning. Across nearly 200 presentations, discussions explored foundational learning, teacher professional development, school leadership, inclusive education, digitalisation, education financing, data use, TVET, higher education and regional collaboration. For the African Centre for School Leadership (ACSL), one message stood out clearly: effective school leadership is increasingly recognised as a critical lever for improving teaching, learning, inclusion and education system performance.
At the conference, ACSL shared evidence, engaged in regional discussions, and showcased its work on school leadership. The keynote address by ADEA Executive Secretary, Albert Nsenginyumva, reinforced the need for East African education systems to move from commitments and declarations to measurable results and impact, with emphasis on foundational learning, teacher development, equitable use of technology, inclusion, data driven decision making, resilient financing, scaling evidence-based interventions and purposeful partnerships. His call to use data as a common regional foundation strongly resonated with ACSL’s contribution, including presentations and exhibited communications materials which included study reports and documented best practices. Together, these contributions brought attention to the professional development in strengthening school leadership and education systems. These engagements positioned ACSL and its wider partners as active contributors to the regional conversation on strengthening school leadership, translating evidence into practice, and moving education systems from commitments to measurableimpact.
The conference provided valuable lessons for ACSL’s work across Africa particularly for the delivery of the LEAD pillar of the Leaders in Teaching (LIT-LEAD) initiative in Tanzania.
1: School leadership must go beyond one-off training
A recurring lesson from the conference was that professional development for school leaders must move beyond isolated workshopsto being a sustained policy, entrenched in education systems. Effective leadership development requires continuous opportunities for leaders to practise, reflect, receive feedback and learn from peers. Sessions on school leadership, coaching, mentorship and continuous professional development highlighted the importance of combining structured training with workplace learning, peer networks and sustained follow-up.
This strongly resonates with ACSL’s approach to strengthening school leadership as a profession rather than treating leadership development as a single training event. In Tanzania, LIT-LEAD is advancing this through blended professional development for school heads, deputies and education officials, with an emphasis on strengthening leadership practices that can influence what happens in schools and classrooms.
2: Coaching and peer learning can bridge the gap between knowledge and practice
The conference reinforced the importance of coaching, mentoring and professional learning networks in helping education leaders translate new knowledge into changes in everyday practice. School leaders often operate in complex environments where solving problems requires more than technical knowledge. They need opportunities to discuss challenges with peers, receive guidance and adapt solutions to their school contexts.
For ACSL, this presents an opportunity to further strengthen post-training support within leadership development programmes. Within LIT-LEAD Tanzania, coaching and peer-learning structures can complement blended learning by creating a continuous professional learning journey before, during and after formal training.
3: Data becomes powerful when leaders use it
Another major theme was the need to move from data collection to data use. Schools and education systems already generate considerable information, but its value depends on whether leaders can interpret it, identify challenges, take action and monitor whether those actions are producing results. For ACSL, evidence-informed leadership therefore needs to remain a core leadership competency. School leaders should be supported not only to understand data but also to use it to improve teacher support, learner participation, instructional practices and overall school performance. This is particularly relevant to LIT-LEAD Tanzania, where strengthening data-driven decision-making aligned with competency-based education reforms is an important part of leadership development. We are also growing the evidence-based on school leadership in the country, through our school leadership research grants.
4: The middle tier is critical to sustainable school improvement
Conference discussions also highlighted the importance of actors who sit between schools and national-level policymakers. District, regional and other middle-tier education leaders can provide coaching, supervision, professional support and accountability while helping schools interpret and implement national reforms.
This reinforces ACSL’s systems approach to school leadership. Strengthening school heads alone is unlikely to sustain change unless the education officials who support them also have the competencies and structures required to promote continuous improvement. LIT-LEAD Tanzania reflects this approach by extending leadership development beyond school heads and deputies to include Ward Education Officers and district and regional education actors.
5: Inclusion must become part of everyday leadership
Gender responsiveness and inclusion featured prominently in conversations on leadership and accountability. Rather than treating inclusion as a separate programme area, discussions pointed towards integrating equity into everyday decisions about teacher support, learner participation, resource allocation, school climate and accountability. For ACSL, this reinforces the importance of developing leaders who can identify and respond to barriers affecting girls, learners with disabilities and other groups at risk of exclusion. It also connects directly with efforts within LIT-LEAD Tanzania to strengthen equitable school leadership and increase attention to women’s participation and leadership within education systems.
6: Digital solutions can support scale—but need strong systems
Blended and digital learning were repeatedly presented as opportunities to expand access to professional development. However, the conference also cautioned that technology alone does not guarantee effective learning. Successful digital and blended approaches require accessible platforms, contextualised content, adequate digital skills and strong follow-up support. For ACSL, this means maintaining a balance between the efficiencies offered by technology and the human relationships that make professional learning effective. Tanzania’s blended school leadership development model provides an important opportunity to generate evidence on how face-to-face learning, digital learning, coaching and peer support can work together at scale.
Nairobi to action
Perhaps the most important lesson from Nairobi was that Africa does not lack promising education initiatives. The greater challenge is building the systems, partnerships and evidence needed to move successful approaches beyond pilots and into sustained implementation.
This is where ACSL has an important continental role. By bringing together professional development expertise, policy engagement, research and evidence, the Centre can help connect innovations across countries, facilitate learning between education systems and strengthen the evidence base for effective school leadership in Africa.
For LIT-LEAD Tanzania, the conference provided an opportunity to elaborate on its coaching and mentorship efforts, deepen advocacy on data-use competencies, reinforce the value of middle-tier leadership, promote gender and inclusion, and continuously benchmark its approach against emerging regional evidence.
The message from Nairobi is therefore not simply to provide more leadership training. It is to build leadership development systems that enable African school leaders to continuously learn, collaborate, use evidence and lead meaningful improvements in teaching and learning. That ambition sits at the heart of ACSL: strengthening African education systems by investing in the people who lead them.