Learners as leaders in Namibian schools: taking responsibility and exercising agency

Abstract

Educational leadership and management (ELM) research has, all-too-often, attributed a positional quality to leadership and equated school leadership with the principal at the top of the management hierarchy. We argue that leadership is not limited by formal authority and can be exercised by individuals and groups other than the principal. Of specific interest to us is the leadership of learners. However, research in this niche area is limited, and particularly so in African countries such as Namibia. Framed by the concepts of learner voice and democratic citizenship, this article focuses on the leadership development of Namibian school learners and argues that learners should be treated as people whose ideas matter. It draws on a Bachelor of Education Honours ELM elective which required Honours students (practicing teachers) to establish leadership clubs in their schools and involve learners in a change initiative in pursuit of leadership development. The research which informed this article was designed as a case study to explore learner voice and the development of leadership across extra-curricular leadership clubs in 32 Namibian schools. Data were generated from a number of different sources and analysed thematically. The purpose of this article is two-fold; first to give a broad overview of the 32 Namibian clubs and show, through the identification of the focus areas of their club projects for the year, ‘what mattered’ to learners, and second to discuss, in detail, one of these 32 clubs. On the basis of our findings, we argue that learners can indeed be developed as leaders through the introduction of learner leadership clubs in schools. Given the appropriate forum, learners are able to articulate what matters to them in schools; they are able to develop a voice. Given the right conditions and concomitant support, learners can enact leadership, particularly when they have conceptualised the school change initiative. Because learners are central to school life, they are well placed to bring about school change. Yet, we caution, the leadership development of learners is unlikely to be sustained without bold and continued leadership on the part of teachers and the school management team.