Keywords

Introduction

Since beginning, our school faced the problem of students failing in public examinations and of huge dropout in different grades. We tried to solve these issues but could not. Change took place when the current principal started to engage teachers and students in teaching and learning. Now students are active participants in classes and teachers lead them to a bright destiny. We lead our faculty members, coordinate tasks and enjoy freedom. Our school walks to a greater success and we are proud to be part of that. (Tasnim, teacher and faculty leader)

Tasnim, a teacher in Shanjeebon School, described in these words how teacher engagement with students and their participation in leadership are changing in his school. Shanjeebon is an urban secondary school of 67 teachers and 3500 students. It is located in a poor community bounded on one side by a bazaar, a slum on another and a river on the third. Most of the parents have low income and many are illiterate. Due to social, economic and political factors, changes for improvement are often complicated in such areas of Bangladesh. However, in Shanjeebon School the principal is working to improve the current practice, mainly through the effective engagement of teachers. This chapter explores the principal’s strategies to see how the processes may benefit other schools in similar contexts.

The Principal and the School

This is a case study of a principal named Nazrul and his school which has been given the pseudonym of Shanjeebon School. Initially the principal was chosen because of the way he was using his students as teachers’ assistants in class. When we talked further, other aspects of his entrepreneurial approach to managing people and resources emerged. We investigated how he made a difference to student learning and to the professional development of his teachers. The primary process for examining his actions and ideas was through an extended sequence of conversations, or professional dialogues. In these dialogues, we discussed extensively his work as a principal and our respective understandings of what education is about, what changes are needed for schooling in Bangladesh, how he interprets his role and the initiatives he has taken in his school to improve student learning and the greater wellbeing of the community.

As stated above, Shanjeebon School is located in an urban district that has a lot of people living at or just below subsistence level. Many of them are day labourers, working in the local bazaar or in garment factories. In the past, parents of students in this school, similar to many other parents from similar socio-economic backgrounds, did not perceive they had the capacity to engage actively with the school or with the education of their children. While the school under study cannot be considered as the representative of all schools in Bangladesh, there are many schools where parents experience similar degrees of hardship and where teachers perceive that students are not truly engaged in learning.

The background of this school in terms of the socio-economic status at local and national level and the complete findings of the research into Nazrul’s strategies are described elaborately in Salahuddin (2016). This chapter particularly focuses on the ways that the principal followed to develop teacher leadership in learning.

Educational Change in Bangladesh

A host of global and local economic and political forces are currently triggering an expectation of change in education in Bangladesh. As a result, school authorities and many principals feel the pressure for improving the teaching and learning practices (National Academy for Educational Management [NAEM] & BRAC, 2004; Salahuddin, 2013). Current training practices continue to draw principals to focus more on administrative responsibilities than on the encouragement of creative and innovative thinking. However, some principals are exploring ways of engaging teachers and students more thoroughly in the processes of teaching and learning (NAEM & BRAC, 2004).

This chapter focuses on a case of evolving teacher leadership practices in a particular urban secondary school, resulting from the initiative of one creative principal. His practices are grounded in the realities of the Bangladeshi context as well as drawing on exemplars from international sources. The chapter also reports how these practices enhanced student learning both in terms of success in examinations and the development of life skills. It identifies strategies, initiated by the school principal, that aimed at developing and supporting teacher leadership. Finally, it offers a potential framework for building teacher leadership in the Bangladeshi context.

Although many Western studies indicate that principal leadership is a key factor in school improvement (Elmore, 2005; Fullan, 2011; Harris, 2008; Smylie, 1995), it is widely acknowledged that principal leadership is not sufficient to achieve all the goals of an educational organisation. Assistant teachers are also required to take leadership roles and responsibilities. The following discussion considers how this need can be addressed in a Bangladeshi context. Many of the studies on school leadership in developing countries have been carried out by Western researchers; therefore a gap between the researcher’s values and expectations and the educational context within the country is often observed. This study has been conducted by a Bangladeshi researcher, the first author, who grounds the investigation and the analytic reflection of the findings within the social, political and economic context of Bangladesh.

Context of School Leadership in Bangladesh

Education in Bangladesh is still largely structured on postcolonial lines and so remains somewhat hierarchical and authoritarian. Formal authority resides in the role of a principal as well as a deputy principal. Most principals come into the position due to mere fact that they have met the requirements of teaching background and practices. However, often they have limited theoretical knowledge of how to lead and motivate their teaching staff (Abdullah, Haq, & Ismail, 2008; Salahuddin, 2012, 2013). They tend to apply administrative codes developed at the national level without adapting them to their school-specific context and without also developing the professional capabilities of their teachers. They are also found to have not considered the social and cultural expectations and the needs of the community at large. There are few introductory training courses for principals that provide opportunities to explore leadership. There is therefore a need to develop training courses that would empower principals to improve the leadership capacities of assistant teachers, as studies have strongly suggested that tapping into the leadership skills of teachers can lead schools in Bangladesh to achieve better learning outcomes (Hoque, Alam, & Abdullah, 2011).

Power structures that typically operate within Bangladeshi schools are as they read this account of innovations. For example, teachers are appointed to teach specific subjects, but there are seldom any organisational structures that support collaborative development of particular disciplines. Therefore teachers tend to teach from the mandated textbook and in isolation behind closed classroom doors; there are few schools where teachers are able to pool expertise or actively seek advice from colleagues. Delegation of authority in forms of distributive leadership is not typical practice. Thus the overarching, and largely accepted, authoritative power of the principal tends to preclude communally negotiated change. At best, a creative and innovative principal may initiate changes that allow his teachers to be more effective and students to be more engaged. At this stage in Bangladeshi educational development, teachers do not yet have a strong professional voice. Within their own classrooms, however, teachers tend to have complete authority. Other power structures that may exist within a school tend to be unofficial and may be based on age or relationships with politically influential members of the community. Working against the micropolitical influence that may operate within a school as well as in the wider community is a challenge for any principal seeking to reform the system.

In the system stated, some principals set specific achievement goals for their schools, and they attempt to distribute their workload and leadership to teachers to make the school system more diverse and innovative (NAEM & BRAC, 2004). These principals are often inspired by national and international training programs; they aim to create more successful outcomes for students by introducing new ideas and strategies that they have learned into their schools in ways that match their own contexts. Nazrul, the principal studied in this chapter, is one of them. While keeping within the stated aim of funded education projects asking participants to imitate and implement the best practice in developed countries (Asad, 2009), this principal has been evolving teacher leadership in a way that is grounded in the unique realities of his own school community. The following section presents a brief account of the research method.

The Study

The methodological approach used in this research is that of case study within a qualitative framework (Creswell, 2013). The intention of such an approach is to highlight the complexities of place and situation (Stake, 2005) at the same time as identifying the key features of the case itself—in this instance the details of what the principal did to make a difference in his school and how he addressed the challenges he encountered. A qualitative case study shares some of the elements of ethnography as it seeks to create a thick description (Geertz, 1988) of events, actions, reactions, perceptions and consequences. It focuses on the singularity of the case itself, rather than seeking to reconceptualise it through the parameters of external theories, although theorisations developed from other cases might be utilised to illuminate aspects of the case. This approach was chosen because the goal of the overall research project was to investigate the situated and constantly evolving circumstances of how the principal initiated and managed changes and how he involved others in sharing aspects of his leadership. It is believed that it is precisely the detailed nature of his strategies and changes that can be useful to others, particularly other leaders and policymakers in Bangladesh as well as in other similar contexts.

Within this broad approach, the process of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2004) promotes attention to the ways in which actions and consequences are mediated by people’s experiences and by the social contexts in which they are embedded (Chase, 2005; Davis, 2002). Accordingly, this inquiry utilised a series of professional dialogues (Grey, 2011; Simoncini, Lasen, & Rocco, 2014) with the principal, interviews with teachers and school managing committee (SMC) members, group discussions with students and parents and an analysis of the school’s reporting documents and records of projects.

A defining element of a professional dialogue is the engagement by both participants and researcher in talking together over a prolonged length of time, not to answer predetermined questions but to explore and ‘make meaning’ from professional experiences. Analysis is thus an ongoing process that is shared by researcher and participants, with primacy given to reflection on experience rather than on codification. It is from these dialogues that participants’ narratives were constructed. In this chapter a number of key themes are identified and reported that define the leadership style in the school and the ways teachers are developed as leaders.

Any names in this chapter are pseudonyms, given to respect the rights of participants to anonymity.

Teacher Leadership in Current Literature

Teacher leadership has emerged from world literature as an important factor in enabling future leaders in a school. Katzenmeyer and Moller (2009) have argued that in the past many principals have not understood the importance of facilitating the role of teacher leadership. Many principals in developing countries consider teacher leadership only in terms of the team leader or the subject leader. The concept of teacher leadership is useful across the education sector as is the notion that all teachers have expertise and can improve the way they lead learning (Harris, 2003; Lovett & Andrews, 2011). However, developing their own expertise warrants further understanding of this concept among teachers in different contexts. Ackerman and Mackenzie (2007) defined teacher leadership as a collective and collaborative endeavour in schools rather than centralised leadership. Crowther, Kaagan, Furguson and Hann (2002) focused on its potential in leading whole school reform. Stein, Smith and Silver (1999) explained how teachers learn in a social setting in their school context rather than individually. Through their own approach to work, teachers try to influence other teachers to find ways to improve teaching and learning. Formal leadership positions are not essential to develop teacher leadership, and teachers can engage and contribute to leadership tasks from any position (Robinson, Hohepa, & Llyod, 2009).

Although developing teacher leadership in traditional hierarchical schools is acknowledged to be complicated, theorists (see, e.g. Harris, 2008; Lovett & Andrews, 2011; Robinson et al., 2009) have argued that principals can expedite the process by creating opportunities for the professional development of teachers as leaders. In particular, Katzenmeyer and Moller (2009) proposed that when teachers engage in professional learning to develop their leadership, by improving instruction, mentoring others and planning collaboratively, they are learning through their own reflective practice. Du (2007) emphasised the importance of principals recognising the work of teacher leaders, motivating them to develop their leadership further and supporting them to take responsibility for their own learning. He expressed the hope that in this way teachers as leaders will come to realise that leadership is part of their ongoing work for the success of the school. Reeves (2008) pointed out that when teachers do understand their leadership roles, they become conscious of and are able to identify barriers to growing their leadership. They learn that blaming others can be a fundamental barrier to their development of teacher leadership and seek to develop alternative strategies to surmount barriers and to build their own capacity for leadership in the school.

In discussing how to develop teacher leadership, Merideth (2007) described teacher leaders as risk-takers, who are efficient in teaching, enjoy autonomy, are collegial and have a sense of respect to others. It is to encourage the development of such qualities that Katzenmeyer and Moller (2009) suggested inviting teachers to explore their own beliefs, to help teachers to understand their positions as leaders and to enhance how they lead others. In order to support the development of these concepts, Fullan (2007, 2010) advocated that changing the existing school culture is more important than changing structures or positions.

Teachers as Leaders in Shanjeebon School

In the school system of Bangladesh, leadership is almost always principal-centred, and all the tasks are expected to be led and guided directly by this leadership. In Western research, however, the centrality of the principal positioned as leader has been identified as a potential barrier to strengthening teacher commitment and involvement in school improvement (Dimmock & Walker, 1998; Walker & Ko, 2010).

In Bangladesh, teachers rarely have the scope to be engaged with and lead activities outside their allocated teaching (Thornton, 2006). Despite such a system, the principal of Shanjeebon School has developed a culture of teachers as leaders in his school. This has been achieved through personal encouragement, by redesigning some of the organisational structures in the school, enabling teachers to act as leaders, and by opening up the scope for leadership throughout the institution. These are discussed in the following sections.

Changing Structures to Enable Engaged Teaching

Redesigning the school’s classroom structures was an important first stage in the process that the principal implemented in engaging teachers in the vision of the school and in developing them as leaders. One of the problems most evident in Bangladeshi secondary schools is the large number of students in a class and the consequent difficulty teachers face in actively engaging with student learning (Hamid, Sussex, & Khan, 2009).

Nazrul, the principal, addressed this challenge by regrouping students in the classes. In Shanjeebon School, as in many schools, students are allocated a roll number based on their ranking of their achievement in examinations. Previously students were ability-streamed into sections in each year level with those above a certain rank in Section A and those below in Section B. In Shanjeebon’s system the grouping of students was changed so that odd and even number ranked students were clustered together, thus avoiding a division based on previous academic achievements, resulting in more homogeneous sections.

Nazrul explained how he started his position in Shanjeebon School with a dream to lift the expectations and the performance of the school and noted that students in the previous Section B (those in the lower achieving half based on the roll numbers) were seldom attentive in class and often performed poorly in examinations. Neither students nor teachers felt comfortable being in Section B; rather they all showed disappointment. Nazrul reflected, ‘I was conscious of issues about sectioning from my own earlier experience and knew how frustrating it would be for teachers and students’. The reorganisation of sections meant that there would be no difference now in the achievement levels of each section. While this change did not eliminate the problem of large class sizes, it seems to have enhanced the motivation levels of both teachers and students to be more engaged in class. Shahrim, one of the school’s teachers, affirmed the benefit of the principal’s action:

Previously, we used to be disappointed whenever we were assigned as a course teacher for section B. Now we do not mind since there is no difference in sections. There was an impact on students due to the new policy. Students in section B do not get their face red to tell their section’s name what put them in pressure in families and society. As we both (students and teachers) are out of this mental pressure, we are now more focused in learning.

Despite this change, teachers were still challenged in finding ways to ensure student participation since each class often held over 70 students. In many cases teachers could not make contact with all the students in class because of limited time, and students could not engage with lessons properly as many of them needed additional personalised support in order to understand the content. In response, the principal and teachers discussed ways to engage students within the constraints of existing resources.

The decision was made to develop small student clusters in each class. In order to make each group diversified, teachers created clusters involving students across the range of academic abilities. In addition, teachers nominated a student within each group as their assistant during teaching. These students worked as leaders to communicate between the teachers and group members. Teachers and students both reported that they benefitted from the clusters in various ways.

Mahathir, a teacher in the school, explained the problem and the solution that was put into place:

It was impossible for me to reach every student in a class since the class size is quite big. I would walk through the class but could watch work at best for ten students only. So, many students could not understand the content I taught. Students did not assist each other since they were not used to doing so. Now they sit in a cluster system and help each other. Since the clusters are made of mixed ability students, they can easily help each other.

The teachers happily observed that a culture of sharing responsibility for learning was being developed where teachers and students were now active participants. The change in the composition of students within sections and clustering students with their own leaders may not be considered as a major change in some Western countries; however in Shanjeebon School it has proved to be significant: teachers and students are now much more motivated and engaged in class.

Extending the Scope of Leadership Throughout the School

To develop teachers as leaders, it is essential to create leadership opportunities, and in order to offer such opportunities, Nazrul developed a communication system among teachers. In 2011, he developed a system of faculties that was inspired by his visit to a number of secondary schools in New Zealand. He saw that dividing the schoolwork into different faculties helps build the capabilities of teachers, where a faculty is defined as a unit in which a group of teachers from a similar academic field of courses work together.

However, introducing this new idea into a traditional system was not simple. It needed to ‘make sense’ to teachers in order for them to welcome it. The principal proposed the new system in a meeting, explained how it would run and how it would enhance learning. He emphasised how previously there had been a lack of communication among teachers and a lack of shared planning for their courses. He pointed out how this system might be a way of overcoming these issues and that it had the potential to enhance student learning. The discussion resulted in teachers being willing to develop the faculties of Bangla, English, Science Education, Business Education and Arts Education.

To run the faculties systematically, more teacher leaders were needed in addition to those that already existed in the roles of principal and vice-principal. The principal and selected members of the staff set up a project within the school to identify and divide the tasks within the school, specify job responsibilities and boundaries and set the targets and goals of each of the faculties. They decided that faculty leaders would be the key people and that they would resolve problems whenever possible at the faculty level. The faculty leaders were to be accountable directly to the principal.

School leadership was shared out into these faculties and they started working beyond centralised leadership. In selecting faculty leaders, Shanjeebon School developed a process that was different from what is most common in Bangladesh where seniority of age is often a key factor. Instead, the principal proposed a process that focused on teachers’ professional skills, interest, commitment and experience. Whereas in most schools, teachers who are senior in age would normally lead tasks, leadership in Shanjeebon School was now based on qualifications and level of commitment, and thus some leaders turned out to be relatively young.

This approach of selecting and developing leaders has the potential to set an example for other secondary schools in Bangladesh. However, political issues within a school might arise if older teachers who may feel they have lost their status resist this process. According to the principal, in Shanjeebon School there was indeed the need to overcome resistance from some older teachers who initially felt they had been slighted and their seniority undermined. Nazrul explained his perception of the initial problem and his belief that this was resolved over time:

At the time we started the new system of selecting leaders, some senior teachers were not happy since some of them had lost their standing. It took time to show the benefits of the new system and how it worked and convince them. They are happy now because they can work under close supervision and support of a leader which was not possible in earlier days.

Nazrul as well as several other teachers reported that there is now enhanced collaboration among teachers due to the decentralisation of leadership as well as a redistribution of leadership based on a new set of criteria where productivity and effort are emphasised. In this way older teachers were not only reconciled to the appointments but also showed enthusiasm about the new faculties when the new leaders were seen to be offering useful academic support to their teams.

In order to make this productive, the faculty leaders needed to develop sound communication with their team and systematic coordination of programs; therefore a monthly faculty meeting is now held allowing teachers to exchange their views, compare progress and plan their different courses which keeps them updated in terms of the principles of teaching and learning. Mahtab, a faculty leader, reflected on the way he perceives the change:

Before developing faculties, there was limited communication and coordination among teachers. As a result, students became the ultimate victims in examination and evaluation. Sometimes parents came to the principal and complained that the course teacher did not teach the content in classroom that had been set in examination questions. Now there are no complaints as teachers update themselves regularly with their faculty leader as well as in the monthly faculty meetings.

For good communication and coordination to develop among teachers in a faculty, there is need for relationships of trust (Lovett & Andrews, 2011; Robinson, 2010). The principal played a strong role as an advisor, supervisor, advocate and friend in various situations, helping to build trustful relationships among the teachers. Being motivated by such inspiring leadership of the principal, the faculty leaders were able to build trust and reliable relationships within their own teams. The faculty leaders help the teachers in their teams so they are engaged in the continuous process of developing a culture of reliability, trust and interdependency in the school. The principal noted:

They know very well that I stand beside them in any situation. For any of their problems if they want to phone someone, that’s me. It does not matter how big the problem is. Even for family decisions they sometimes ask for my suggestions. So we have very good relationships and I try to maintain that.

Dialogue with participant teachers confirmed that there is now a strong culture of trust in this school and that teachers respect the principal highly. The principal and faculty leaders play strong roles in building relationships among staff. Democratic practices are driven by the principal’s approach which has established the climate and culture of trust for teachers to feel comfortable about contributing, and this has resulted in teachers talking to each other and to the principal about the school’s goals and projects.

Building a Teacher–Parent Relationship

The principal realised how important it was to engage parents and community for the benefit of students. Many of the parents are illiterate day labourers, which limits their confidence and capacity in taking an active interest in their children’s schooling. These parents very seldom came to school to look at how their children were progressing. To address this challenge, the principal engaged the students in a campaign to motivate parents to come to school and to join the parent meetings. Students were instructed to give a letter from the principal to their parents and to collect signatures from parents agreeing to be present. He was able to get almost all parents to his first parent meeting. Getting them to come to the meeting was the first step, but the more important challenge was to help them engage with their children’s progress in learning.

To engage parents he opened the floor at the meeting to listen to them. He wanted to get suggestions and to hear about the successes and weaknesses of the school. Most of the talk was positive and parents and teachers talked through a range of issues. However, since parents were not always diplomatic, what they had to say was sometimes uncomfortable for teachers. Nazrul tried to note all of their concerns and answer them if he could or at least acknowledge them if there was no answer ready. Not unexpectedly, he encountered strong resistance from some of his teachers. Nazrul explained:

When they were talking against us, I saw that my teachers’ faces were getting red. They were not habituated to hearing these things in a public forum. Parents were talking about what they get, do not get, and what they expect from teachers. My teachers were not happy and I had to sit with them afterwards.

After the first parent meeting, the principal met with the teachers and discussed the importance of constructive criticism and how it would benefit their school in the near future. As they explored the benefits of building relationships with families, the teachers became happier and began to develop real interest in creating bridges that would support student learning at home. Now teachers prepare for the public examination by each taking responsibility for a small group, visiting them at home to support them if that is needed; this close care enhances student learning.

When he first came into the school, Nazrul noticed that there was a culture of keeping the principal’s door closed to parents except for one hour in the morning and another in the evening. The parents who work in the garment factories could not visit the school during these hours. Nazrul began to welcome parents and community people into his room at any time and he got very positive responses. The vice-principal was initially cynical about this initiative as she was accustomed to keeping a formal distance from parents.

Indeed, the culture of formal respect towards teachers in Bangladesh tends to create a distance between teachers and parents, and leaders in particular are accustomed to speaking from a position of unchallenged authority. However, when she observed the benefit of talking with parents and engaging them in the school, she came to understand the reason for the principal’s suggestions. Ointika, the vice-principal, explains:

Previously I preferred to talk little to parents, with a very strong attitude, so that they can understand my position. Parents or students never saw my smiling face and I thought smiling might lose my personality. When the principal started openly talking to parents in a very generous way, I felt embarrassed, and that challenged me. At first, I could not be positive about his way of interacting, but when I observed the benefits it convinced me to change myself.

In this way the principal modelled behaviours that motivated his colleagues to change their own ways of communicating with parents and students. When teachers now talk to parents in a positive way, it breaks down the power relations between them, and this in turn makes it easier to engage parents more actively in their children’s learning and improves educational outcomes as well as building the self-esteem of students.

Building Capacity Through Leading

Shanjeebon School has created leadership opportunities beyond ordinary classroom activities. Through Nazrul’s initiatives, teachers lead work within national and international projects, such as Connecting Classrooms and Tree Plantation. Connecting Classrooms offers international leadership opportunities; the Tree Plantation project connects teachers with their local communities to provide leadership in changing their own neighbourhoods.

Connecting Classrooms is run by the British Council and aims to develop young students as global citizens. It has created a number of leadership positions for teachers and students in this school. It provides professional training for teachers and principals to develop ideas about global citizenship and offers leadership training to principals, teachers and students for preparing leaders in schools and classrooms (British Council Bangladesh, 2016). This project links Bangladeshi schools to a number of schools in the United Kingdom, where they learn from each other. There is a coordinating teacher who leads interactions and discussions with the counterpart school. Through this project teachers get an opportunity to be global leaders. The coordinator shared his experience:

For the project, I need to communicate with our connecting school in the UK. Students exchange their views on different issues through e-mails. I got the opportunity to visit our connecting school and attending a short training on leadership through the project.

This project has opened doors for teachers and their students to get leadership experiences from home and abroad.

As they gained benefit from involvement in international programs, teachers became motivated to lead a program to make their local environment safe. To counteract the effects of industrial pollution, the school initiated a program of free tree plantation in nearby communities. Although the idea came from the principal, a teacher led the program and gained grounded experience in leading students and young people within the community. The teacher shared his experience:

We have a programme to keep our environment safe. We call it ‘Tree Plantation Programme’. Every year we organize the programme to distribute some trees free to our young generation. Our students monitor how they are taking care of those trees. Through this programme we are connected to our society and lead it in keeping our environment safe.

The school also runs clubs, including debate, drama, Red Crescent and Scouts events, where teachers lead students. There is a teacher assigned to lead each club who is responsible for student engagement, learning and leadership in that club. The work benefits the community, and the experience helps teachers to understand leadership in contexts that are different from school.

Discussion

The project of building teacher leadership within Shanjeebon School is summarised in the following model.

As the model in Fig. 8.1 indicates, the principal has created opportunities for teacher leadership in a number of ways: realigning organisational structures within the school, providing scope for such leadership across the activities of the school and actively engaging teachers in the building of school-parent relationships. Throughout, there has been an emphasis on building the capabilities of teachers through their experiences of leadership and on building the capacity of the school through its teachers to improve student learning, both academic and life skills.

Fig. 8.1
figure 1

Strategies for building teacher leadership in Shanjeebon School

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International literature (see, e.g. Bush, 2008; Fullan, 2010; Robinson, 2010) has affirmed the positive impact of good leadership on school and student outcomes. The benefits of developing faculties in this school include teachers becoming more involved in their job and the school achieving better examination results. Students, parents and community are also part of the school improvement process, especially when they are encouraged to support the school and contribute to the vision by helping the students to learn. Leadership in this school, characterised by the principal sharing responsibilities and creating new opportunities for teachers to lead, has enabled collaboration with teachers, students, parents and community by engaging them in shaping vision, rather than assigning them as receivers of delegated tasks. The key strategies for building teacher leadership are reshaping school structures and reassigning leadership roles to enable teachers to focus more on teaching and learning. The principal’s idea of sectioning and clustering differently was successfully innovative because it changed the culture in the school (Fullan, 2010, 2011) and it did not cost anything.

Another initiative that is not commonly found in Bangladesh is institutionalising leadership opportunities by developing faculties and delegating responsibility for tasks among teachers. Whereas in many schools in Bangladesh principals tend to use their power in an authoritative and dominating manner, this principal shares the responsibility for student outcomes. Blankstein and Noguera (2015) advocated for leaders to find new solutions for teaching and learning that support teachers for enabling more effective learning outcomes. The principal has created leadership opportunities for his teachers by creating faculties and involving them in national and international projects.

Initially the new faculty leaders had little idea about how to lead their faculties. Therefore the principal prepared teachers to take on new responsibilities in supervising their colleagues. This strategy is similar to work in the United States reported by Merideth (2007) where teacher leaders were risk-takers and collaborated with their colleagues when they were supported in doing so. In the case school in Bangladesh, the initiative taken by the principal seemed like an absolutely ground-breaking idea to the teachers, quite different from the traditional boundaries in school management within which they had always worked. Nazrul had to win the teachers’ trust to persuade them to operate differently. Leaders in this school are now selected on the basis of their skills, interests and experiences which is a break with normal school practice in Bangladesh.

Faculty leadership works well but it is recognised that there was initial resistance to the selection of leaders. Some older teachers were unhappy when young, skilled colleagues began to work as faculty leaders. This challenged both the principal and the young faculty leaders; however in time the older teachers accepted it as a good practice once they experienced the benefits to them. Research has shown that strong resistance against any good initiative makes its success difficult (Brundrett, 2010; Fullan, 2007; Reeves, 2008). Nazrul may not have been able to stop all resistance to his changes, however he strategised to achieve positive outcomes early so that resistance weakened through informed understanding.

This study identifies a number of significant personal characteristics and skills of the principal and within his team of leaders that enabled them to convince others and lead in new ways, even though there were no apparent immediate solutions. Examination of these qualities and the ways they were translated into action is of particular interest for determining future directions in policy and for developing leadership training courses. This study identifies five key aspects of this principal’s approach that are summarised in Fig. 8.2 and described below.

Fig. 8.2
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Leadership for change

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The first aspect in the figure involves personal skills and attitudes. Key among these is the ability to think differently and being prepared to take risks. Also important is the capacity to adapt ideas learned from the outside (perhaps international practice or research or another school) to the specific needs and opportunities of the local context. These personal qualities were evident in the shaping of this creative plan for change.

The second aspect involves values and interactive strategies. The building of trust is central here, as affirmed by other research (Fullan, 2007; Reeves, 2008). The personal courage and the skills of being able to inspire and motivate others are important. So is the demonstration of respect and support. These allow the building of relationships and the opportunity for collaborative action. These values and interactions enabled the principal to solicit, inspire and co-opt the collaboration of others.

The third aspect is using a range of processes that allow new leaders to emerge and consolidate their roles. These involved the principal surrendering aspects of control and sharing power. They also involved a process of training those who picked up the emerging new roles so that they were set up for success rather than failure.

The fourth aspect is resourcing. In Shanjeebon School this involved setting up meetings so that communication could occur and problems be tackled. It included restructuring aspects of the organisation that had previously created obstacles or reallocating responsibilities so they were more manageable. Financial expenditure was allocated to set up projects and link with other, international, organisations that already had established resources and that welcomed collaboration.

The fifth aspect is a clear and determined focus on promoting opportunities for visibly successful outcomes, so that the emerging leaders and their collaborating communities feel reinforced in their efforts and are able to let go of their fears. In student terms, in Shanjeebon School, it involved more personal engagement in learning and better examination grades. In community terms it involved being heard and parents becoming more engaged in their children’s learning. In teacher terms, it involved feeling more effective in creating learning and in contributing to the local community.

Conclusion

This chapter has reported a single case study of a resourceful and innovative principal and his work in developing teacher leaders in a secondary school in an economically disadvantaged area in Bangladesh. It has shown that even in a highly centralised and seemingly restrictive system, real differences can be made and can be effective, although time has yet to tell whether they can be sustained in the long term. It has shown that while there is still a lot to do in improving education in Bangladesh, it is not always necessary to look outside for effective models for change: some already exist within the country.

An effective model for change may not imply that there is no further need for exploration and development. This case study has reported change that has come through the principal’s vision and analysis of challenges. The case may indicate that a strong and creative leadership is important to break through some of the existing structures that limit teachers’ capacity to facilitate students’ learning. As teachers become more empowered to lead, it would be interesting to develop, critically analyse and report projects where principals engage in a dialogue with teachers, students and even communities, allowing co-learning to occur. We see such projects as important for future directions. The further development of teachers’ capacity for participatory action and professional dialogue is a necessary prelude to such reciprocity in educational change and educational research. The case reported here offers an example of how the bases for incrementally collaborative and reciprocal dialogues may be developed.

It is widely recognised that there are significant gaps in Bangladesh between policy on school improvement and the practices in schools. There are numerous research studies that identify reasons for such gaps, including poverty, incomplete national and local infrastructures, low wages for teachers, large class sizes and limited training. This study offers an example of how a creative and adventurous principal involved his teachers in repositioning the school in terms of the overt obstacles and significantly overcoming the gap between vision and outcomes. Action in one school in itself cannot make a large impact on education in the country as a whole; however it can be taken as a model for critical reflection that can provide working models for guiding the professional development of both principals and teacher leaders and for informing policy about the selection of principals and the resourcing of more distributed leadership within schools.