Building School Management Capacity in India

Growing evidence shows that schools with better management practices achieve better results. Yet, little evidence exists on how to improve these practices—especially in developing countries. Most prior studies have sought to influence school management by providing principals with information on student performance. These studies found that these interventions work when principals have some minimum level of capacity. However, to the researchers’ knowledge, no study has satisfactorily addressed the more challenging question of how to build principals’ long-term capacity. As such, the research team is conducting a 200-school randomized evaluation in Pune and Haryana of one of the few principal training programs being implemented at scale in developing countries: the India School Leadership  Initiative (ISLI). ISLI combines in-person workshops, school walkthroughs, and professional networks over two years.