By Emmanuel Gamson
Takoradi, Oct. 8, GNA – Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister for Education, has launched the National Educational Leadership Institute (NELI) to create a permanent independent institution to offer tailor-made leadership programmes with certification for current and aspiring heads of schools and educational managers.
The NELI, which is an initiative of the Ministry of Education through its Reform Delivery Unit and other partners, seeks to equip educational leaders with the necessary knowledge, skills, attitudes and values needed for high-performing stewardship of learning experiences in all educational institutions across the country.
It would also serve as an approach to improve their leadership capacities to promote collaborative teaching and learning geared towards improving students’ performances.
Dr Adutwum, at the launch in Takoradi, said the country’s educational system faced structural challenges like leadership issues that posed risk to the learning outcomes of students.
Such challenges, he noted, had resulted in many young people lacking the skills required to thrive academically and shape them to become successful people to help transform the country.
He said it was imperative to begin raising a new generation of educational leaders who would be interested in the learning outcomes of students and lead the charge to turn Ghana’s socio-economic fortunes around.
“To achieve a more robust educational system consistent with the fourth industrial revolution, we must integrate relevant academic content with experiences that nurture the skills and mind set of the people needed for socio-economic transformation,” Dr Adutwum stated.
He explained that the NELI was part of his Ministry’s resolve to strengthen and reform the quality of leadership needed to drive the country’s education forward in the 21st century educational system.
Dr Charles Yeboah, the Executive Director of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) Ghana, a NELI implementing partner, said strengthening educational leadership in schools and institutions was one of the surest ways through which the desired learning outcomes could be realised, adding that NELI sought to achieve that goal.
He said the Institute would roll out a five-month course for 400 heads of educational institutions who would form the first cohorts of the initiative.
“At the end of the programme, we expect that the first batch of participants would have demonstrated mastery in strategic leadership competencies across different levels and categories of schools and educational management,” he said.
Dr Michael Boakye-Yiadom, the Director General of Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), the lead implementing partner of NELI, speaking on the future and sustainability of the Institute, said there was the need for Parliament to pass a legislative instrument that would mandate successive governments to continue to implement the programme for the collective benefit of everyone.
He said IEPA and its partners were working assiduously to ensure that NELI was fully incorporated into the Ghanaian educational system after its initial implementation period.
Dr Paul Kwadwo Addo, the NELI Coordinator, said a handbook had already been developed for both facilitators and participants for the various programmes under the five-month strategic leadership course.
GNA