Kenyan primary schools are starting to equip themselves to promote gender equality, poverty alleviation and local economic growth. How can head teachers gain the necessary managerial and community liaison skills? Is a cascade system the best way to help them develop new expertise? What scope is there for learning from the bottom up to improve community-school partnerships?

A paper written by researchers from Kenyatta University, the Kenyan Ministry of Education, the Centre for British Teachers (CFBT) and the University of Bristol assesses the Primary School Management Project (PRISM); a CFBT-managed initiative funded by the UK's Department for International Development to provide management training to all 16 700 primary school head teachers in Kenya. The experience of twenty head teacher support groups (HTSGs), made of groups or clusters of schools within reasonable distance of one another, highlights new ways for African schools to promote decentralisation and engage communities in education.

The PRISM project began after it was recognised that many head teachers would benefit from carefully targeted management and leadership training. The HTSG concept was developed to enable trained head teachers to communicate with each other, to share ideas, to work democratically with their local communities and to establish a network of areas of excellence whose self-help activities could provide a basis for improvements in school management.

PRISM organisers believed a key to institutionalising learning and capacity building was to train head teachers in a systematic and mutually supported way using a set agenda for action drawn up with the help of zonal inspectors. A strengthened cascade system (where knowledge is passed on from trainers to head teachers and from one head teacher to another) was devised to reduce possible dilution in training and weaknesses in monitoring.

Right from the start PRISM was gender sensitive. PRISM-trained male head teachers are now much more aware of the need to encourage women to take up posts of responsibility. More women are being promoted to headship, school committees have greater female representation and women are well represented in HTSG meetings.

Training has encouraged head teachers to ask how communities can assist schools and how schools can contribute to the well-being of communities. Where headteachers retain their initial post-training enthusiasm and show genuine commitment to empowerment and ownership, communities have been seen to rise to the challenge of becoming more involved in school management and planning. With improved opportunities for interaction, information is now travelling back and forth, rather than flowing one way in the top-down pattern associated with traditional cascade systems. PRISM training and HTSGs have been associated with increased enrolment and a modest decline in drop-out rates.

The report makes clear that much depends on the commitment of individual head teachers and zonal inspectors. HTSGs face a number of risks including:

• lack of official support: HTSGs have not been officially recognised in the way parents committees are
• the possibility that such initiatives will struggle without external funding
• the tendency for the enthusiasm of some head teachers to wane over time.

Suggestions to make the HTSG model more sustainable include:

• holding regular meetings with prepared work plans
• paying more attention to fund-raising; seeking support from non-governmental organisations and the local business community
• establishing a network to draw on learning from across the clusters of schools
• creating more opportunities for local women to participate vocally
• establishing stronger links and information exchanges between school committees and HTSGs.

Source(s):
‘The development and operation of headteacher support groups in Kenya: a mechanism to create pockets of excellence, improve the provision of quality education and target positive changes in the community’, International Journal of Educational Development 22, pp509–526, by M. Juma, J. Waudo et al, 2002 Full document.

Funded by: Department for International Development, UK

id21 Research Highlight: 23 June, 2003

Further Information:
Judith Waudo
Kenyatta University
PO Box 43844
Nairobi
Kenya

Contact the contributor: waudojudith@hotmail.com

Kenyatta University, Kenya

Michael Crossley
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol
Helen Wodehouse Building
35 Berkeley Square
Clifton
Bristol
BS8 1JA
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 117 928 7039
Contact the contributor: M.Crossley@bristol.ac.uk

Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol, UK

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