TI-AIE: Orientation: the secondary school leader as enabler

What this unit is about

There have been many changes in education policy in India in recent years, but one of the most significant is the shift in expectations on schools. The aspiration is that schools should become more autonomous and responsive to their local communities, and that school leaders should take greater responsibility for the quality of teaching and learning in their schools (Tyagi, 2011).

The aim of the TESS-India Open Educational Resources (OERs) is to support school leaders that want to enable their schools to become dynamic learning environments with active students and interactive teachers. It can be a challenging task to bring about such practice where it does not already exist, although school leaders have a great deal of authority within their own school. This unit positions the school leader as an enabler – someone who uses their role to make things happen in their school. The TESS-India OERs provide a ‘toolkit’ to support you in this role (see Resource 1 for further details).

This first orientation unit aims to familiarise you in how to use the TESS-India School Leadership OERs for your own development. At the core of all these resources is the idea that learning is lifelong and continuous: for teachers to learn effectively, their school leaders also need to be learners.

Learning Diary

During your work on this unit you will be asked to make notes in your Learning Diary, a book or folder where you collect together your thoughts and plans in one place. Perhaps you have already started one.

You may be working through this unit alone, but you will learn much more if you are able to discuss your learning with another school leader. This could be a colleague with whom you already collaborate, or someone with whom you can build a new relationship. It could be done in an organised way or on a more informal basis. The notes you make in your Learning Diary will be useful for these kinds of meetings, while also mapping your longer-term learning and development.

What you can learn in this unit