Developing Instructional Leadership in Tanzania: Impact of a British Council Initiative

Abstract

Instructional leadership is widely recognized as important for school improvement and a significant tool for creating an effective teaching and learning environment. The British Council is committed to promoting and developing instructional leadership and is offering programmes to develop it in several African countries, including Tanzania. These programmes focus on developing and improving instructional leadership in schools. The programme is provided by British Council facilitators to school leaders and is delivered over a period of six to nine months, including time for a school-based project. Previous research shows that leadership in many sub-Saharan African countries, including Tanzania, is primarily administrative and that instructional leadership is often neglected. Data were collected with 20 participants of the British Council programme, all primary school leaders, chosen through volunteer and purposive sampling. The findings show many reported gains from participation, notably greater understanding of key concepts such as vision and missions distributed leadership, and instructional leadership processes, notably classroom observation.