October 2021

Appreciating Pacific understandings of school leadership

Seu'ula Johansson-Fua, Kabini Sanga, David Fa'avae, Martyn Reynolds, Richard Robyns, Danny Jim

This report is a summary of the DLP webinar ‘Appreciating Pacific understandings of school leadership’ that took place on 28 October 2021. There were four key takeaways from the discussion.

In the Pacific Islands, getting to grips with the ‘context behind the context’ is paramount. This means understanding the domain of indigenous cultures and kastom, the domain of religion, and the institutional domain.
Not only do these domains need to be understood, but the relationship between them – both in terms of commonalties and differences – needs to be properly appreciated. This requires deep listening to communities and building on local expertise.
Preliminary research findings provide helpful guidance for external actors looking to implement policy or developmental programmes – including how they might acknowledge the importance of flux and the changing demands on leaders.
An approach that privileges indigenous concepts to educational development and leadership will be more likely to succeed.