Special Issue in honour of Edwin Jones || AN INSTITUTION DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE STATUS QUO: INSIGHTS...

AN INSTITUTION DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE STATUS QUO: INSIGHTS INTO LEADERSHIPDEVELOPMENT AND REFORM IN THE EDUCATION SECTOR OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGOAuthor(s): Jerome De LisleSource: Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 58, No. 1, Special Issue in honour of Edwin Jones(March 2009), pp. 69-93Published by: Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, University of the WestIndiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27866576 .

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Social ond Economie Studies 58: 7 (2009): 69-93 ISSN: 0037-7651

AN INSTITUTION DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE

STATUS QUO: INSIGHTS INTO LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

AND REFORM IN THE EDUCATION SECTOR OF

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

Jerome De Lisle

ABSTRACT

Despite substantial funding for education reform, why has there been so

little real administrative and institutional change within education sys tems of the South? Can leadership development really facilitate successful educational reform in the Anglophone Caribbean? Trinidad and Tobago

provides a useful case study for analyzing the impact of leadership

development programmes and its role in education reform. This paper examines reasons for the failure of current leadership development programmes to support educational change. The focus is on the education

reform period from 1968 to the present, with an emphasis on the period

starting in 1993, where leadership development became a central element

in the risk reduction strategy.

Post-colonial administrative training programmes . . . have not

generally been efficacious in regularizing administrative

practice and relationships. (Jones 1974b: 273).

In a series of articles published in the journal Social and Economic

Studies, Edwin Jones analyzed the ideological tendencies and

institutional climates associated with innovation and change in

Caribbean institutions (Jones 1974a, b; 1975). These ideas provide a

conceptual framework for analysing and evaluating education

leadership, leadership training, and educational reform within the

Caribbean context. Central to the analysis is the failure of current

professional training programmes to reconstruct the "mindscape" of educational leaders. This conceptual frame also provides an

explanation for the pervasive resistance to critical school improve ment initiatives, such as "decentralization", "school development planning," and "site-based management".



70 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES

The core argument is that to be effective within the Caribbean

context, leadership training, and institutional restructuring must

explicitly target climates and tendencies associated with post colonial bureaucracies. As Jones and Mills (1976) reasoned, real

institutional change demands the development of institutional

problem-solving capacities and this necessitates training pro

grammes that encourage both reflective practice and conceptual

change in practitioners. Such approaches to training will be more

efficacious because they seek to alter personal and professional identities, thereby enabling education leaders to confront old beliefs

and adopt new ideological systems that are change-focused and

supportive of school improvement.

Whither education reform in Trinidad and Tobago?

Moreover, it is almost a corollary of non-innovation that

institutions are deeply rooted in the status quo. Thus

problem-solving activities/institutions require that more and

more people be re-socialized and re-institutionalized under a

system that. . . enhances systemic autonomy'' (Jones & Mills

1976: 325).

Traditionally, education has been regarded as one of the more

significant commodities and investments for the Governments and

peoples of the Anglophone Caribbean (Miller 2000). In Trinidad and

Tobago, for example, public expenditure on education during the

period 1985 to 1994 accounted for between 4 to 5 percent of the GDP, with household expenditure on education being approximately 2

percent of the GDP for that same period (World Bank 1996). In 2004, the Ministry of Education in Trinidad and Tobago received the

largest annual budgetary allocation of all Ministries, close to three

billion Trinidad and Tobago Dollars ( & MOE 2004). This

investment in education is also apparent in the fact that the Trinidad

and Tobago Government accepts primary responsibility for recur

rent and capital expenditure for all schools, including those

currently managed by the denominational bodies.

As with other countries in the South, international agencies have also played a major role in funding and directing education

reform (World Bank 1999; Heyneman 2003; Smith 2005). Agencies such as the Inter American Development Bank (IADB) and the

International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (formerly



An institution deeply rooted in the status quo 71

the World Bank) have sought to shape the education landscape of Trinidad and Tobago by establishing reform agenda targets. While the thinking of funding agencies often centres on a narrow and

simplistic philosophy of modernist development, it remains true

that improving the quality of the education provision is also

important for individual small Caribbean states as they seek to

negotiate the issues of social harmony, political stability, and

economic viability (Jules 2008; Sriskandarajah 2005; Riddell 1999).

Initially, as elsewhere in the South, the primary focus of

education reform in the Anglophone Caribbean was on expanding

opportunities for basic education. However, in the last decade, the

reform roadmap has been much diversified to include improving the quality of schools in all sectors, enhancing the institutional

capacity of ministries of education, and modernizing outdated

curricula. Restructuring Caribbean education systems has therefore

become a massive and costly exercise, although perhaps too often

unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the extensive spending and borrowing from donor agencies has been rationalized on the basis of

intoxicating economic and social theories, which suggest a direct

relationship between education and development. Thus, in the

1960s, arguments for efficient manpower planning became the

foundation of the reform agenda and today global competitiveness and human capital development are the reasons most often

emphasized (Perry et al. 2006). To be sure, however, the impact of

education on economic and social development in Latin America

and the Caribbean has certainly been less dramatic than in East Asia

(Francis and Iyare 2006). Miller (2000) has categorized the different approaches taken

by Caribbean countries towards achieving education reform.

Countries like Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and the OECS have

adopted National Commissions, Task Forces, and Working Groups with wide participation among key stakeholders. These bodies are

mandated to work out comprehensive reform strategies

(Armstrong et al. 2005; OECS Education Reform Unit 2001). In

contrast, countries like Guyana, Jamaica and Belize have chosen a

project driven path, emphasizing focused interventions at different levels of the education system. As a middle-income oil-dependent economy, Trinidad and Tobago provides a useful case study for

analyzing the relationship between reform and leadership development within the education sector. Two distinct and notable




post-independence periods of education reform may be identified, with each period driven by key documents that establish the targets and rationale for restructuring (London 2003).

The first period of education reform in Trinidad and Tobago extended from 1968 to 1983; and was governed by a policy docu

ment that came to be known as the "Fifteen Year Plan" (London

2003). The Fifteen Year Plan was an overly ambitious document that

tried to orient and redirect an essentially elitist postcolonial educa

tion system towards a new model founded upon a comprehensive ideal. Although the period covered by the Plan was without

precedent in the region, it still could not guarantee successful

change. Indeed, even the Ministry of Education's own evaluation of success in this period is especially cautious about having achieved

the targets of improved quality (T&T Government 1984). To most

independent observers, however, the basic essence and structure of

colonial elitism remained despite the expansion in the school

system (London 1993). Therefore, what finally emerged at the end

of this reform period was not a unified system of schools following the comprehensive ideal, but instead a highly differentiated, hierarchical school system with four distinct school types (Taylor 1982). Significantly, patterns of inequity mirrored those within the

original elitist colonial school structure. Sadly, the permanence and

replication of colonial elitism is also apparent elsewhere in the

Caribbean (Hickling-Hudson 2002).

Despite the documented failures of this first period of reform, the White Paper, prepared by the National Task Force on Education

(1993 to 2002), envisioned further radical restructuring of the

system, schools, teachers, and classrooms. The intention was to

solidify earlier gains and support radical restructuring through a

range of administrative and system reforms. Administrative

reforms for this period included implementation of site-based

management and the management of special education, decen

tralization and school improvement. Not surprisingly, however, to

date, few of these reforms have been institutionalized. This failure

caused London (1997) to argue somewhat disparagingly that the

tenets and accommodations in the White Paper were simply a

"symbolic gesture rather than a reliable instrument for guiding educational development and socioeconomic transformation" (330). However, a more pragmatic view is that while the reform targets were indeed desired and intended, the failure to achieve change lies




in a number of realities, many specific to developing small nation states (Reimers 1997). This paper will argue that one important but

rarely considered barrier to change is the existing nature of

leadership, administrative processes, and school institutions. More

specifically, the paper will explore organizational meta-patterns and ideological tendencies that are inherited across sub-systems and time from the colonial era. These repeating structures and

processes perpetuate a pattern of non-innovation and institutional

inertia that result in schooling becoming "an institution deeply rooted in the status quo" (Jones and Mills 1976: 325).

The hope and promise of leadership in schools

There were two significant projects in the second period of

education reform, one funded by the World Bank, the other by the

Inter American Development Bank (IADB). For the Fourth Basic

Education Project, the level of funding (122 million USD) from the

World Bank was large by Caribbean standards (World Bank 1995).

By the 1990s, primary school enrolment had risen rapidly, so the

project appropriately emphasized improvement in quality.

Supposedly, this goal of "achieving higher quality" would be

attained by implementing critical innovations, such as school

improvement planning and new constructivist-oriented curricula.

The second significant project was the Secondary Education

Modernization Programme (SEMP), funded by the Inter American

Development bank (IADB). This project sought to improve the

Ministry's capacity, schools, and curricula (IADB 1998). The size of

this loan was 150 million USD. Both the World Bank and IADB

projects made leadership and management development central to

the success of the reform process. For example, the Fourth

Education Basic project stated as one of its four stated objectives, its

intention to "strengthen the management and institutional

capabilities of the education sector at all levels". At the school level, the intention was to "improve effective leadership" (World Bank

1995: 11). Likewise, the SEMP project, under the rubric "institu

tional strengthening" desired to develop "a critical mass of

management and operational capacity at all levels within the MOE" and proposed that "new management, information, and adminis

trative systems and processes" be applied at all levels (IADB 1998:

2-3).




The Fourth Basic Education Project, initiated in 1995, allocated

1.4 million USD to provide training to more than 500 senior teachers

and administrators. The main leadership development programme was the part-time Bachelor of Education course in Educational

Administration at the UWI. The Ministry also launched "tailor

made" supplementary headship training. Senior Ministry officials were to receive training at the level of a Masters' Degree in

Education. The provision for leadership development in the SEMP was even more elaborate because leadership and institutional

change were regarded as the keys to reducing the risk associated

with the loan. Rather than singling out the local university

department of education to provide management and leadership

training, three separate service providers were used, thereby

ensuring a diversity of approaches. The University of the West

Indies School of Education and the Simon Fraser University joined forces to provide a MBA-type Masters of Education in educational

leadership. The University of the West Indies Institute of Business

offered an Executive Diploma in School Management and

Leadership and a Consortium of the University of Montreal and Mc

Gill University offered a two-year programme non-certifiable

modular based programme in leadership and management. The

SEMP loan also supported supplementary short-term training,

including school development and strategic management courses

for 100 or so principals.

Organizational inertia and the failings of leadership and

leadership development

Stability . . . that condition might not necessarily conduce to

development or modernization. For extreme emphasis on

stability might itself deflect resources and energy which might otherwise be used for developmental purposes Qones 1974:

265).

The emphasis on leadership development in the second wave

of reform presupposed that administrator training was the key to

building institutional capacity and restructuring schooling systems. However, while there is some evidence that principals can and do

make a difference, much of this evidence comes from the developed world (Eberts and Stone 1988; Harris 2005). It might be that in the

South, the hearts and minds of leaders are often stayed by implicit




ideological tendencies, value-commitments, and tacit institutional

structures. To be sure, leading and changing schools in the South

may require different skill and belief sets (Kitavi and van der

Westhuizen 1997). For one thing, a greater number of schools exist

within difficult and challenging circumstances, such as poverty and

social and economic disadvantage (Harris et al. 2006). Therefore,

restructuring schools in the South might require many second

order changes. These, in turn, would necessitate a range of complex

leadership behaviours that are not easily learned or taught

(Marzano, Waters, and McNulty 2005). A second possibility,

applicable especially to the Anglophone Caribbean, is that

alternative beliefs about leading and managing institutions are

prevalent among current administrators. These alternative ways of

seeing the running of schools impinge, degrade, and conflict with

ideas put forward in training. Such alternative beliefs (world views)

might be especially strong because of the low levels of formal

training in the system (Van der Westhuizen et al. 2004). The critical question is, then, to what extent have reforms

across the two periods led to real changes in the structure and

processes of schooling? Perhaps, the most appropriate conclusion is

that "non-innovation" remains a dominant characteristic of both

periods of reform (Jones and Mills 1976). For example, commenting on the first reform period, Braithwaite (1981), a former Trinidad and

Tobago school principal and Chief Education Officer, noted the

tendency simply to expand a service or to rename a structure and

tout it as an instance of radical change. He bemoaned the

widespread failure to implement real innovation, and concluded

that schools had changed little in intent, culture, pedagogical

practice, and leadership. Likewise, Taylor (1982) analyzed the

resulting secondary school system that emerged at the end of the

period of expansion and argued that despite the increase in school

size and number, the system had retained its motif of elitism and

had failed in the pursuit of the "comprehensive" ideal.

To what extent have leadership and leadership development

helped or hindered this reform roadmap? Braithwaite (1981) felt

that "while the school and their inmates" had multiplied, "official

administration remains the same in attitude and approach",

especially with regards to high centralization and a lack of

participation in decision-making (p. 10). Taylor (1982) also believed




there was little change in principal leadership. He reported that

many leaders reported themselves stifled or rather strangled by an

"ultra-centralized bureaucracy" within the wider system (p. 11). He

argued that the retained bureaucratic structures and the large size

of new schools encouraged alienation, apathy and sustained

authoritarian leadership. Indeed, there is some evidence in other

education studies for a reciprocal relationship between organiza tional structure and leadership. Harvey (1981), for example, evaluated the "innovative system" from the inside, interviewing

personnel at all levels, including leaders in the Ministry of

Education. She found that the system organization and structures

often led to pervasive powerlessness among both leaders and

subordinates, including surprisingly, even ministry officials, who

described themselves as having little power or influence.

In a later study, De Lisle (1993) also observed a widespread sense of powerlessness, again induced by bureaucratic structures,

although he noted significant variation across organizations

dependent upon the degree of institutional autonomy. Yet, while

school leaders often perceived themselves as powerless, they still

did not place a high value on democratic ideals and instead fiercely

sought to consolidate power (Jones 1975). Indeed, suppression of

legitimate expressions of voice was widespread and decision

making processes were frequently absent, nominal, distorted, or

obscure. Elsewhere in the English-speaking Caribbean, Newton

(1993) also found a relationship between organizational structure

and employee response, while researching the Barbados secondary school headship. He noted that head teachers reported high formalism, powerlessness and ambiguity and complained, "They had no discretion to make decisions of any significance without

referral to a higher authority" (39). Nevertheless, at the same time, Newton also observed that while head teachers claimed to exercise

participatory leadership, they did not provide proper arrangements for delegating or co-ordinating. Therefore, a dual pattern of

authoritarian leadership coupled with perceived powerlessness

emerged as a common feature of administrative process in schools

of the Anglophone Caribbean.

To what extent, then, has leadership development in the

second wave of reform helped principals to become leaders of

school change? In an on-going doctoral study of current principals trained in various programmes, Arthur Joseph of the School of




Education at St. Augustine (personal communication, 23 November

2006) found evidence that most leadership development pro

grammes to date have been less than effective. He reported that

school leaders generally felt that the programme content was often

incoherent, not well balanced, too theory-oriented, and often far

removed from the realities of schooling. Some principals attending

training programmes, including those conducted as part of the

SEMP funding, expressed the view that they were not required to

modify their values and beliefs. Indeed, according to Joseph,

principals of denominational schools vociferously argued that an

informal "agreement" between the Ministry and Denominational

Board existed, which allowed them to retain their original beliefs

and values. They reasoned that the Board had chosen them because

of these same values and beliefs. Perhaps, however, the most

significant finding in this on-going study was that leaders judged their informal in-school and out-of-school experiences to be of

greater value to their current practice. While problems in trans

ferring training are common, the nature of these experiences, beliefs, and practices are a source of concern. In terms of the transfer

of training, principals argued that "prior understandings" had a

greater impact upon leadership practices compared with what was

"learnt" on formal training. It seems likely that neither the current crop of school leaders

nor existing leadership development programmes can support the

kind of radical restructuring envisioned for Caribbean education

systems (Jules, Miller, and Armstrong 2000). In this regard, the

organization, content, and teaching delivery of leadership develop ment programmes might be deficient in four distinct ways. Firstly, whether provided by local or foreign service providers, pro

grammes are often based on theory from outside the Caribbean.

Indeed, there is insufficient theory about leading and managing schools within the Caribbean (Miller 1985; Newton 1985). This is

significant because such a situation will result in some issues being

ignored and minimized. Indeed, Newton (1996) believed that some

problems and challenges like centralization and bureaucratic

control were often magnified within poor developing states such as

those in the Anglophone Caribbean. Secondly, most programmes do not take into consideration implicit beliefs and values about

leadership held by principals. It might be, as we have seen, that

these beliefs are supported and continuously reinforced by existing




school structures. These beliefs interfere with new ideas about

running schools. Thirdly, managing and changing schools that exist

in the context of stringency might require a depth and range of

complex behaviours, such as problem-solving capacity, which are

not easily taught or conceptualized within academic training

regimes.

Applying the ideas of Edwin Jones: Towards a theory of school

leadership and institutional change

My central concern, then, is to illustrate that these values and

assumptions have serious negative implications for

administrative organization and practice today .... For

administrative behaviour cannot be adequately described

without reference to the values which administrators hold or which are implicit in their actions." (Jones 1975: 240)

While there might be little strong theory about school

management in the Caribbean, there is a substantial body of work in Caribbean public sector management. The ideas in this body of

work provide a range of plausible and contextualized constructs

that can usefully be applied to school management, organizational behaviour, and leadership. While Jones's early writings in the 1970s were focused primarily upon the post-colonial civil service,

application to the school sector is valid because schooling is the

largest public sector organization. The validity of this application is

further enhanced when we consider that administrative practices are likely to diffuse within the network of state institutions,

resulting in core values becoming widely institutionalized. Given

the tendency of such ideologies to resist change, the post-colonial beliefs and values identified by Edwin Jones and others would not

be easily replaced; and therefore would likely persist within and across institutions.

Jones's description of leadership in the colonial and post colonial civil services is especially powerful as theory and can be

used to develop an evaluative framework for leadership practice within Caribbean schools (De Lisle 1993). For Jones, leadership is

not just a set of skills or competencies; rather it is a mind-set; a

package of beliefs, values, and assumptions that strongly influence

behaviours and structures (Jones 1975). In turn, institutional

climates, such as the peculiar bureaucratic culture of postcolonial




organizations, might reinforce leader practices and ideological tendencies (Jones and Mills 1976). Another useful idea that might

explain the failure to initiate and sustain change within

organizations is the intense desire for "order and systematic

stability leading to the authoritarian, paternalistic approaches to

leadership" (247). In some instances, Jones (1975) argued, a leader's

espoused positions might conflict with his or her actions. For

example, Jones provided an example of conflict between political

loyalty and the verbal commitment to the principles of neutrality,

expertise, and encouraging initiative (243). Such conflict mirrors the

lack of congruence between the educational platform of a principal and his or her theories-in-use (Sergiovanni and Starratt 2002).

A close reading of the work of Jones and others during this

period suggests that the main value commitments and ideological tendencies were as follows (Lutchman 1970; Mills 1970; Mills and

Robertson 1974; Jones 1974a, 1974b, 1975; Jones and Mills 1976; Nunes 1976; Jones 1987):

1) A desire to consolidate power rather than to delegate or

collaborate

2) A tendency to privatize and confuse issues of policy and

administration leading to flaws in the planning and

policy-making processes

3) A tendency to obscure and deliberately make vague

policy-making as evident in sham participatory structures

4) A tendency to apply multiple standards in key adminis

trative processes such as appraisal and promotion 5) A commitment to authoritarian, paternalistic and

conservative leadership resulting in low risk-taking and an absence of innovation

6) The use of myth to control subordinates, resulting in

distorted communication

7) A generalist ideology, resulting in the belief that

specialization and training even in leadership and

management is unimportant De Lisle (1993) explicitly used this framework when analyzing

the work environment of secondary schools in Trinidad and

Tobago. However, the usefulness of this evaluative framework is

also evident in recent work on administrative practice in schooling. A good example is Yamin-Ali's (2002) study of the micro-politics of

promotion practices within the Presbyterian School Board from an




insider's position. Although she located her work within

organizational behaviour and the sociology of work organizations, few of the practices she described are adequately described in

current theory on selection and promotion practices in schools. For

example, she observed that the promotion system was structured

primarily to ensure the exercise of personal influence by both Board members and even some candidates. Significantly, she also found

that this influence might extend to the supposedly neutral institution of the Teaching Service Commission, which para

doxically was designed to reduce political influence. Moreover, members of the Board tended to act in line with personal interests,

creating a "climate of democracy" that was often contradictory, full

of intrigue, and imbued with game-playing and bargaining. These

administrative practices perhaps reflect the dark side of school

leadership (Blas? and Blas?, 2002) but the frequency and perva siveness of the practices suggest that they also constitute a recurring

organizational pattern. A central argument in this paper is that the value com

mitments and practices of postcolonial leadership continue to act as

barriers to change, creating conflict with core concepts that are often

promoted in formal training. To illustrate, one of the more

important concepts in the modern principalship is distributive

leadership. More than just shared governance, this is leadership "infused with a spirit of democratic optimism" (Martinez et al.

2005). This emerging view of leadership is an essential component of school-based management and is especially critical for re

structuring to ensure teacher empowerment, collegiality, teamwork, and professional learning communities. However, the ideologies and practices of leadership described by Jones run counter to such

ideals, emphasizing instead consolidation of power and control rather than delegation or "working together" (Kanan 2005). The

consequences of these implicit leader ideologies and practices may also differ, with empowerment and teamwork resulting from distributive leadership, and powerlessness and alienation resulting from the exercise of paternalistic, authoritarian control.

With regards to innovation and change, Jones considered

stability and non-innovation from both the standpoint of leaders and institutions. For institutions "rooted in the status quo", he

argued that the ideological climate and generalized commitment to restructure should be considered (Jones and Mills 1976: 325). Jones




implied that what was needed for sustainable change were new

ideological systems, effective problem-solving processes, resource

management, leadership support, and rewards. An ideological climate of non-innovation will include attitudinal and behavioural

elements, such as timid decision-making, a cultural situation of

non-participation, legalistic emphasis on procedure, and high centralization. Those who study education reform within de

veloped countries will readily agree with this focus on non

innovation within institutional climates. Indeed, building upon this

concept, Reimers (1997) has argued that organizational learning is

the key to educational change within the developing world. He

noted that:

If an education system is to change its ways, what is needed is

organizational learning, rather than learning by a single individual placed at the top.

. . . Educational change is

fundamentally about changing behaviours, values, and how

people make meaning of their role in the largest organization in the public sector. In order to change, education ministries need to learn to lean (171).

Of mindscapes, meta-patterns, and alternative frameworks

The applicability of Jones's ideas to leadership and institutional

change in schools is further supported and embellished by the use

of three core concepts found in the international literature on public sector management, school leadership, and learning theory. The

first concept is that of an "organizational meta-pattern" put forward

by Adams (1993) as a tool for understanding organizational culture

and the implicit dynamics of organizational life. The second is the

leaders' 'mindscape", a concept used by Sergiovanni (1992, 1995) to

describe the values, assumptions and beliefs held by school leaders.

A mindscape acts as a roadmap, governing administrative practice in real world school settings. The third is "alternative framework", an implicit belief about phenomena held prior to formal training

(Kang et al. 2005). While Jones's work predates the concepts of leader mindscape

and organizational meta-pattern, there are important similarities in

the ideas. For example, Jones's emphasis on administrators' value

commitments and ideological tendencies are equivalent to

Sergiovanni's "mindscape". Similarly, Adams' (1993) concept of




meta-pattern is essential to understanding the reciprocal influence

of leadership and organizational structure. This concept also

explains how ideological tendencies are inherited across time and

systems. Adams reminded us, for example, that in a hierarchical

system, the leader's actions are closely watched and imitated,

thereby becoming a strong influence on subordinates' current and

future behaviours. The leader's actions therefore soon become

incorporated into relationships and structures and are inherited

"because the behaviour of newcomers are "organized by these pre

existing meta-patterns" (142). While meta-patterns can become

entrenched, they are not readily discernable because of the tacit

nature of the assumptions and beliefs. The idea that meta-patterns contribute towards organizational identity is also supportive of

Jones's supposition that a culture of non-innovation might exist

within local institutions. It may be, then, that the current penchant for stability and non-innovation in education leadership and

management is the result of inherited dysfunctional meta-patterns. The argument that institutional climates, value assumptions,

and ideological tendencies are represented in organizational meta

patterns and leadership mindscapes allows us to hypothesize

possible reasons for the low transfer of training among leaders.

Firstly, recurring patterns of relationships and ways of viewing the

world are pervasive. Secondly, they constitute a theory that

prescribes the way organizations should be structured, managed, and led. Thirdly, these implicit beliefs about leading organizations conflict with ideas taught in formal leadership courses. In terms of

training to promote personal and organizational change, such a

situation is best captured by constructivist epistemologies of

knowledge construction, in which prior beliefs can function as

alternative frameworks. These alternative frameworks conflict with

newly taught ideas and therefore real learning requires conceptual

change. From this perspective, the failure of education reform

might lie neither at the feet of uncooperative politicians nor in the

hands of recalcitrant bureaucrats; but in ideas and values

embedded within the hearts, minds, and practices of educational

leaders at all levels.




Rethinking leadership development to support restructuring

In the international market, graduate programmes in education

leadership have had a brief history, starting only in the 1980s

(McCarthy 1999). Nevertheless, a number of commentators have

recently argued that graduate programmes are generally based on

weak theory, use inappropriate delivery methods, inadequate curricula, and have poor selection procedures for candidates

(Fossey and Shoho 2005; Hess and Kelly 2005). These critics also

argue that programmes often do not facilitate knowledge transfer

and therefore cannot fill the needs of a changing profession. In the

Caribbean, the situation is even more critical because leadership

development has the dual task of training principals to cope with

modern trends in schooling as well as replacing ideological tendencies related to leadership and management. It was early in

the international debate on school leadership training that the 1985

issue of the Caribbean Journal of Education dealt with this issue of

leader training in the region.1 The conference theme was "The

Professional Preparation and Development of Educational

Administration in Developing Areas".

Although none of the papers addressed the critical issues of

programme organization, content, delivery, and candidate

selection, a few explored the issues of knowledge transfer and

programme efficacy. For example, Layne (1985), after reviewing the

current offerings in the field, argued that the core issue was the

extent to which administrators used the skills to promote educational development. He believed that at that point few

administrators transferred their skills to the setting in pursuit of

excellence and improvement. Focusing on programme efficacy, Newton (1985) warned of the dangers of turning fully towards the

developed world for packaged solutions and models in school

administrator training. He questioned the validity of transferring

developed world models and instead suggested the creation of an

indigenous knowledge base, which can only be generated through research.

Bearing in mind the issues raised in this paper, one approach to improving the transfer of training might be to target directly

implicit beliefs and ideologies early in training. From this

1 The issue included a selection of papers from a symposium held on August 26 to

30th, 1985 in Barbados.




perspective, effective leadership development must be redefined as

the re-engineering of existing mindscapes and mindsets that

impede change. Indeed, West-Burnham (1997) reminded us that

"one of the most powerful determinants of the mindscape or

attitude of leadership" is experience (232). Thus, experienced

participants selected for leadership development never come with a

blank mind, tabula rasae, so to speak. Instead, most participants,

especially the best candidates, have been chosen because of their

experience as middle managers or community leader (Miller 1985). As such, participants7 prior beliefs have been reinforced by their

experiences. Some of these beliefs and experiences will be at odds

with strategies taught in leadership development programmes. Therefore, successful leadership development cannot emphasize

theory to the exclusion of reflective practice in situations grounded in the reality of practice.

Based on the arguments raised in this paper, it might prove useful to use delivery methods specifically geared towards

achieving conceptual change. This becomes necessary because

implicit beliefs like tacit knowledge are really theories in action

(Argyris 1999). Sergiovanni (1995) emphasized the importance of

such 'craft knowledge' to administrators' thinking. Craft knowledge is the exercise of practical wisdom toward the end of making the

school look the way one wants it to look. However, the question is

how exactly do Caribbean administrators envision the current and

future state of their schools? If their vision for the school is based

on an "elite enthusiasm for order and systemic stability", then the

leader will resist risk-taking and innovation (Jones 1975: 247). Yet, such innovation and risk-taking would be most needed within

schools having to improve in the difficult and challenging circumstances of high poverty and social disadvantage (Harris et al.

2006; Browne-Ferrigno and Allen 2006). If principals believe that

craft knowledge is indeed "superior to theoretical knowledge" as

Arthur Joseph has alluded, then reflection on current practice is the

key to increasing awareness and eventual conceptual change. While

some programmes both in teacher training and leadership

development do include elements of reflective practice, what is

most needed in such a situation is core reflection, a reflective

process that is targeted, not at surface skills or competencies, but at core beliefs and values. (Korthagen and Vasalos 2005)




Conceptual change theory suggests that in a situation where

prior or alternative beliefs exists, successful learning must be

redefined as a series of iterative interactions in which the student is

able to confront existing conceptions and new knowledge (Kang et

aL 2005; Sinatra 2005). For conceptual change to occur, Posner et al.

(1982) originally argued that four conditions were first needed, dissatisfaction, intelligibility, plausibility, and fruitfulness. There

fore, a learner must first become dissatisfied with their existing conceptions as explanations for real life events. Then, they must

judge the new ideas provided these are intelligible and plausible. Finally, the learner must have opportunities to experience the

fruitfulness of applying such new theories, coming to see the value of the new worldview. Such a way of viewing learning calls for more than just reflection or even reflexive practice, instead it demands extended mentoring, modelling, and participant exploration of implicit beliefs and past experiences.

These processes are best implemented within practicums and

internships that include work-embedded learning activities

(Browne-Ferrigno and Muth 2004). This course design was partially used in the Simon Fraser-University of the West Indies Masters in Educational Leadership programme with time equally divided between theory and an extended year-long school improvement project. Based on the concept of experiential learning, it does seem useful for participants to experience theory in action as they engage in simulated tasks in the key areas of decision-making and communication. This would allow them to reconsider the usefulness and adequacy of their current approaches and to

experience the usefulness of modern theory in educational

leadership and management. However, even in such programme designs, intensive mentoring and participant feedback remain the

keys to individual change and interns must have opportunities to discuss and reflect on their experiences and practices. Recon

structing leaders' theories in action might be further aided by formative tasks used in feedback and assessment and development centres (Busch, O'Brien, and Spangler 2005). These approaches, however, remain uncommon within the Caribbean setting.

The need for contextualized administrative theory

The usefulness and salience of Jones's ideas about non-innovative institutions and leadership point to the need to develop education




leadership theory that is grounded in the reality of Caribbean

societies (Miller 1985). While it is useful to reflect on leadership frameworks that are constructed elsewhere, the fact remains that

the social, historical and cultural milieu of countries in periphery and semi-periphery states are often very different to that of core

countries (Kanan 2005). Significantly, the impact of context on

leadership has been noted in a seminal study of school ad

ministration (Bolman and Deal 1992; Fidler 1997). The researchers

used a four-component leadership framework to evaluate the work

of principals in Singapore and the United States. Not surprisingly,

they found differences in the role and efficacy of each framework, with the "symbolic" frame a more powerful determinant of

leadership effectiveness in Singapore but the "political frame" more

influential for success in the US. They rightly concluded that

"national boundaries make a difference: what works in the United

States is not always what works in Singapore" (314). Bolman and Deal (1992) made another useful generalization

that has great relevance to the choosing of service providers for

leadership development programmes. They argued that the sector

makes a difference to the nature of leadership, with greater overlap between the roles of leader and manager in schools compared with

business and the higher education sector. Like Reitzug and Reeves

(1992), they also noted that symbolic and cultural leadership is

embedded in the day-to-day tasks of school leaders. This suggests that while theory from other sectors might be appropriately applied to school leadership, the uniqueness of managing schools must

always be considered in the design of leadership training. From this

standpoint, it certainly seems foolhardy to extend opportunities for

leadership training to Institutes of Business, when there is already little in the way of relevant Caribbean educational leadership

theory, save a few anecdotes and observations (Kanan 2005).

Judging between foreign and local service providers, however, is a

more difficult task, because the issue is not so much the location of

the service provider, but the willingness to use theory in practice and develop contextualized theory for use by practitioners. Having worked with both local and foreign service providers, the

experience of this author is that some local service providers might

give greater prominence to culture-bound first world administra

tive frameworks while ignoring relevant local theory and research.




With hindsight, this might reflect a "chauvinistic ideology of local

inferiority" (Jones 1974). In conclusion, Jones's early work in public sector management

provides a robust frame for evaluating current practices in school

administration and the pace of education reform in postcolonial societies in the Anglophone Caribbean. These early ideas of Jones,

although not initially applied to schooling, are robust enough to

apply to multiple issues related to educational leadership, leader

ship development, and education reform. Indeed, there are parallels between some of Jones's constructs and recent work on principal

leadership. Jones's theories about leadership are especially intuitive

for exploring the dark side of management (Adams & Balfour 1998; Blas? and Blas? 2002). The ideas are also useful as a frame for

evaluating current practice and creating targets for change and

should receive greater consideration in current courses in school

administration. However, good theory must go beyond the dark

side to explore the elements of successful practice in the local

context. Again, such understanding demands a Caribbean research

agenda on leadership in public sector institutions and schools in

particular. The continued failure to ground leadership development programmes in contextualized theory will continue to lead to costly failures. The underdevelopment of school leadership theory in the

Caribbean remains, then, the greatest hindrance to reforming

leadership development to effect educational change. Indeed, better

theory will facilitate the establishment of essential elements

necessary for a twenty-first century school leadership, such as

published standards and expectations for school management and

governance (Busch, O'Brien, and Spangler 2005; Louden and Wildy 1999).

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