This blog was written by Camila Pereira, CEO, Global School Leaders.
For years, global education has overlooked the role of school leaders. Recently, governments, funders, and NGOs have started paying more attention to the role of school leadership in systemic change, stronger programmes, and improved student outcomes.
At Global School Leaders (GSL), we have spent the last eight years testing different approaches to strengthen school leadership across diverse contexts in low- and middle-income countries, including India, Indonesia, and Sierra Leone. With robust research methods and partnerships with leading institutions, we have closely monitored and evaluated these efforts.
We are now finalising a set of long-term studies and a coherent picture begins to emerge from the findings:
- School leadership training is a viable pathway to improving student outcomes.
- School leader engagement strengthens the implementation of other interventions.
- Leadership-focused approaches can be highly cost-effective.
- As with all interventions, impact depends on programme design and system context.
- Can school leadership training improve student outcomes?
Yes.
We saw this most clearly in our work with Alokit and J-PAL in Telangana, India. Schools where leaders received training showed greater progress in numeracy and classroom engagement. The intervention led to a 0.14 standard deviation improvement in foundational numeracy – equivalent to 2.06 months of learning. This effect is meaningful – stronger than about 70% of results seen in education interventions in LMICs.
Across contexts, studies show consistent evidence that school leadership training improves teachers’ instructional practices. This matters because improving instruction is one of the most reliable pathways to better student learning. Training also improved students’ sense of belonging and classroom climate – foundational needs for sustained learning.
However, these impacts require strong design and delivery (which we will discuss further in question 4). Programmes that are too light-touch or focused only on administrative compliance are unlikely to generate meaningful change.
- Can training school leaders improve the quality of implementation?
Yes.
Many promising education interventions fail at the “last mile” because implementation breaks down at the school level. School leaders have often been overlooked in this process – with training and engagement only for teachers and students.
Our evidence shows that when properly engaged, school leaders can carry interventions through this last mile.
In studies in Indonesia (with Inspirasi) and Sierra Leone (with NYAF and Educaid), teachers improved instruction more when principals were trained alongside them. This resulted in:
- More frequent and higher-quality classroom observations and feedback (e.g., in Indonesia, trained principals led observations and feedback sessions 8.86 times per semester, compared to 3.97 times in the control group);
- Greater use of student data to guide teaching (g., in Sierra Leone, usage of assessments to set learning goals increased significantly in schools led by trained school leaders);
- More consistent use of resources and institutionalisation of routines.
From a practical perspective, the implication is clear: if you are implementing or funding an instructional intervention, incorporating school leaders is not an optional add-on – it is an essential component.
This also points to a broader conversation in the field. Rather than relying only on external coaches or middle-tier officials, school leaders can act as in-school instructional coaches, supporting daily practice in a sustained way. Other studies from partners in the field have been pointing in the same direction.
- Is investing in school leaders’ training cost-effective?
Yes.
Training one school leader affects many teachers and, through them, hundreds of students. This multiplier effect makes leadership interventions highly cost-effective.
In India, the intervention cost USD2.81 per student while producing meaningful gains in learning. Using the LAYS (learning-adjusted years of schooling) approach, this translates into 3.2 LAYS per USD100—placing it in the top third of programs by cost-effectiveness.
We are also testing hybrid delivery models (in-person and online) to further improve cost-effectiveness while maintaining impact.
Beyond cost-effectiveness as a standalone intervention, school leadership increases the return on existing education investments. Governments already invest heavily in teachers, materials, and programmes – but their impact depends on how well they are implemented. School leaders play a central role in that translation. Even modest improvements in leadership can significantly increase the effectiveness of these investments.
For funders working within constrained budgets, this is a critical insight: school leadership is both a standalone entry point for systemic change and a high-leverage way to ensure that broader system investments deliver stronger results.
- Under what conditions do school leadership programmes generate impact?
Content, delivery, and system context all matter.
Programme content: In studies where we found gains in student outcomes, the main drivers of impact were instructional practices emphasised in training sessions, such as classroom observation, structured feedback to support teachers, and use of student data.
At the same time, we learnt that financial and managerial skills remain important gaps in many contexts and should also be addressed.
Delivery method: Standalone workshops are rarely sufficient. More effective programmes are sustained over time, include coaching or follow-up, provide clear tools, and build professional learning communities.
Hybrid models are showing promise. In Sierra Leone, for example, leaders reported higher engagement and found blended approaches more practical given their workload.
System conditions: System-level factors can amplify or undermine impact. For example:
- In Telangana, school networks with stronger management structures saw larger gains than those with weaker coordination.
- Large-scale principal transfers and holidays significantly disrupted implementation in India and Indonesia.
- Role design and policies influence who enters and stays in leadership, as we saw in a system study on gender imbalances in Ghana and Kenya.
- Light-touch accountability mechanisms in Indonesia were associated with better programme implementation
- Administrative burden often limits leaders’ ability to engage fully in training
These findings highlight that training alone is not enough. For leaders to exercise instructional leadership, systems must also reduce administrative load by fostering distributed leadership and protecting instruction time; carefully design the recruitment, selection, and allocation processes for school principals; and provide stable, supportive, conditions, as well as accountability mechanisms.
Looking ahead
For us at GSL, this reinforces a simple idea: school leaders sit at the centre of how policies become practice.
For funders, policymakers, and partners, the implication is not that school leadership should replace other investments – but that it should be treated as a core pillar of any strategy to improve learning at scale.
We will continue to build and share evidence in this area. While findings are consistent across contexts, this remains an evolving body of knowledge. Continued research will be critical to deepen understanding of what works, for whom, and under what conditions.
We hope this framing helps shift the conversation from isolated results toward a clearer understanding of what investing in school leadership can make possible.
