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Leaders for Education (powered by Citizen Leader Lab)

Developing the leaders our nation needs

Leaders for Education (formerly Partners for Possibility), a programme of Citizen Leader Lab is committed to developing conscious, resilient school principals and business leaders through an extraordinary, action-based process that breaks down barriers, connects people and inspires change.

HundrED 2024
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Overview

HundrED has selected this innovation to

HundrED Global Collection 2024

Web presence

2011

Established

1.4M

Children

1

Countries
Target group
Leaders
Updated
February 2024
“We invite every company concerned with the future skills set of school graduates to be part of this Citizen Leader Lab programme, which partners school principals and business executives to make schools better now."

About the innovation

Why did you create this innovation?

Comparative studies on school performance in South Africa and in countries facing similar challenges suggest that the quality of classroom teaching and the leadership of the principal are the two in-school factors with the strongest influence on education outcomes.

South Africa's National Development Plan (NDP, 2012) explicitly identifies strengthening school leadership, as a priority in SA.

What does your innovation look like in practice?

Through our Leaders for Education programme, we provide leadership development and support to school principals who lead schools that serve historically under-resourced communities.

Our goal is to support school principals to become successful change agents who can transform their schools into effective environments of teaching and learning. We approach the school as the unit of change and do so in collaboration with private sector business leaders who team up with school principals to support capacity building and the desired change pathway in targeted schools.

Our Theory of Change positions school principals as change agents in their institutions and their broader communities. When they are paired in a mutually supportive learning partnership with business executives and provided with relevant leadership skills training, access to communities of practice and facilitated action learning, they both acquire new ways of seeing, being and doing.

How has it been spreading?

Citizen Leader Lab, through new programmes, is deepening its impact in education and broadening its reach to other sectors to respond to challenges in the ecosystem.

Our purpose is to develop conscious leadership that builds social cohesion, uplifts communities, and works towards achieving a just society. Our mission is to develop leaders who can catalyse positive change in their institutions, communities, and broader society; facilitate cross-sectoral collaboration to strengthen connections and partnerships across boundaries; create opportunities for active citizenship and engage with key public sectors, with education being a critical focus area.  More than a million people have been impacted through 1,947 partnerships in under-resources schools and has won multiple impact awards.

If I want to try it, what should I do?

Please feel free to email info@citizenleaderlab.org

Komala Pillay, Chief Executive Officer
komala@citizenleaderlab.org

Melanie Weeks, Chairperson of Board of Directors
melanie@citizenleaderlab.org

Jansie Rautenbach, Chief Operations Officer
jansie@citizenleaderlab.org

Website: www.citizenleaderlab.org

Impact & scalability

HundrED Academy Reviews

This innovation creatively offers a platform for under-resourced principals to form partnership with business leaders, which will effectively lead to the improvement of principals' leadership.

Partners for Possibility could be scalable not only within under-resourced communities, but it also provides inspiration at a broader level. School leaders are in fact one of the leading factors of change in education.

- Academy member
Academy review results
Impact
Scalability
Exceptional
High
Moderate
Limited
Insufficient
Exceptional
High
Moderate
Limited
Insufficient
Read more about our selection process

Spread of the innovation

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