Student leadership

‘Leadership is the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated by passion, generated by vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose.’
Dr Myles Monroe

One of the major issues confronting educationists today is the question of what constitutes leadership in the educational enterprise. A definition of leadership that is germane to this paper is that leadership is about influencing a group or team of people. In this paper, we shall attempt to answer the following questions.

1. What is student voice and leadership and what does it mean to be a student leader?
2. How are schools enabling all students to be leaders?
3. What difference can co-construction between students and teachers make?

In addition, we shall describe a school of the future that has been transformed through innovative approaches to student leadership.

1. What is student voice and leadership and what does it mean to be a student leader?
According to Wikipedia, student voice is the individual and collective perspective and actions of young people within the context of learning and education. Student voice is premised on the following convictions:

• young people have unique perspectives on learning, teaching, and schooling
• their insights warrant not only the attention but also the responses of adults
• they should be afforded opportunities to actively shape their education.

Students at SOS Hermann Gmeiner International College understand the concept of student leadership to mean the desire of the school authorities to make the students responsible for their own actions and responsibilities in addition to offering them opportunities to freely express their opinions and be part of the decision making process. They hold the view that the school can give a greater authority to the students if the school empowers them to be proactive. The students contend that in order for their voices to be heard, the school authorities must carry on regular assessment of students’ needs and incorporate them in the school’s activities and programmes to make the school a better place. For example, students desire that they should be allowed to be the leaders of the clubs in the school. In addition, they envisage a situation where students take on a lot more responsibility so that the teachers are no longer required. However, they expect a lot of collaboration between teachers and students to create a community of happy teachers and students.

2. How are schools enabling all students to be leaders?
At SOS Hermann Gmeinner International College, the school enables students to be leaders through the prefect system; after the mid-semester in the 2nd semester of every year, a new Prefect Body is appointed from 1B1 to succeed the outgoing 1B2 examination candidates. The Prefect Body represents the school authorities. It should be noted that the prefects are not voted for. Again the School authorities allow the students participate directly in the governance of the school by allowing the students to choose their own representatives for the Student Representative Council. The process for choosing the leaders is very transparent and democratic. Potential officers are given the opportunity to campaign and present their programme for the school in their manifestos. Every student in the school votes in this election; thus the elected candidates are the choice of the students. In spite of this the students believe that the school can better enable the students to become leaders if it allowed them to take more responsibility for their individual and collective actions.

3. What difference can co-construction between students and teachers make?
It emerged from the discussion between students and teachers that co-construction will increase the effectiveness of communication in the school. The students were of the view that it will help them benefit from the programmes of the school and imbue in them excellent leadership skills as they will learn a lot from their teachers. The consensus was that students and teachers alike would operate from a common platform where the teachers will listen to the views of the students and the students will better appreciate the actions of teachers. A common platform would be created and students would be heard and teachers’ views would easily be understood.

A 'school of the future’ transformed

Among other things, the students of SOS HGIC describe the school of the future as the school that produces students that are capable of handling the challenges that they face in life. They also describe it as a school that provides the necessary environment and resources to bring out a student’s full potential, and which makes a significant long-lasting difference in every student’s life. For example, they envisioned a school highly dependent on computers and network technology. Such a school is no doubt SOS Hermann Gmeiner International College in Ghana.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

This paper was compiled by the teaching staff at SOS Hermann Gmeiner International College, in Tema, Ghana.

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