From Routines to Enactment: Mapping School Leadership for Foundational Learning in Kenyan Primary Schools

Abstract

Foundational literacy and numeracy underpin all later learning, yet most children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read and understand a simple text by age ten. School leadership is widely theorized as an indirect but consequential level for instructional quality, although evidence on which leadership-for-learning routines are present in primary schools in sub-Saharan Africa remains thin. This study documented the prevalence and patterning of headteacher leadership-for-learning practices in Kenyan primary schools and related them, exploratorily, to school context. A cross-sectional survey of 50 public primary schools across four counties (Bungoma, Mombasa, Nairobi and Tharaka-Nithi) supported description of school and leader profiles, headteacher time use, goal setting and monitoring routines, instructional support and collaboration structures. Foundational learning was proxied, with explicit caution, by school-reported participation in, and pass proportions on, the Kenya Primary School Education Assessment. Descriptive statistics and exploratory sub-county ecological correlations were computed. Core routines were near-universal: mission and vision articulation (98%), headteacher classroom visits (98%), teacher awareness of Ministry learning expectations (96%), school management teams (94%) and availability of teaching guides (94%). Headteachers allocated approximately 41% of their time to teaching and instructional support combined. School-reported pass proportions were high but left-skewed, indicating a tail of lower-performing schools. Ecological correlations were weak and, given nine aggregate units and ceiling-bound indicators, were not interpretable as evidence of association. The study concluded that the structural preconditions for foundational-learning leadership are widely in place, which shifts the salient question from the presence of routines to the quality of their enactment.