Citizen Leader Lab

Beneficiaries:

Direct beneficiaries are school principals working in under-resourced communities

Indirect beneficiaries include: 

• School Management Teams (SMTs) which become more cohesive and effective because of improved school leadership
• Teachers, who become more motivated and engaged because of improved school leadership
• Parents, who become more active in the school’s operations and their children’s education because principals with new leadership capabilities position and activate the school at the centre of the community.  
• Learners who have access to an improved learning environment, defined in both tangible (security, food gardens, etc.) and intangible (improved culture of teaching and learning) terms and have more parental involvement   

Problem committed to solving:

In South Africa, as elsewhere in the world, the educational impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has included

·        Learning losses because of school closures

·        Widening of pre-existing education disparities and

·        Previous learning gains made over time wiped out.

Researchers estimate that between 2020 and 2021 most primary school learners in South Africa, aged 6 – 12 years have lost 70% to a full year of learning (Shepherd, 2022) and up to 500,000 learners have dropped out of school (Stats SA, 2022).

The urgency of responding to the pandemic did not allow for the development of an implementation plan or a system of educator and learner support, and schools were thrust, almost overnight, into an education model with which few had experience. While all learners experienced learning losses during this time, children from poor backgrounds were among the most vulnerable to learning losses, with only 7,6% of learners in rural areas compared to 14,7% in urban areas having had the option of remote learning and home school options (Stats SA, 2022). This situation was amplified in low-income communities already behind in schooling, due to problems endemic since apartheid. 

Given the massive impact of COVID-19 on the education sector, the focus now must be on learning recovery especially for learners 6 – 12 years, as literacy, numeracy and life skills are developed during this period of a child`s life.

A keystone for learning recovery is the need to provide teachers and school leaders with multi-faceted support, to build their resilience, ensure their well-being, provide opportunities for mentoring and peer learning, and bolster their motivation (UNICEF, 2022; DBE, 2022). Lessons from different countries highlight that school leaders:

• Need new skills to collaborate and partner with other schools, parents, and community groups as they have a wealth of expertise, knowledge and capacity that can be leveraged to improve teaching and learning (Harris, et al, 2020)
• Should be willing to delegate authority, to capitalise on expertise within the school (Karimi, 2021, Kwatubana, 2021)
• Must engage in active listening to understand what the school community is experiencing (Kwatubana, 2021)
• Must be empowered to create pathways to the health and wellbeing for all stakeholders (Harris, 2020; Kwatubana, 2021). 
• Should mobilise others to lead through collective engagement, resulting in joint practice (Harris, 2020).
• Need capabilities to deal with external shocks as they unfold including emotions, fears, and consequences, while also trying to stabilise the schools (Harris, 2020).

These exceptional leadership capabilities needed to recover COVID-19 learning losses are, however, generally lacking in South Africa. While many school principals have been outstanding teachers and have inherent leadership potential, many have not had access to the cutting-edge leadership training that enables them to produce high-quality education outcomes in extremely challenging circumstances. Principals in under-served communities are also not fully supported in their leadership of schools. Few have access to supportive networks, and many do not know how to build and leverage social capital to create opportunities for their schools and learners. Further, principals in under-served communities face formidable challenges arising from insufficient infrastructure, overcrowded classrooms, socio-economic challenges within the community, and insufficient parental involvement, all of which put a strain on principals’ ability to lead their schools effectively. 

Our program bridge learning gaps for underserved children ages 6-12

Research shows that the key to transforming South Africa’s education system and bridging learning gaps, is investment in school leadership (Msila, 2019; Bush, et al, 2011). Citizen Leader Lab facilitates a proven Partners for Possibility (PfP) programme that empowers  school principals, based on the demonstrated impact of strong school leadership on academic achievements. Investing in our principals is a catalytic endeavor as one principal impacts an entire community of teachers, learners, and parents. Moreover, we know that fostering parental involvement in their children’s learning improves a child’s morale, attitude, and academic achievement across all subject areas, and promotes better behaviour and social adjustment (Đurišić, 2017, Crosby, 2021; Sapungan, 2014). In order for children to succeed, there needs to be a 50-50 partnership between parents and educators.

PfP creates partnerships between school principals in under-served communities and South African business leaders over a 12-month period. We group partnerships into Leadership Circles of 8-10 schools, to allow for peer and co-learning. Over a year, our model exposes both the principal and the business partner to dynamic transformational leadership development that is based on the 70:20:10 model:

• 10% of learning comes from formal training (i.e., workshops)
• 20% of learning takes place through social learning – whereby participants gain new knowledge and insights through their engagement with other leaders from their leadership circle (cohorts of 8-10 partnerships)
• 70% of learning occurs through experiential learning as the two partners work together to identify, prioritise, and tackle challenges in targeted schools.

We actively support partnerships and provide group coaching by a Learning Process Facilitator (LPF). In addition, participants attend three co-learning workshops geared towards refining collaborative and adaptive leadership capacity:

1.        The Time to Think workshop lays the foundation for creating an optimal thinking environment by focusing on strengthening listening skills, improving interpersonal relations, and providing practical strategies for conducting productive and collaborative meetings.

2.        The Flawless Consulting workshop equips partners with contracting and conflict resolution skills that assist in clarifying goals and expectations within and beyond the workplace.

3.        The Community Building workshop teaches participants how to build communities where every individual has a sense of purpose and value – particularly within the complex ecosystem of a school, where stakeholders include teachers, learners, parents, donors, local businesses, and community members.

Every six weeks, the Leadership Circle convenes a Community of Practice (CoP) session, which we rotate between schools so that participants can observe the place of learning of others and share their subjective experiences.

We have deliberately sequenced the capacity building events based on our understanding that each school has a unique set of challenges that can partly be addressed through collaboration and an exchange of ideas. Relationship building and engagement in the first few months of the programme is thus particularly important. Once the principal and business partner have a good sense of who the other person is (about 3 months into the programme), they draft a partnership plan that outlines their joint vision for the school, focusing particularly on specific contextual needs. The two partners then identify key areas of concern at the school and decide together what projects they would like to work on. These can be tangible, for example projects related to infrastructure, resources, academic performance, or social issues; or intangible, such as team-building sessions at the school and navigating school dynamics politics.

Our programme has a transformative impact on school principals. In implementing PfP at public-sector schools for over a decade, we have observed the following impacts:

• Improved confidence and enhanced leadership skills of the school principal
• Improved culture of teaching and learning within the school leading to increased effectiveness of the school management team (SMT) and more motivated teachers
• Increased community involvement enabling a stronger partnership between teachers and parents in support of learning
• Context-driven school improvement.

The new capacities that school principals gain through PfP catalyse improved cultures of collaborative decision-making and environments for enhanced teaching and learning, while new networks often result in upgrades and additions to school infrastructure like libraries, sports facilities, sanitation, and food gardens.

Principals report using tenets of the Community Building training to invite, encourage and support parents to become more involved in the school. Notable positive changes at the school inspire community members to become more actively involved in the school and in their children`s learning. For instance more parents are attending parent-teacher meetings and motivating their children to attend school. 

Learners benefit from improved school leadership, improved cultures of teaching and learning at schools, more confident principals who are better networked, new physical resources at their schools and their parents being involved in their learning. 

A recently concluded independent evaluation which also looked at cost analysis (JET Education Services, 2021) shows that the PfP programme is 34 - 49% less expensive than other comparable interventions and that the performance services expenses ratio (PX ratio) for the PfP programme is 98%, which compares well with a benchmark for the non-profit sector that suggests that a PX ratio of under 65% indicates poor focus on mandate.  Furthermore, the evaluation shows that in a sample of 15 schools, schools benefited from a median contribution of R197 575 per school. There was also evidence that schools benefited from various goods and services donated in-kind to schools – either by the business partner themselves or through the business partner’s networks.

The study confirmed that the programme built significant, sustained social capital through the on-going involvement of the business leaders through relationships with other school principals on the programme and through the continued impact of the PfP projects that still provided benefits to the school 3 years later. 

The PfP initiative was initiated in 2010 as a response to the Dinokeng Scenarios held in 2009. These scenarios emerged from a series of post-apartheid cross-sectoral dialogues and discussions between a group of South Africans from a wide spectrum of society, including school leaders, who gathered together to probe the country’s condition and reflect on possible futures. The PfP approach was inspired by the ‘walking together’ scenario, in which an enabling state supports collaboration, allowing for leaders across all sectors to join hands in order to co-create the highest potential future for the country. Following hundreds of conversations with key education stakeholders, including a focus group of public school principals, the school was identified as a key unit of change within the South African education system and the school principal as critical to establishing an effective environment for learning.

Designed as a practical initiative to enable citizens from different sectors of South African society to partner, PfP supports business leaders and school principals to become co-leaders and co-creators of a new collective leadership paradigm. PfP has as its specific focus the strengthening of education, and the engagement of community and local leadership in local schools.  

The PfP vision was further supported in 2013 with the publication of South Africa’s seminal National Development Plan, which calls for the re-imagination of schools and the education project as central to the delivery of social justice and social cohesion, placing “Schools at the Centre of Community”.  

PfP was thus designed according to strong organizational development principles, with a clear and intentional focus on the incorporation of shared and distributed leadership practices and social capital , thinking partnership, positive deviance practices, asset based community development, community building principles and a commitment to “possibility thinking”.  

Our Theory of Change positions school principals as change agents in their institutions and their broader communities. They are paired in a mutually supportive learning partnership and equipped with the following (programme components/Activities) 1) relevant leadership skills training, 2) opportunities to participate in structured social and action learning, 3) access to communities of practice, and 4) facilitated action learning, 

 Primary outcomes: Principals with strengthened leadership capacities who have new ways of seeing, being and doing. 

 On a practical level, the new capacities gained by principals, such as increased resilience, active listening and ability to delegate, catalyse improved cultures of collaborative decision-making and environments for enhanced teaching and learning. 

 Outputs

The new networks often result in upgrades and additions to school infrastructure like libraries, sports facilities, sanitation, and food gardens. 

 Collaborative leadership approaches catalysed by PfP lead to the following secondary outcomes:

• SMTs being more aligned, efficient, and cohesive; 
• teachers being more engaged and motivated; and 
• parents and primary caregivers being more involved in their children’s education
• Learners have access to an improved learning environment, both tangible (security, food gardens, etc.) and intangible (improved culture of teaching and learning). Their parents are also involved and engaged in their learning and in the school and learning gaps are closed

These changes lead to a situation where the operations of schools in under-resourced communities improve and schools become sites of innovation and community upliftment, driven by better capacitated and motivated principals who are supported by business leaders, colleagues, and parents who take greater ownership of the school, which takes its place at the centre of the community. 

We employ a monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) strategy that supports evidence-based decision-making by staff, board, and programme partners. In relation to the PfP Theory of Change and strategic objectives, the MEL strategy provides the basis for:  

·        Data-driven decision making

·        Agile project management

·        Effective implementation of the PfP programme

·      Evidence-based reporting of achievements and challenges to Citizen Leader Lab’s board and funders. 

 We use a developmental evaluation approach, with a primary focus on adaptive learning. The purpose is to provide real-time feedback and generate learnings that inform development. Our MEL process enables effective decision-making and pivoting the programme along the change pathway. 

Our MEL system follows a continuous cycle of planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and learning, which in turn influences programme planning or redesign (when necessary): 

Planning / Redesign: PfP draws together all previous evidence and learnings, and plans what needs to be done in order to achieve its goals.

Implementation:  Staff and Learning Process Facilitators (LPFs) implement according to decisions made during planning regarding who does what, when, and, at what standard.

Monitoring: PfP routinely monitors to assess whether performance targets are being met as planned and according to the agreed standards

Evaluation and learning: PfP assesses what, if any, factors are limiting or enabling high-quality performance; we integrate these findings into future programmes. 

The MEL team in consultation with the relevant implementation staff, discuss the feedback and learning from the programme at various stages of implementation and use this as the basis for collective evaluation of the quality of the outputs and any outcomes identifiable at that point.  

The team consolidates, analyses, and interprets insights and develops evaluation reports, which document progress and challenges in relation to achieving the outcomes set forth in PfP`s Theory of Change. In addition, we periodically conduct detailed case studies of various partnerships that represent a range of socio-economic and demographic scenarios.  

Our programme is at the Nesta Standard of Evidence, level 4 as we collaborate regularly with various external parties and professional, independent evaluators to establish independent knowledge on the effectiveness, impact of and potential improvements to the PfP programme. For example, a comprehensive three-year longitudinal evaluation project, by JET Education Services, commissioned by the FEM Education Trust at the end of 2018, was concluded at the end of 2021. This independent evaluation explored several areas including programme participation, participant experience, stakeholder feedback and programme cost, and made recommendations for future MEL. 

We use an adapted version of the Kirkpatrick model (a globally recognised method of evaluating the results of training programmes) to gather evidence to document outcome level changes

Reaction: Principals’ reaction to the programme is important as it indicates whether PfP has created an environment conducive to learning that motivates connection, relationship-building, and behaviour change. This includes the degree of principals’ satisfaction, relevance, and perceived usefulness of PfP information and material. We collect this information immediately after each programme workshop and component.  

 Learning: It is essential that the way the capacity building information and material is presented and the extent to which principals engage with it, fosters the rethinking of attitudes and the (re)building of confidence. We collect this information immediately after each workshop and at the end of the programme.  

 Behaviour and external influence:  We gather evidence about the kinds of outcomes (changes in behaviour in support of social change) that our programme contributes to. We document, categorise, and analyse these changes in relation to the intended outcomes. We gather this information mid-way through the programme and at the end of the programme. We conduct an end-of programme interview to gather more in-depth information on the outcomes.  

Measuring outcomes

Indicator:

Change in knowledge around:

• Active listening skills
• Interpersonal relations
• Contracting skills
• Building communities at school where every individual has a sense of purpose and value
• Supporting parents to play a more active role in their children’s education

Definition (How is it calculated)

• # and % of principals who report improved knowledge on how to active listening skills, interpersonal relations, and ability to enable practical strategies for conducting productive and collaborative meetings.
• # and % of principals who report improved knowledge on contracting skills, as a result of PfP.  
• # and % of principals who report improved knowledge on the ability to build communities where every individual has a sense of purpose and value, as a result of PfP.

Data source (How will it be measured and when will the information be collected?

Post-workshop feedback forms. Data collected directly after the 3 workshops

Primary outcomes indicators

Change in principals` behaviour

• Principals` strengthened leadership capacity
• That they are more participatory in their leadership style
• Increased ability to involve stakeholders in school
• Increased active listening skills to understand rather than to respond
• Increased confidence to lead school
• Increased ability to make bold decisions & have agency to lead

Definition (How is it calculated?)

(# and %) Number and percentage of principals who demonstrate:

Examples of improved leadership capacities & how they have used it

Data source (How will it be measured and when will the information be collected?

• Phase reflection forms (Phase 1, 2 & 3). Data collected at the end of each phase (months 3, 5 & 7) of the programme – Use to monitor how the partnerships are progressing
• Mid-circle survey. Data collected mid-way through the survey (month 6)
• Post -programme questionnaire (at the end of the 12-month programme)
• Post-programme interviews (at the end of the 12-month programme)

Secondary outcomes indicators

External influence in school community due to principals` change behaviour

• School Management Team cohesiveness
• Enthusiasm and motivation of Teachers
• Learners` attitude, motivation
• Community engagement and involvement
  • The cohesiveness of school management team
  • The level of enthusiasm of the teachers
  • Changes in learners attitude (interested and inspired in learning) and school attendance, decrease in late-comings
  • Level of parents and community involvement in the school (e.g. Higher levels of attendance in school meetings, more active participation in these meetings, support in maintenance of the schools, active participation in child`s learning)

Definition (How is it calculated?)

Before and after programme ratings

(# and %) Number and percentage of principals who demonstrate an increase in the:

 Examples of changes at school and within school community (teachers, learners, parents/caregivers and community)

Data sources

• Post-programme questionnaire targeting principals and business leaders
• Post-programme interviews principals and business leaders

At the end of the 12-month programme

• Periodic school visits conducted by MEL Team

Measuring the impact of a principal leadership development programme on closing learning gaps of underserved South African children aged 6-12. 

Research question: 

We want to create a research plan to effectively measure the impact of PfP on closing learning gaps of children aged 6-12 in South Africa, particularly post COVID lockdowns.

Potential deliverables

1. A research plan and roadmap. 
2. Design of a randomised control trial (RCT). 

Successful outcome

We need stronger evidence on learners in order to fund partnerships and circles, and disrupt the principal leadership landscape in South Africa. This must be evidence-driven and thus the LEAP spring will give us tools to raise research funding to prove/enhance our Theory of Change for indirect beneficiaries, with the ultimate aim of testing outcomes for learners.