Leadership and Management Development in Education (Education ...

7Preparing and supporting leadersin developing countriesIntroductionChapter 5 showed that school leaders face increasing demands and that thesecannot be met effectively without initial, ongoing and specific preparationand development. However, these heads lead schools and colleges in what aregenerally favourable circumstances. Schools are usually well-equipped,teachers are suitably trained, and budgets are invariably adequate or good. Awholly different set of circumstances exists in developing countries. Leadersoften work in poorly equipped schools with inadequately trained staff. Thereis rarely any formal leadership training and principals are appointed on thebasis of their teaching record rather than their leadership potential. Inductionand support are usually limited and principals have to adopt a pragmaticapproach. Learners are often poor and hungry and may also be suffering theconsequences of HIV/Aids (Bush and Oduro 2006: 359). In this chapter, weexamine the challenges facing principals in developing countries, and explorethe provision for leadership and management development for new andexperienced school leaders.The Commonwealth Secretariat (1996) has taken a keen interest in educationin developing countries, and points to the difficulties of managing in such difficultcontexts:The head … plays the most crucial role in ensuring school effectiveness …without the necessary skills, many heads are overwhelmed by the task.Kitavi and van der Westhuizen (1997) refer to the problems experienced byschool leaders in Kenya:Beginning principals in developing countries such as Kenya face problemsthat differ drastically from problems faced by their counterparts in developedcountries such as the USA, UK and Australia … The most seriousproblems facing beginning principals in developing countries like Africa89