In September, VVOB-Rwanda was privileged to receive Mr. Karel Binon and Mieke van Vlasselaer from Katholiek Onderwijs Vlaanderen (KOV) and Lieve Leroy and Winnie Sereeco from VVOB-South Africa in Kigali. The two teams were invited by VVOB-Rwanda to support the review process of the Diploma Course on School Leadership which was designed and introduced at UR-CE with support from VVOB. Both teams can boast a strong background in school leadership. KOV has been running the highly-regarded Profs Course, a 3-year course for starting school leaders in Flanders. The Profs course has a strong focus on the identity formation of school leaders and developing reflective practice. VVOB South Africa has been instrumental in the capacity strengthening of Circuit Managers, which support school principals, in Free State and Kwazulu-Natal since 2013.
The team worked intensively with the VVOB-Rwanda team responsible for the course namely Stefaan Vande Walle and Chantal Kabanda Dusabe from 28th August 2017 to 1st September 2017. The first day was spent on the overview and structure of the course and the preparation of a two-day workshop. The workshop focused on the review of the module on Leading Teaching and Learning (module 4) with our partners Rwanda Education Board (REB) and University of Rwanda – College of Education. On Thursday and Friday, we discussed about the three remaining modules of the course namely Module 1—Overview on school leadership and community involvement, Module 2—Managing the school as an organization and module 3—Setting the strategic Direction of the school. It was also a good opportunity to discuss possible avenues for monitoring, evaluation and research on school leadership.
Quality assurance of the Diploma Course on School Leadership
In November 2016, the first cohort of 396 head teachers graduated in the CPD Diploma Course on School Leadership. In 2017, VVOB in collaboration with its partners conducts a thorough review of the course to make the course more competence-based and more modular (based on 5 standards of effective school leadership from REB). The review process of the course is based on the action research and impact study on the first cohort as well as the integration of gender and equity more prominently to increase its overall quality.
