Education Leadership Management training for over 800 principals

Over 800 principals from schools island-wide will receive special training on Education Leadership Management, under the “Training on Education Leadership & Management for School Leaders 2018-2019”, to improve student learning outcomes with the active involvement of Principals.

At present, 80 Principals representing each province and attached to schools under Provincial Councils, are receiving the training organized by the Ministry of Education (MoE) in partnership with the British Council (BC), Colombo.

Assistant Director and iTESL (improving Teaching English in Sri Lanka) Coordinator S. P. Jayalath attached to the English and Foreign Languages branch of the MoE, told Education Times, the MoE along with the BC, developed a cooperation framework for improving Education quality in Sri Lankan schools.

“I have been in the Education sector for over 3 decades and this is the first time such a comprehensive training is being given to school leaders to strengthen the industry. The training is given in both Sinhala and Tamil. The intention is to encourage school Principals to get more involved in student learning outcome, than focus only on administrative work. Principals will be encouraged to improve leadership and other soft skills, as well as improving confidence in English Language skills,” he said.

This framework incorporates a training component on capacity development in leadership and management for school leaders.

“When the Principal is involved in leadership training as well as student activities, the quality of education goes up. Both teachers and students will know the Principal shows interest in their activities,” he added.

The programme will end after training of Prov i n c i a l Principals and then National schools Principals.

The MoE said there will be 10 Training Centres operating countrywide with 9 TCs for Provincial schools- 1 Centre per Province and 1 Centre for National schools. Target number of school heads to be trained in 2018 will be 800. The programme consists of 3 phases with Phase 1 being a 5-day contact sessions in training venues by BC- trained and certified Leadership trainers.

Phase 2 is a 12- week schoolbased project on Leadership and Core Skills implementation to be implemented in the schools where Princpals work. Trainers will monitor and extend support as required. Phase 3 will be another 5- day contact sessions in training venues by BC trainers, for evaluation and further training based on school-based project.

In order to maintain the quality of training, the number of participants per training programme will be limited to 20, with participants being Sri Lanka Education Administrative Service - Class I, II, III or Sri Lanka Principals’ Service - Grade I, II, III officers.

The Principals will be trained by 30 Lead trainers, most of them Teacher Educators and In-Service Advisors, with higher qualification in Education and fluent in English and Sinhala/ Tamil, who have been given comprehensive training by consultants from the United Kingdom.

“On completion of the training, participants must be able to act as agents of change and carry out the proposed activities in their schools, to bring about better student learning outcomes through sustainable change,” he said.