Human Resource Development Minister M M Pallam Raju has launched the School Leadership Development Programme and released its curriculum framework.
Raju said the academic findings indicated that the most critical part of any schooling system was school leadership.
“We need a curriculum that inculcates school leadership capabilities to transform each school through a rights-based approach,” he said.
The National Centre for School Leadership has been set up at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) with the prime purpose of transforming current schools into schools of excellence, eventually bringing about improvement in the entire schooling system through leadership development.
“Transforming each school is an enormous task. A common model for leadership or one approach towards leadership will not suffice in such varied contexts. Therefore, I propose that we need to work on multiple leadership styles to improve school climate and performance in the diversity of contexts,” the HRD Minister said.
Keeping in view the importance of school leadership, he said the RTE Act specially mandates that there be a headmaster in every school with substantial enrolment.
This statutory mandate is to ensure that school leadership of good quality is made easily available, so as to ensure better performance and consequent quality improvement of schools.
The HRD Minister said effective school leaders empower through education by setting up a learner-centred culture that allows all children to be successful, while respecting their differences in learning styles and teachers’ teaching styles as well as socio-economic, cultural and developmental characteristics.