Strong school leadership is central to improving teaching and learning. The Ghana Education Service (GES) is leading efforts to strengthen the capacity of school boards and senior management teams across secondary schools. This work focuses on ensuring that school leaders can effectively manage institutions, support teaching quality, and drive continuous improvement.

T‑TEL supports this agenda by providing technical assistance, tools, and guidance to strengthen implementation.

Structure:

Capacity development of school boards and senior management teams

School boards and senior management in schools play a crucial role in implementing pedagogical strategies, fostering Professional Learning Communities (PLCs), and ensuring appropriate facilities. T-TEL collaborates with the Ghana Education Service to provide targeted capacity development support to school board members, enabling them to effectively fulfil their responsibilities and proactively enhance educational quality. The support includes training for the Board of Governors, assisting schools in developing improvement plans, and providing guidance through school improvement advisors. These efforts enable school boards and leadership teams to oversee effective, learning-oriented institutions with comprehensive improvement plans, and schools had achieved 86.6% of their improvement plan targets by March 2026.

Development and implementation of School Improvement Plans

The Ministry of Education with support from T-TEL led the development of Ghana’s first National School Leaders Standards, which was built around three domains: Pedagogical Leadership, Systems Leadership and Community Leadership. GES and the Public Services Commission are now using these Standards to reshape how school leaders are performance managed. The intent is to shift the focus onto leadership behaviours heads can actually influence, rather than outcomes like WASSCE results that sit largely outside their control.

The proportion of school boards and senior management teams demonstrating a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities has risen from 58.6% in 2023 to 89.9% in 2025.

Coaching and support to schools

T-TEL also supports the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) to extend leadership capacity building beyond individual schools to Regional Education Offices. In line with this, IEPA developed a leadership training programme for all 16 Regional Directors of Education and their management teams, and recruited and trained 32 Regional Education Coaches, who now work in pairs across the country’s Regional Education Offices, mentoring leaders and supporting them to deliver their own Improvement Plans.