VVOB's Leading Teaching and Learning Together (LTLT) programme aimed to strengthen the competences of key actors in education through improved continuous professional development (CPD) support systems. A diploma programme in Effective School Leadership equipped headteachers and deputy headteachers with the competences to fulfil their roles as effective school leaders and district education officials with competences to support school leaders. At the same time, a certificate programme in Educational Mentorship and Coaching was offered to sector education inspectors, school-based mentors, and school subject leaders in STEM to equip them with effective tools and skills to facilitate professional development learning activities and networks in schools and sectors.
The following education actors were reached:
- 809 Head teachers
- 545 Deputy head teachers
- 1253 School-based mentors
- 1522 STEM school subject leaders
- 228 Sector education inspectors
- 20 District directors and officers of educations
- 48 Teacher Training College Tutors
To continue supporting school leaders and teachers and ensure sustainability of the LTLT programme, two digital tools and an online self-study course were developed and accessible on REB website.
Digital School Improvement Plan
The School Improvement Plan is a tool developed by REB aiming at encouraging school leaders to regularly monitor teaching and learning practices and collect relevant data that serve as basis for school improvement planning process.
The digitization of the SIP tool is a response to the challenges highlighted by school leaders. This includes that the template should be simplified, mostly on the data collection part and that it should be filled by the school leaders before the planning meeting with other stakeholders.
The digital SIP is an Excel template consisting of three parts:
- Data collection part: This part allows for the school leader to add data on the school profile, school statistics, and school and student performance.
- SWOT analysis part: This part has a dashboard with student performance data and a key priority sheet where the school community can discuss the priorities of the school in the next 3-5 years.
- Planning part: This part summarizes a logical framework of the school with key activities, timeline, and source of evidence for monitoring the student performance.
The roll-out digital template of the SIP was carried out in November 2021 in three steps:
- UR-CE trainers were trained on the digital template.
- Education actors (i.e., district director of education, sector education inspectors and school leaders) in all 30 districts were also introduced to the digital SIP.
- The training was further conducted at sector level where trained professional learning communities (PLCs) facilitators, namely the sector education inspectors and the district directors of education trained other school leaders on the functionality of the digital SIP template.
Martin Niyonsaba, headteacher at G.S Rambo, Rubavu district said:
“I was introduced to the SIP document in 2019 in a workshop organised by REB. The SIP was in Word-format and was not understandable with many challenges related to updates, calculations, and analysis. The document required a lot of calculations and time to complete information. After attending the training on the digital SIP, I discovered that it is more user friendly. The update is automatic, and it’s easy to fill in and analyse data. The use of a digital SIP allows us to manage the time and data effectively. In addition, the digital SIP components are very understandable compared to the Word-format SIP.”
Jean Claude Ndayisaba a sector education inspector in Rubavu district also found the digital SIP more user friendly and up to date:
“The Word-version of SIP was not flexible. It was not easy to update data. If updates were to be made, it required updating all the data manually. With the digital SIP, it is very easy to enter data and has automatic formulas that can help to make calculations and interpretations easily.”
School Leadership Assessment tool
To support school leaders in their process of becoming more effective leaders and improving the quality of education, VVOB, REB and the UR-CE have developed a toolkit for assessing the performance of schools on the five Standards of School Leadership. This toolkit has been pilot-tested extensively and was validated by REB and the School Leadership taskforce. This toolkit supports stakeholders in monitoring and/or evaluating the application of the professional standards at school level so that the education sector, schools, and school leaders can be guided on how to further improve the quality of education.
To ensure that the school leadership assessment is used at larger scale and to build the capacity of implementing partners on monitoring and reporting, trainings for education actors in 30 districts were organised. Sector education inspectors and district education officials were trained in May - June 2022 on how to use the toolkit and sector education inspectors were asked to practice in one school in their sector. The purpose was to ensure that district and sector education officials have the capacity to monitor and support school leaders in the implementation of the five standards using the school leadership assessment toolkit.
Feedback on the toolkit was that the toolkit indicates how clearly the five school leadership standards and crosscutting areas should be implemented and assessed. District education officials then suggested that the assessment should be strategically implemented before and after each school year with a mid-evaluation to check the progress.
Self-study package for effective school leadership
Developed by VVOB in collaboration with REB and the UR-CE, the self-study package for effective school leadership is a 6 hour-introductory e-course of the five professional standards of Effective School Leadership, accessible to anyone who wants to learn about effective school leadership in Rwanda. The course is structured around six units. Namely, an introduction to the course and 5 units, one for each standard.
Each unit takes approximately one hour to cover. The course is a stand-alone and is self-directed with a formative assessment structure (learning through answering questions and getting feedback).
The learning is practical, intuitive, and engaging with videos from school leaders. The course is for school leaders, anyone aspiring to become a school leader or wanting to learn more about effective school leadership, such as assessors of school leaders (sector and district officials).
From January 2017 until December 2021, VVOB - education for development in partnership with the Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB) and the University of Rwanda College of Education (UR-CE), and with support from the Mastercard Foundation’s Leaders in Teaching initiative, the Belgian government, and the ELMA foundation, jointly implemented a programme called Leading, Learning and Teaching Together (LTLT).
Learn more about the achievements and impact of the Leading, Teaching and Learning Together programme.
