The TARGET programme supports the World Bank’s General Education Quality Improvement Programme for Equity in Ethiopia by training federal and regional level government agencies, reforming national school leadership training, enhancing school improvement planning and activity, and strengthening monitoring and evaluation – all with a focus on inclusion and equity for marginalised learners. In recent months, the team has been piloting its school leadership training model, which has now been cascaded to over 1500 education professionals, including 1100 school leaders outside of the pilot schools.

The minster visited three pilot schools and participated in productive discussions with Regional Education Bureau officials, lead trainers, school supervisors and school principals and vice principals. In these discussions, Beyene Barasa,  Sidama Regional State Education Bureau Head and Vice President of the Sidama Region explained that, from the assessment undertaken by his organisation, the eight pilot schools have shown “tangible improvements in leadership practices”, despite only being the early stages of the training programme. He stressed that even if the Ministry of Education (MoE) does not scale up this programme, the Regional Education Bureau (REB) is determined to cascade it to all schools under its jurisdiction.

At the end of the visit, Dr Geremew noted that this school leadership programme is likely to be one of the main means through which the MoE could mitigate some of the challenges of school leadership practices in the Ethiopian education system, and added that it will be part of Ethiopia’s Education Policy after the pilot trial.  The success of the ministerial visit has been really encouraging to the TARGET team – well done to all for the excellent work to date.