Doha, Qatar
25 March 2017

The World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) recently concluded a workshop series as part of the Empowering Leaders of Learning (ELL) program, which is designed to support school leaders in improving student outcomes.
The ELL program workshops, a collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Education Development Institute (EDI) of Qatar Foundation (QF), are part of a series presented over a period of five to eight months.

The program is intended to strengthen leadership capabilities by working to improve a specific area in student learning. It follows two separate tracks, one for the Ministry’s ‘Maharaty’ primary schools; and one for the QF schools, in collaboration with EDI. The ELL program is made possible in part by ExxonMobil Qatar.
The workshop was led by Dr. Asmaa Al-Fadala, Director of Research, WISE, and by Dr. Simon Breakspear, Founder and CEO of the Australia-based Agile Schools. The aim is to support the participating school leaders with identifying and solving challenges that are emerging. This will then allow schools leaders to generate a professional learning strategy to spread the effective practices to a broader number of teachers across the country.

Selected participants have also benefited from the one-on-one coaching sessions that the program offers for feedback and refinement of their leadership practices and student outcome improvement process. These sessions were conducted both in-person and online.

Dr. Al-Fadala commented, saying: “This leadership development program is part of our commitment at WISE to help our school leaders and their teachers to identify specific issues and design action plans to motivate students and ultimately improve outcomes. Besides the administrative roles of school leadership, we want to continue to build the capacity of school leaders to lead sustainable change in teaching practices that improve student outcomes. We are confident that this is the best way to progress.”

The ELL program reflects the continued goal of WISE, part of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development, to support local schools in their efforts to improve. The program encourages principals and administrators to apply guidance and strategies, collaborate, and share experiences toward improved student learning outcomes.