School leadership in Africa. A review of empirical research

In Africa, over the last decades countries have made substantial improvements in insuring access to basic education; however, progress on access to quality education for all has been lagging. The learning crisis has been attributed to education systems’ difficulty to address one or more key challenges impact­ing learning, including unprepared students, poor teaching quality, focus on educational inputs that do not drive learning, and weak school management. Effective school leadership is recognised as being essential to address all these factors because it is an important element contributing to influence educa­tion actors to work towards better learning and also, more resilient education systems. To achieve this, it calls for reorienting school leaders’ roles to focus on learning outcomes and providing opportunities to professional development on effective school leadership.