Changing perceptions is one thing…: barriers to transforming leadership and learning in Ghanaian basic schools

Abstract

School leadership, head teacher professional development and school management practices in sub-Saharan Africa have varied little from the model of schooling established during colonial rule. Leadership for Learning (LfL) is a programme of school leadership developed at the University of Cambridge over a period of 10 years in conjunction with an international group of researchers and practitioners. This paper reports the results from questionnaire data gathered from a cohort of 125 head teachers who participated in the LfL programme in Ghana between 2009 and 2011, and speculates on the successes and barriers to leadership and learning. Implications arising from the scaling up of the LfL programme to include all Ghanaian schools are discussed.

Keywords:

• leadership
• learning
• Ghana
• Africa
• professional development

Introduction

Leadership for Learning (LfL) is a framework of school leadership principles and practices developed initially across seven countries (MacBeath and Dempster 2008; Swaffield 2008; Frost 2008) and subsequently employed in other contexts. The LfL framework is structured across five principles in which both leadership and learning are construed as shared activities by all participants within a school. Each principle can be interpreted from multiple perspectives/roles, such as Headteachers support…, Students identify… and so forth.

The LfL principles are as follows:

• Focus on learning,

• Conditions for learning,

• Learning dialogue,

• Shared leadership,

• Shared sense of accountability.

Each LfL principle is associated with broadly defined practices and offers a framework of values that are neither prescriptive nor predictive but are intended to be adapted by teachers, senior leaders, pupils or parents to test and guide school and classroom leadership and learning. Table 1 provides a rubric of exemplar practices for each of the five principles that were developed as a feature of the Carpe Vitam project (MacBeath, Frost, and Swaffield 2008).

Table 1. Leadership for learning (LfL) principles and practices.

Focus on learning	Conditions for learning
Everyone is a learner Learning relies on the effective interplay of social, emotional and cognitive processes The efficacy of learning is highly sensitive to context and to the differing ways in which people learn The capacity for leadership arises out of powerful learning experiences Opportunities for leadership enhance learning	Cultures nurture the learning of everyone Everyone has opportunities to reflect on the nature, skills and processes of learning Physical and social spaces stimulate and celebrate learning Safe and secure environments enable everyone to take risks, cope with failure and respond positively to challenges Tools and strategies are used to enhance thinking about learning and the practice of teaching
Learning dialogue
Practice made explicit, discussable and transferable Active, collegial inquiry focussing on the link between learning and leadership Coherence through sharing of values, understandings and practices Factors that inhibit and promote learning are examined and addressed Link between leadership and learning is a concern for everyone Different perspectives explored through networking with researchers and practitioners
Shared leadership	Mutual accountability
Structures support participation in developing learning communities Shared leadership symbolised in day-to-day flow of activities Everyone encouraged to take a lead as appropriate to task and context Everyone's experience and expertise is valued and drawn upon as resources Collaborative activity across boundaries of subject, role and status are valued and promoted	Systematic approach to self-evaluation embedded at every level Focus on evidence and its congruence with core values Shared approach to internal accountability is a precondition of external accountability National policies recast in accordance with school's core values Choosing how to tell own story while taking account of political realities Continuing focus on sustainability, succession and leaving a legacy

Leadership, and specifically the role of the head teachers, it has been argued, is a key factor in shaping learning outcomes in schools (Robinson, Hohepa, and Lloyd 2007; Hallinger and Heck 2010; Leithwood and Louis 2012). Cowie and Crawford (2007, 131) remind us of the importance of working with those at the very heart of shaping school cultures, citing an ‘international consensus among policy-makers that the capacities of those who aspire to become a principal need to be developed’. LfL was itself conceived through just such an international consensus on leadership in schools, and as it has developed it has drawn on the literature on critical friendship (Swaffield 2005, 2008) and the principles that informed current thinking regarding distributed leadership (MacBeath 2005; Spillane, Halverson, and Diamond 2004).

While LfL and the present research in Ghana are focused on working with head teachers as a starting point for change, this emphasis was not to the exclusion of other school stakeholders. Indeed, teachers, parents and students are seen as integrally involved in a shared learning dialogue. In both principle and practice, LfL levels the playing field for leadership reform to include all participants in the school environment. LfL neither promotes nor discourages autonomy and individualism, nor values one group (students, teachers, parents, etc.) over another, recognising the complexity of leadership that involves all members of the school community (Watson 2013). Our focus on working directly with head teachers was partly a pragmatic decision, as the most direct route towards transforming school leadership culture through gradual and incremental stepwise change (MacBeath 2005) was engaging those at the ‘apex of the organisational pyramid’ (Murphy 1992). Moreover, Zame and colleagues (2008) and Oduro (2010) among others had identified the need to develop the leadership capacity of head teachers in Ghana.

Transforming school organisational and operational structures is, however, difficult and rife with problems given complex bureaucratic topographies that are deeply ingrained and resistant to change (Jull 2002). Jull describes the hegemony of power and authority in schools, rooted in wider social discourses forming complex connections between head teachers' professional and personal lives. For programmes such as LfL, this carries professional and personal implications for people – head teachers, teachers, parents and students, among others.

Indeed, MacBeath (2005, 357) describes a ‘taxonomy of distribution’ of leadership and authority, charting a continuum of school leadership reform. MacBeath's model maps the transitions from an authoritarian distribution of leadership to one which is expressed through the culture, ethos and traditions of the whole school. Buy-in, ownership and investment are essential conditions for the successful embedding of any initiatives introduced into a school. Mulford (2005, 321) reminds us that, ‘no matter how well conceptualized, powerfully sponsored, brilliantly structured or closely audited, reform of school is likely to fail in the face of resistance when put into practice’. This resistance could just as likely be personal as it is professional (Jull 2002). MacBeath's (2005) proposed continuum describes a gradual, incremental pathway to change that respects the goal of equity while also taking into account the propensity of school-participant stakeholders to resist any proposed change in the absence of adequate opportunity and time to adapt to, and play a role in, the change process. Leithwood and Jantzi (2007) highlight this barrier to change-making in their review of the leadership literature, reminding researchers of the subtlety required to introduce programmes that seek to change professional and personal structures of schools. LfL, like any change agent, would therefore benefit from a research and development model ‘constructed around notions of exchange, brokerage and facilitation’ (Hadfield and Jopling 2012, 111). It was with this in mind that the present LfL programme was introduced within the personal, professional, educational leadership and learning context in Ghana in 2009.

Country context

Ghana is a nation of 24 million people, bordered by Togo to the east, Ivory Coast to the west and Burkina Faso to the north. It is ‘a country marked by extraordinary diversity’, writes Osei (2006, 43). The size of the country, the dispersion of the population from north to south and east to west, the urban–rural divide, the influence of Islam in the north and the predominance of Christianity in the south, and the balance between the formal and informal economy provide the backdrop to the education system and to the problematic nature of reform.

The dilemma for the Ghanaian government from its beginnings as an independent nation in 1957 has been to address the colonial legacy, to create a new independent nation, forging its own identity, away from its captive past, and an education system which would play a key role in ‘decolonisation of the mind’ (Arnot 2008, 27). The model of schooling that was established during colonial rule has, however, remained a dominant feature of the educational landscape, and daily routines, school management, classroom practices and sanctions, have changed little since independence (Oduro 2008).

The shift in policy to decentralise education in 1987 opened the door to increased community involvement and influence in education development. However, the accompanying lack of school leadership, accountability and pedagogical alternatives available to schools and their communities has resulted in deference to traditional educational administrative structures and teaching and learning practices (Essuman and Akyeampong 2011). Teaching, in general, remains didactic, authoritarian, with rote learning leaving little room for creative, student-centred or autonomous learning. Corporal punishment continues, as do inflexible rules and sanctions which fail to accommodate domestic routines and children's contribution to the family economy, through activities such as early morning fishing or household chores.

Bosu et al. (2011) and Essuman and Akyeampong (2011) argue for educational reform in Ghana that is values driven and reflects the everyday lives and priorities of communities. The emphasis on values is not only consistent with Arnot's (2008) emancipatory model but is also pragmatic, taking into account the importance of engaging practitioners at the centre of proposed reforms in order to ensure that pathways of reform are sustained through enthusiasm, collegiality and professional and personal commitment (Frost et al. 2000). It is increasingly common for models of school change to engage critical friends (Swaffield 2008) in programme development prior to any proposed implementation. Wadesango (2010) discusses the relevance of ‘participative management’ within the African context and what school reform means in that set of circumstances.

In spite of its colonial history, conventions and potential barriers to change, those in positions of power across the Ghanaian educational system at government, regional and local levels are responding to the challenge to review and recast the nature of pedagogy and leadership for learning from primary through higher education (Akyeampong 2009; Bosu et al. 2011; Bush, Kiggundu, and Moorosi 2011; Morley, Leach, and Lugg 2009).

Bosu et al. (2011) describe the process of exploring opportunities for innovation in Ghanaian education, where values can be explored and tested by those who will lead the way forward in encouraging sustainable community-focused change. Engaging the wider school community to support change in transitioning countries of sub-Saharan Africa is recognised as an essential component of providing meaningful, lasting change (Hoadley et al. 2009). However, Wadesango (2010) laments that teachers within the sub-Saharan African context continue to be silenced and without influence with regard to the direction and scope of change. Pedagogical innovations tend to occur in isolation, supported by small-scale and finite research programmes that provide few opportunities for building professional networks, the kind that might support a continuity of professional development, that deliver meaningful change and desirable outcomes. Securing professional buy-in is the first step, one that demands honest, open dialogue about contextually meaningful change (Swaffield 2008). What follows is largely dependent upon the way teachers conceptualise the impact on their role, status and the opportunity for leading innovations in curriculum and pedagogy (Ainscow and Sandill 2010; Akyeampong and Lewin 2002; Akyeampong and Stephens 2002; Hoadley et al. 2009; Wadesango 2010).

Hand-in-hand with professional buy-in must go sustained opportunities for continuing professional development in order to support meaningful opportunities for change – an essential missing piece within Ghana as it is in most if not all of sub-Saharan Africa (Akyeampong and Lewin 2002; Dejaeghere, Williams, and Robinah 2009; Onguko, Abdalla, and Webber 2012). Any programme that hopes to effect a lasting, meaningful change needs to overcome both barriers. Kiggundu and Moorosi (2012) remind us, however, that little has changed in terms of professional development in the 10 years since, particularly for head teachers, suggesting that establishing opportunities for continuing professional development remains uncertain. What was clear from the start was that the professional development was not limited by a lack of interest on the part of head teachers and teachers aspiring to leadership roles (Akyeampong and Stephens 2002; Bush and Oduro 2006), but rather, by the absence of a clear, coherent professional development programme, one that required few resources other than existing professional and personal networks and a desire to collaborate (Kiggundu and Moorosi 2012). What the present research programme has in its favour is a theory and practice that facilitates gradual, incremental change, foregrounding the values and ambitions of participants as the agents of change (Frost et al. 2000).

The LfL programme in Ghana began with the hope of making a potentially sustainable contribution to the gradual, incremental progression which would, over time, build the capacity for supporting learning. This entailed a long-term professional development process, working closely with participants across all levels of the education system on leadership for learning. By 2013, what had begun as a small-scale programme had grown to include over 3000 schools.

The LfL research and development programme

The LfL Ghana programme was designed to enhance the capacity of basic school (i.e. primary and junior high school) head teachers to reform teaching and learning by applying the framework of five leadership principles. These principles were put into practice as participants considered apposite to the needs and conditions identified by Ghanaian head teachers (Oduro 2008; Osei 2006; Zame, Hope, and Respress 2008).

A proposal to initiate the LfL programme in Ghana was made by the Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana and accepted by the Centre for Commonwealth Education (CCE) at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education. Discussions with key stakeholders including the Ghana Educational Service, the Association of Basic School Headteachers, the Ghana National Association of Teachers and the (then) Ministry of Education, Science and Sports secured support for the programme.

A group of 15 Ghanaian educators, who became known as Professional Development Leaders (PDLs), was carefully selected from a variety of backgrounds on the basis of their knowledge and understanding of Ghanaian schools, their understanding of educational issues, their expertise in professional development, and their commitment to the values and aims of the programme. They undertook a University of Cambridge accredited certificate entitled ‘Leading Leadership for Learning in Developing Countries' which entailed a three-day workshop in Ghana and a week-long summer school in Cambridge, as well as individual study. The PDLs proved to be central to the programme, contextualising the LfL principles, and working with the Cambridge team to plan and lead professional development courses and workshops.

In August 2009, 125 head teachers, nominated by District Directors, came from all over Ghana for a three-week workshop in Ajumako, led by PDLs with the support of the Cambridge team. The focus was on the improvement of pedagogy and professional development in school through a quality of leadership framed by the five LfL principles. The heads, or ‘School Transformational Leaders’ (STLs), as they came to call themselves, reconvened in April 2010 for a further two weeks to share the progress they had made, to consider leadership for learning in greater depth and to plan for further developments. Eighteen months after that, in November 2011, they met again, together with the PDLs and Cambridge team, but this time the cohort was split between the north and the south of the country to lessen long-distance travel. From the very first gathering in August 2009 it became clear that Circuit Supervisors, District Directors and Regional Directors all needed to understand the LfL programme and its implications, so workshops were also provided for them. Circuit Supervisors joined the head teachers/STLs for the April 2010 and November 2011 workshops, adding different perspectives to the dialogue and enhancing shared understanding.

Enthused by their experiences at these workshops, the STLs were keen to share what they had learned about LfL, not only with their own staff but also with other head teachers. Very quickly LfL principles began to spread beyond the initial cohort of heads, often through locally arranged workshops supported by Circuit Supervisors and PDLs. Meanwhile, the Teacher Education Division of the Ghana Education Service, with support from UNICEF, also began running sessions based on the five principles, with many more head teachers, Circuit Supervisors and Directors being introduced to LfL. The expansion of the programme necessitated a full-time coordinator to help organise, support and monitor the work, and in March 2010, funding from the Centre for Commonwealth Education enabled the appointment of a local coordinator based at the IEPA.

The inclusion of LfL in the second edition (2010) of the Ghana Education Service's Headteacher Handbook and the forthcoming publication of an LfL manual for head teachers endorsed LfL as leading-edge practice for head teachers in over 18,000 schools.

We have discussed emerging outcomes from the LfL programme since its inception in 2009 (MacBeath et al. 2010; MacBeath and Swaffield 2011). In this paper, we report findings from the questionnaire data of the past three years and the implications for the rapid scaling up of transformational change that is taking place throughout Ghana. We discuss the opportunity for a revised research and development agenda, with a view to continuing to support improved educational outcomes for Ghana as a nation and as a model for sub-Saharan Africa.

Method

The LfL research programme adopted a mixed-methods approach, including qualitative and quantitative data-gathering methods.

In this paper, we draw on quantitative data collected via the LfL questionnaire at three periodic intervals (2009, 2010, 2011) to explore the changing views of participants as to the importance and occurrence of LfL principles and practices over time.

Qualitative data gathered through feedback data from the same research cohort, in addition to semi-structured interview data and workshop outcomes gathered over the same period, are not included in this paper. We took the view that presenting the quantitative data separately increased the opportunity to focus on global issues arising from an analysis of the questionnaire results in the first instance. This was both a methodological decision and a pragmatic one, given insufficient opportunity to include within this paper the large body of qualitative data arising from all 30 questionnaire items. Qualitative analyses feature in future papers, helping to further tease out successes and barriers to leadership for learning.

The LfL Ghana questionnaire was based on the questionnaire that had been used in the original LfL Carpe Vitam project (MacBeath and Dempster 2008) and was developed in cooperation with the Ghanaian PDLs through a collaborative process with University of Cape Coast and Cambridge researchers. The collaboration produced a questionnaire that reflected the contextual epistemologies in relation to schools, teaching, learning and leadership in Ghana. The result was a 30-item, double-sided questionnaire using a four-point Likert scale (see Table 2 for list of question items). On the one hand, participants were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed with each item (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree, don't know). As the second response, participants were asked to rate the importance of each item in turn (not important, quite important, very important, crucial).

Table 2. Repeated measures ANOVA: 2009, 2010, 2011.

Our focus here is on data from the head teachers (School Transformation Leaders or STLs) at three points in time, August 2009, April 2010 and November 2011 (participation rate n = 125; completion rate n = 108). Variation in the annual workshop/questionnaire completion dates is a function of selecting annual meeting dates that enabled the widest possible participation of LfL participants.

We conducted a repeated measures ANOVA of all 30 LfL questionnaire items using SPSS. A Greenhouse–Geisser correction was used when Mauchly's test of sphericity indicated that the assumption of sphericity had been violated.

A Bonferroni post-hoc test reveals the significance of changes between individual years, 2009 and 2010, 2010 and 2011, and 2009 and 2011, respectively. These data are not reported in Table 2, but were used to confirm positive overall significant change between 2009 and the terminal year 2011.

Table 2 reports the sphericity, F- and p-values and a global indication regarding significance to support interpretation, namely:

• a tick (✓) where p < 0.05, reporting a positive direction of change between the initial year (2009) and terminal year (2011);

• an asterisk (*) where p < 0.05, reporting a positive direction of change between the initial year (2009) and second year (2010), but no significant difference between the initial year (2009) and terminal year (2011) overall;

• a dash (—) where p > 0.05, indicating no significant change between time periods; and

• two asterisks (**) where p < 0.05, reporting a negative direction of change between the initial year (2009) and terminal year (2011).

Results

A birds-eye view of the questionnaire results (figures 1 and 2) reveals that only one item scored below the negative–positive threshold on the two scales (Importance and Practices, respectively) between 2009 and 2011, namely, question 6 on the Practices scale (i.e., Q6: ‘Pupils sometimes have opportunities to decide what they want to learn’). Other than question 6 in the sample year 2009, all items scored above the negative–positive threshold and maintained this position across all three time periods. The reason for the positively skewed data of the 2009 questionnaire data may be explained by the fact that it was administered prior to the start of the three-week LfL workshop in August 2009. In other words, participants had not yet been required to contextualise and problematise the statements. It is likely that the three-week course and follow-up visits and exchanges prompted deeper understanding and a rigorous reframing of priorities and practice.

Figure 1. Importance: importance of LfL items in schools perceived by head teachers in 2009 and 2011.

Figure 2. Practices: occurrence (practices) of LfL items in schools observed by head teachers in 2009 and 2011.

Interpretation of the descriptive statistics may be summarised as indicating a sustained and more critical approach to LfL principles and practices over the three time periods, 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Figures 3 and 4 provide a quick view of the percent change of the perceived importance and practices of LfL items identified in the head teacher questionnaire between 2009 and 2011. Positive directional change is identified for the majority of LfL questionnaire items, with a number of notable negative results shown in Figure 4.

Figure 3. Importance: percent change of the perceived importance of LfL practices in schools by school transformation leaders between 2009 and 2011.

Figure 4. Practices: percent change in the presence of LfL practices in schools observed by school transformation leaders between 2009 and 2011.

Table 2 reports sphericity (equivalent to an analysis of homogeneity of variance for repeated measures ANOVA), F- and p-values for all 30 LfL questionnaire items across both scales, Importance and Practices. Notably, much of the apparent positive directional change indicated in Figures 1 and 2 is not statistically significant, if still perhaps important. Table 2 provides clear feedback regarding developments in head teachers' perceptions and observance of LfL practices over time.

The results of the repeated measures ANOVA may be summarised as follows:

• Head teachers' beliefs regarding the importance of LfL principles and practices were either stable or increased over the duration of the research programme. The majority of LfL questionnaire items (20/30) showed an increase in reported ‘importance’ by head teachers.

• Head teachers' beliefs regarding the presence of LfL principles and practice were either stable or increased over time, with one exception. Few LfL questionnaire items (5/30) showed an increase in reported presence of ‘practices’ in schools.

• The null hypothesis was confirmed for just over half (32/60) of the questionnaire items across the Importance and Practices scales.

Taking into account Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4, our findings suggest that head teachers believed that LfL, its principles and practices were an important factor in supporting changes in leadership and learning, but that barriers remain to converting these same principles into everyday teaching and learning practices.

We explore these results in more detail and within a context of LfL moving forward in Ghana in the discussion section that follows.

Discussion

Results from the analysis of the LfL questionnaire point to a number of important findings that will inform the LfL programme moving forward in Ghana, including the forthcoming scaling up of LfL to include basic schools throughout the whole of the country, given the Ghanaian Education Service (GES)'s adoption of the LfL model.

To begin, it is important to note that the LfL programme in Ghana has followed a path that is more closely akin to collaborative research and development, rather than a more orthodox before and after study, which typically presents fewer opportunities for formative input by participants as to the shape and content of the programme. Furthermore, the LfL programme is not driven by a competencies or standards agenda and associated, ‘spurious impressions of rationality and precision in defining what competence is and who is certified as competent’ (Cowie and Crawford 2007, 139). An implementation and outcomes assessment of LfL programme was intentionally absent, with a view to maximising head teachers' willingness to explore opportunities in leadership reform in the absence of increased risk of professional reprisals. Indeed, ‘the introduction of standards can be seen as a controlling mechanism and as a way of limiting discourse surrounding what it is that head teachers do’ or as a function of collaborative research (Cowie and Crawford 2007, 139). The qualitative methods of this study included opportunities for participants to discuss learning outcomes as a matter of process and practice. While not reported here, these data will inform the research programme moving forward in a way that supports the authentic uptake of LfL principles and practices.

The results of the LfL questionnaire suggest that all of the principles and practices were identified as both important and present in schools. A confirmation of the null hypothesis from the repeated measures ANOVA could be interpreted simply as indicating that this statement remained true for the duration of the three years of the research programme. Indeed, at no point after the first year, 2009, did any of the questionnaire items on either scale – Importance and Practices – dip below the present/absent threshold. Significant changes in the questionnaire results, on the other hand, might suggest a strengthening of participant understanding and utility of respective principles and practices for increasing the capacity of head teachers to support learning.

The strong positive changes on the ‘Importance’ scale might be attributable to the fact that changes in personal/head teacher belief structure are not resource dependent – that is, not contingent upon dependent variables such as infrastructure or teaching and learning materials. However, a change in ‘Practices’ by its very nature is resource dependent as interactive, cooperative and personalised learning do have resource implications. Furthermore, a change in pedagogy/teaching practices does imply policy and procedural change, dependent on variables such as human resource capacity and the less tangible factors of political and administrative will.

The positive change on the ‘Importance’ scale contrasted with the weak change in ‘Practices’ offers food for thought. This is perhaps the most interesting result emerging from our analysis. Prior to conducting the repeated measures ANOVA, we were aware of the general positive trend in the questionnaire items, but equally suspicious that we might not find statistically significant change. Then, as now, we remained less concerned about statistical significance of prospective change than the importance of the sustained interest and uptake over time. This was, in part, because early returns from our qualitative data hinted at positive outcomes, which were sustained over the course of the three years to the present. Perhaps the most significant development was the wholesale adoption of LfL by the GES as leading-edge practice for head teachers countrywide, evidenced by the endorsement of LfL in national manuals and handbooks.

The inclusion of LfL in the new edition of the Ghana Education Service Headteachers' Handbook has ostensibly made the five LfL principles the standard for every head teacher and every school in Ghana – over 18,000 schools. LfL is introduced at the start of section three of the Headteachers' Handbook, ‘Improving the Quality of Learning’, in addition to an early reference in the foreword on page iii, as follows:

Headteachers are reminded to make learning the pivot around which all other activities evolve in the school. The handbook also draws headteachers' attention to the five principles that are critical for carrying out their leadership for learning tasks: maintaining a focus on learning; creating conditions favourable to learning; creating a dialogue about leadership for learning; practising shared leadership and encouraging a shared sense of accountability.

With LfL now identified as national policy for leading and managing schools, it has secured priority status within the head teacher professional development agenda in districts across the whole of Ghana. National recognition is seen as a significant step in the direction of enabling LfL, citing Fertig's (2012) suggestion that a major barrier to change in Ghanaian schools has been head teachers' confidence to initiate change without wider consensus or endorsement at the level of government policy.

While our qualitative data alerted us to potentially important barriers to the implementation of LfL in practice across a number of schools, the ANOVA confirmed these assumptions, enabling us to move forward with a targeted analysis and expanded investigation regarding barriers to the application of specific items. Looking ahead, our findings suggest that there is a need for LfL to identify partnerships with pedagogy-focused programmes, aligned with LfL principles in order for us to support an increased presence of LfL-consistent teaching/learning practices in schools. To this end, we will follow on from this paper by reporting subsequent analyses in which we explore the more fine-grained qualitative detail that might suggest how best to support head teachers as they endeavour to translate beliefs about LfL into effective, sustainable pedagogies.

Conclusion

The LfL programme in Ghana was initiated and is sustained in a context which engages researchers and participants in collaborative inquiry. This began with dialogue with staff of the IEPA and the 15 PDLs around the applicability of the LfL principles and the development of the LfL Ghana questionnaire, adapting it to the particular context of Ghana. The PDL group also played a major role in the design and conduct of workshops, networking across schools, districts and regions with a strong sense of ownership and commitment to taking LfL forward.

Early returns reported in this paper as well as previous reports (MacBeath et al. 2010; MacBeath and Swaffield 2011) underline the extent to which the LfL programme has been embraced because of its congruence within the Ghanaian culture and educational improvement, offering, as it does, opportunities for enhancing leadership, student, teacher and organisational learning.

LfL has become embedded, albeit to differing degrees, within participant schools since its introduction in August 2009, in large part because of the ongoing efforts of Circuit Supervisors and Headteachers. We have also witnessed an expansion of LfL awareness to an estimated 3000 additional schools. This is owed, in the first instance, to the original cohort of 125 head teachers and the support for their initiative by Circuit Supervisors, District and Regional Directors. This sharing of emerging innovative practice, both laterally among schools and vertically within different layers of the system, is consistent with Kiggundu and Moorosi's (2012) emphasis on the value of professional networking in sub-Saharan Africa; akin to professional development in its own right, given the absence in many cases of sufficient professional development supports for head teachers in these countries (Bush and Oduro 2006; Bush, Kiggundu, and Moorosi 2011).

Sharing the LfL programme across head teachers' networks was helped immeasurably by the endorsement and support of the GES. The GES continues to promote LfL workshops for head teachers, Circuit Supervisors and District Directors of education and most recently has supported LfL research partners at the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) at the University of Cape Coast in a workshop for District Training Officers from one of the 10 regions of Ghana. It is anticipated that provision for the other parts of the country will follow.

Since its introduction within schools in September 2009, there has been marked evidence of LfL's impact. It might simply be measured by the degree to which it has spontaneously spread through local professional development networks. Such spontaneous uptake offers persuasive evidence that the principles travel, that they are contextually relevant and school-friendly (Kiggundu and Moorosi 2012). Furthermore, the inclusion of LfL within the Ghana Education Service Headteachers' Handbook has put the programme, principles and practices firmly on the national educational agenda and serves as a clear endorsement from official channels extending beyond the influence of the programme itself.

Scaling up small-scale projects within the sub-Saharan context, however, is not always straightforward, nor does it always result in the replication of early results. Bold et al. (2012, 27) warned that, ‘while education literature has focused on measuring and controlling for the fidelity of implementation to explain replication failure’, it is ‘underlying institutional obstacles to fidelity that must be considered in any attempt to translate experimental findings into government policy’. While the LfL Ghana programme differs from other regional educational interventions insofar as it was developed and implemented in collaboration with all levels of government and service within Ghanaian education, risks to programme fidelity remain. As implementation proceeds, it has to foresee and take account of potential bureaucratic and systemic obstacles.

Early participants in the LfL programme all benefited from workshops and professional development that included contributions from the principal investigators from the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education, as well as support from the LfL University of Cambridge accredited PDLs. However, this does not imply that ‘going to scale’ requires simple replication of the original programme. Indeed, successful scaling up is highly sensitive to local conditions, constraints and affordances and tends to rely on the introduction of economies of scale in order to justify the net increase in resource commitment. A model for scaling up LfL from the present programme to all 18,000+ schools should not require direct participation of these same LfL ‘experts’ to vouchsafe its success. What we can glean from the quantitative results reported here is that the implementation model of workshops, professional development and support has resulted in a sustained presence of LfL in schools directly involved in the present research programme. We also know that an additional 3000 schools have been introduced to LfL via professional development networks and locally directed workshops. The expansion and sustainability of LfL appear to be contingent to a large degree upon this network of professional development and supports.

LfL originated in dialogue with key stakeholders across the Ghanaian education system, just as it will be scaled up and sustained through continuing dialogue. We remain hopeful that LfL will become the cornerstone of a new generation of PDLs and a new cadre of school transformational leaders in Ghana, with potential applications throughout sub-Saharan Africa. We recognise that this can only be achieved if the head teachers, schools and those who administer and support schools at system level are themselves focused on learning, creating the conditions for learning, maintaining a continuous dialogue about learning, and sharing in the burden of leadership and accountability for the successes and failures that are an integral part of the learning journey. At present, the CCE team are exploring ways of assisting the next chapter of this development and research journey knowing many hurdles that will appear as LfL matures as a sustainable, national policy.

LfL has experienced early positive success in Ghana. The consistent, sustained involvement of programme schools and participants is itself a strong endorsement and testimony to the resilience of the programme and its impact in support of leadership and learning. We look forward to reporting further as the programme develops, expands and moves forward, providing further evidence of how implementation works, how principles and practice interconnect, and what sustaining LfL means in a context such as Ghana.

Notes on contributors

Stephen Jull joined the Centre for Commonwealth Education (CCE) at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge in 2012, contributing to research investigating the transferability of principles and models of the Leadership for Learning (LfL) framework to schools and education systems of sub-Saharan Africa.

Sue Swaffield is a member of the Leadership for Learning academic group in the Faculty of Education and a founder member of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network. Sue's teaching and research interests are within the fields of educational leadership, school improvement and assessment.

John MacBeath was Professor Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, Director of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network and Projects Director for the Centre for Commonwealth Education. Until 2000, he was the Director of the Quality in Education Centre at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

Acknowledgements

We are most grateful to the Commonwealth Education Trust who through their funding of the Centre for Commonwealth Education made the LfL Ghana programme and this research possible. We are also indebted to our partners in Ghana: the University of Cape Coast Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, especially Professor George Oduro and Dr Alfred Ampah-Mensah; the Ghana Education Service; and the Ministry of Education. We thank all the programme participants throughout Ghana, but particularly the head teachers/school transformational leaders and circuit supervisors whose questionnaire responses feature in this paper, and the professional development leaders who helped with the administration of the questionnaires. In Cambridge, we acknowledge the invaluable support of the administrative team within the CCE: Sally Roach, Bryony Horsley-Heather and Ruth Millson.