Leadership and Future Schools

Presentation by

Ashok Ganguly

Chairman, CBSE

Centrality of Leadership

• There is no denying the fact that leadership has a powerful impact on schools.

• When schools have good leaders, they become leading schools.

• Outstanding schools have effective principals.

• Effective principals develop outstanding schools

According to Peter Drucker

The winners of the twenty-first century will be those who can transform their organizations into something that more resembles a jeep – an all-wheel drive, all terrain vehicle that is lean, mean and highly maneuverable.”

– Peter Drucker

What type of Educational Leadership?

• Entrepreneurial or Professional

Entrepreneurial LeadershipAccountabilityResponsibilityDevelopment

Professional LeadershipMoralityEthicsUncompromising on Core Issues

IS EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP DIFFERENT FROM CORPORATE LEADERSHIP?

Answer : ‘Yes’ and ‘No’

• No, because both share the following features – PQRS Factors: Productivity, Quality, Rate and

Scalability

– Creating a shared vision

– Synergizing the team to achieve the vision

– Influencing, inspiring and motivating the team to test their limit

– Managing change and renewal for continuous growth

Contd..

• Yes, because

– A school is not an assembly line. It is not a manufacturing plant

– Quality is not a uniform constant for any length of time or for any ‘batch’ of ‘products’

– A school is a miniature knowledge society and every member a knowledge worker

– The organic nature of school abounds in a flux of emotions, feelings and aspirations

Strategic Leadership

• Strategy is something that leaders do BEFORE a problem arises.

• Strategic leaders always have the big picture in mind – they look to the future – they also know that they can not do it alone.

It’s lonely at the top,So you’d better take someone with you.

Educational Leadership – Need for Attitudinal Realignment.

• Attitude of Happiness

• Attitude of Forgiveness

• Attitude of Non-criticism

• Attitude of Approval Seeking

• Attitude of Perfection

• Attitude of Adaptability

Some Thoughts for the Leader• Nothing fails like success

“Leadership begins on the extra mile”• The real risk lies in risk less learning “There are always risk in changing,

but the risk of failing to change is much greater”

“Fail faster. Succeed sooner.”• Make time to think• It is superb strategy for success at leadership and in life: “Being thoughtful and strategic is step number one

as one walks to greatness”• Act like an athlete “Practice is how one gets to greatness.”

Some Thoughts …(Contd….)

• Be outrageously energetic “Go the extra mile to achieve result. Embrace change as chance to grow”.• Grace under pressure “That is what separates leaders from followers”. So it is clear that your days define your life.

There is no such thing as an unimportant day in the school. There is a saying:

“As you live your hours, so you create your years. As you live your days, so you craft your life”.

Some More Thoughts

• People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

• The only thing that walks back from the tomb with the mourners and refuses to be buried is the character of a man.

• Leadership is one of the things you can not delegate. You either exercise it or you abdicate it.

The Future School

• The Future School should have:

– Purpose

– Regeneration

– Action

Essentials for Reengineering Education

• Equity

• Inclusion

• Sustainability

• Value added networks

Precaution against Three C’s

• Compulsion

• Comparison

• Competition

So that learning becomes less stressful and more enjoyable.

Work and Learning Culture

• Paradigm shift from individual to co-operative learning

• Emphasis on group work

• Shift from teaching to learning

• Reduced dependence of learners on teachers.

• Promoting constructivism.

Strategies to Surmount Hurdles

• Break through cognitive barrier

• Overcoming resource barrier

• Crossing motivational barrier

• Facing political barrier.

Structural changes in Future Schools

• Schools will undergo a process of ‘de-structuring’.

• Enormous flexibility will be infused in time, space and material management.

• Learning materials will multiply in variety moving away from traditional book-based learning

• Transformation in the ergonometric designs of schools – the cellular structures of classrooms must yield place to more open organization of space that facilitates interactive learning.

Changes (Contd…..)

• Certification and authentication may become less important

• When the world outside is dynamic, the school system can not remain static.

• Enormous changes in assessment – not decided by one-shot terminal examination based on KUA model.

• Imaginative and extensive application of technology in assessment processes.

The Course Ahead

• Future school will move beyond

– Frontiers of explicit curriculum– Confines of institutional learning– Restrictions of time-bound knowledge acquisition

• It will also respond to emerging knowledge fields and fast rate of knowledge obsolescence.

Towards Learning Organizations.

• Schools as communities of learning ready to share best practices and work collaboratively.

• Change in mindset – to accept new ideas and move away from stereotypes.

Closing Thought

• So, for School leaders, the message for future is very clear:

Improve

Observe

Connect

Adapt

And the Future School will

• Focus on the processes

• Take risks

• End the era of routines

• Encourage participation and interactive & team-oriented activities.

Thank You