Developing forward‐looking and innovative school leaders: the Singapore Leaders in Education Programme

Abstract

The Leaders in Education Programme is a six‐month full‐time programme for specially selected vice‐principals and ministry officers in Singapore to prepare them for school leadership. This paper describes and analyses the design of the programme and identifies the key underlying principle as that of knowledge construction, sharing and application using a social constructivism paradigm. In particular, it examines one particular component, the Future School project, in detail so as to illustrate these principles and how they operate in action. Drawing from the experiences of the Future School project, this paper suggests some pointers to designing a programme for school leadership.