The vision of the Saudi Oxford Programme for Education Leaders (SOPEL) is to create a compelling context for the Tatweer education leaders, for them:
- to share views on global, regional and local challenges the Saudi society is facing in the 21st Century and the rationale for transforming school education in KSA;
- to acquire tools and techniques for building and exploiting organisational and management capabilities for maximising value for the stakeholders;
- to step back and reflect on their leadership competences to transform their organisations;
- to be inspired to design and implement innovative transformation programmes for enhancing education standards, assessment and accountability in the K-12 system in KSA under the Tatweer programme.
Starting with a pilot programme for education leaders.The educational leader would be the first or second tier in their department management structure. The leadership role is either educational such as training, supervision, special needs, pre-school, RD, planning, extra curriculum, evaluation and assessment, religion and adult learning or non-educational such as school management, school equipment, HR and health.
This is a pilot programme to complement other leadership programmes in the Kingdom.
Focus
It is expected that these education leaders will lead programmes for transforming the education system by focusing on:
- The change management.
- The Saudi society and the purpose of school education in 21st Century;
- Management and leadership issues in transforming schools;
- Training and development of teachers and administrators;
- New mechanisms for accountability at all levels. The accountability systems and practices are international and might include mechanisms developed in other countries from Scandinavia, West Europe and East Asia.
"New” system and practices will:
- leverage from the power of information technology and Internet;
- encourage rapid responses in the schools’ curriculum to changes in the knowledge;
- encourage communities and parents to play an active role in the learning experience of the students;
- enthuse teachers to show higher commitment;
- enable schools to use the resources and infrastructure with efficiency and accountability to the society;
- enable the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be seen as a model of School Education in the world.
- New standards in the education system;
- New learning philosophies and techniques; State of the art curriculum design and delivery methods; The state of the art curriculum design and delivery methods refer to the continuously evolving nature of school curriculum in different countries. These include changing curriculum design and delivery;
- to develop deep understanding of the changing social, cultural and economic environment in the region;
- to achieve the objectives of creating a society which is capable of leading the country in the 21st Century;
- to address the learning needs of the students and to ensure that students enjoy their learning experience;
- to facilitate the integration of new instructional technologies and class environment;
- to one in which teachers feel empowered to innovate and improve the delivery impact;
- to facilitate the development of teaching skills of the teachers;
- to demonstrate the impact of learning on the pupils and thereby achieve the respect of communities;
- to diversify the learning impacts of the curriculum across a spectrum of schools.
The examples of the state of the art curriculum design and delivery will be drawn from South Korea; UK and Finland.
- New philosophy and methods of assessment;
- Applications of state of the art technologies in education;
- Communities and stakeholders to become partners in the transformation processes.