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UNESCO in Brazil launches publication on the importance of school leadership
On 26 April 2023, UNESCO in Brazil held a webinar to launch the book on school leadership entitled in Portuguese Liderança escolar: diretores como fatores-chave para a transformação da educação no Brasil, which remarks that school principals as critical factors for the transformation of education in Brazil. The publication results from a survey by 15 specialists from different nationalities and offers an overview of the most relevant issues in the current debate about school leadership and management. The event was attended by representatives from UNESCO, the Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV), the Federal Government and Education secretariats, in addition to the authors of the book and specialists in the field.
Organized by José Weinstein and Lara Simielli, the work is divided into 12 chapters by authors from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, United States, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom worked in collaboration. The publication aims to disseminate vital knowledge about school principals' leadership among educational managers, principals, teachers, and other education professionals, which has been considered a critical factor in improving educational quality.
The Director and Representative of UNESCO in Brazil, Marlova Jovchelovitch Noleto, opened the launch webinar and remembered the French economist and professor Jacques Delors.
For UNESCO, the school is sacred territory. More than ever, we need to exercise Delors' principles, mainly 'learning to be' and 'learning to live together'. Schools cannot be places of hatred and violence.
The production of this publication is the result of the collaboration of several professionals inserted in national and international institutions, among them Fundação Getúlio Vargas, which supported part of the survey carried out in the chapter on Brazil, and the Universidad Diego Portales (Chile), which has supported the project to develop this book since its inception.
Some chapters focus on the ethics of school leadership, other chapters talk about training. It is necessary to reinvent some public policies for Latin America and Brazil, paving new paths.
The leadership of school directors has been considered a key factor in improving educational quality. In fact, it has been recognized as the second intra-school factor with the greatest impact on improving education, surpassed only by teachers. Therefore, for decades, educational research has sought to learn more about the leadership of school directors, with a vast and rich accumulation of knowledge in this regard. This book aims to bring together a significant part of this knowledge, making it available now to the Brazilian public.
Former Secretary of Education of Manaus (AM) and current national secretary of Basic Education at the Ministry of Education (MEC), Katia Schweickardt, reported her experience.
As secretary of education in Manaus, I understood that we needed to establish a dialogue with society. There was no possibility of having support if there wasn't this dialogue. First, we strengthened the experience of schools by agreeing with the school community on the goals they wanted to establish for student improvement. School leadership cannot just look inward. You have to look outside, too, to the territory.
The last participant to speak at the webinar, Professor Rosemeire dos Santos Guerra, from Colégio Estadual em Tempo Integral Adeum Hilário Sauer (Bahia State), ended the webinar with a positive message.
Education will indeed be the strength of this country and will manage to transform realities.
Learn more
- Watch the webinar in its entirety on the UNESCO Brasil YouTube channel
