In 2024, African leaders declared a Decade of Education, a bold and visionary step towards a continent-wide education transformation. Realizing the ambition of this Decade requires innovative and sustainable approaches, particularly in the areas of school leadership, teacher preparation, and continuing professional development (CPD). These elements form the backbone of quality education and are instrumental in ensuring that gains are not only achieved but sustained and scaled.

Transformative School Leadership: Vision, Data, and Sustainability

Innovative school leadership drives change by shaping school culture, guiding the use of resources, and improving student outcomes. Four key approaches stand out: (1) Distributed Leadership Models: Empowering teachers, parents, and communities to participate in school decision-making enhances relevance, local ownership, and shared responsibility. (2) Data-Driven Decision-Making: Integrating technology and analytics supports real-time insights into student progress, teacher performance, and resource management, enabling evidence-based planning. (3) Instructional Leadership: School leaders should prioritize classroom quality by conducting regular observations, offering feedback, and supporting teachers in applying effective pedagogy. (4) Sustainability through Leadership: Promoting green school practices such as solar energy, rainwater harvesting, and environmental education reflects a commitment to cost efficiency and ecological responsibility.

While strengthening school and distributed leadership within decentralized systems is key to driving sustainable improvements in education, and decentralization exists across many African countries, sub-national structures often lack real autonomy and capacity. Empowering district officials, headteachers, and communities through targeted leadership development and shared decision-making can enhance accountability, local ownership, and equitable learning outcomes. Unpacking this area and exploring practical solutions and commitments will be valuable at the Triennale.

Innovative Teacher Preparation: Building a Future-Ready Workforce

Addressing Africa’s evolving educational needs starts with rethinking how teachers are prepared. Key practices include blended pre-service training that combines in-person and digital platforms to expand access to teacher education, especially for remote and underserved communities. Embracing competency-based training also helps to align teacher preparation with practical classroom skills, including digital literacy, inclusive pedagogy, and classroom management. A third aspect is culturally responsive pedagogy. Teachers needs to be prepared to use local languages, histories, and values, promoting engagement, identity, and learner relevance. There is need to embrace public-private collaboration by engaging NGOs, universities, and EdTech firms to enhance the reach, quality, and contextualization of teacher training. Finally, beyond the motivation, well-being, accountability, governments need to professionalize the teacher and the teaching profession.

Sustained Professional Development: CPD for Lifelong Impact

Effective CPD is continuous, contextualized, and embedded in daily practice. This calls for the following:

• Microlearning & Mobile CPD: Offers bite-sized, on-demand training via mobile phones and SMS, tailored to teachers in low-resource environments.
• Peer Learning Communities: Foster collaborative learning, mentorship, and the exchange of best practices among teachers.
• Instructional Coaching: Moves beyond one-off workshops to provide ongoing, job-embedded professional support through coaching and mentoring.
• Impact-Driven CPD: Uses feedback and evidence to adapt CPD programs, ensuring they are effective in improving student learning outcomes.

Cross-Cutting Enablers for Sustainability and Scale & Emerging Models and Scalable Innovations

To amplify and sustain innovations, several enabling conditions must be in place. First is the policy and financing. Governments must align policies with long-term goals, prioritize education financing, and support the scaling of proven innovations. The second enabler is technology integration, which entails leveraging affordable and fit-for-purpose EdTech to improve teaching, assessment, and school management systems. Lastly, community engagement is key. Involving parents, local leaders, and communities reinforces education as a shared societal priority, thereby improving accountability and relevance.

There are promising initiatives already advancing these principles across Africa. They include the African Centre for School Leadership and Leaders in Teaching (Mastercard Foundation), the LEAP Programme in South Africa (Public Investment Corporation & BRIDGE Innovation), SABER School Leadership Toolkit (World Bank: Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia), African Teacher Education Network (AfTEN), T-TEL (Transforming Teacher Education and Learning in Ghana), and UNESCO IICBA and VVOB’s professional development models. These initiatives mark a shift from one-size-fits-all approaches to localized, data-informed, tech-enabled, and community-driven strategies. They represent models that can be contextualized, scaled, and adapted across the continent. At the same time, there is a need to consider pedagogical models that help to deal with large classes, a regular feature in many African countries, because existing models are for small classes. It is therefore important to explore effective ways of delivering and improving learning in situation of large classes.

The Decade of Education for Africa presents a pivotal opportunity to invest in systems that are resilient, inclusive, and future-ready. Strong school leadership, innovative teacher preparation, and sustained professional development create a multiplier effect – driving equity, improving learning outcomes, and equipping Africa’s youth with the skills to thrive in the 21st century. This sub-theme will surface and analyze promising models that demonstrate sustainability, innovation, and impact, providing evidence and inspiration for African countries seeking to transform their education systems at scale.