Leadership preparation: engine of transformation or social reproduction?

William Taylor's 1969 chapter provides a springboard to reflect on how what he termed administrator training has developed since it was published. Responding to Baron's insistence in the same volume that education be viewed as a political, the article adopts a critical perspective, focusing on leader preparation programmes and exploring how they contribute to the reproduction or the transformation of education. The aim is to make readers more aware of the significance of such programmes in terms of sustaining or challenging inequality in schools. The literature was scrutinised for evidence of the aims and the beneficiaries of programmes. Little evidence is identified to suggest that learners ultimately benefit from leader preparation programmes and the article concludes that a process of misrecognition is at play. Administrator training appears to be part of sustaining rather than transforming education, yet is not generally recognised as such. The article challenges mainstream, normative assumptions about preparation programmes, that they aim at and achieve primarily benefit to learners. The article suggests the need to adopt Baron and Taylor's stance that a more sophisticated understanding of the structural and political context is axiomatic for the further development of preparation programmes

School Leadership in West Africa: Findings from a Systematic Literature Review

The literature shows that leadership is the second most important factor influencing school and learner outcomes, including levels of literacy and numeracy, school leaving examination results, and progression to secondary and higher education. This paper focuses on school leadership in West Africa, drawing on a systematic review of the academic and 'grey' literature, commissioned by UNESCO. The aim of the desk research was to ascertain the state of school leadership at all levels. The paper shows that no West African countries provide specific preparation for school principals. It also shows that the predominant leadership style is managerial, with accountability to the hierarchy, within and beyond the school. The paper concludes that specific development programmes should be provided for current and aspiring principals