CViL Project seeks to help educational leaders and those aspiring to become educational leaders to understand and cultivate the virtue based practices that will help them thrive in what we know are extremely demanding and immensely influential careers. Research shows that school leaders are largely responsible for establishing the climate of a school and they have significant impact on the well-being and achievement of both teachers and students.

This program extends the professional learning experiences available to school leaders who wish to explicitly and reflectively strengthen the attitudes and behaviors that will improve their personal well-being and their professional ability to serve and lead successfully.

Teachers and Principals from different parts of Kenya convened in Nairobi at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) for the Cultivating Virtues in Kenyan Schools Workshop. Participants were awarded certificates for attending the workshop.

This project aims to adapt, enhance and pilot test a Servant Leadership (SL) professional development (PD) program called Cultivating Virtue in Leaders (CViL) for Kenyan school heads/principals and their leadership teams (SLTs). This project addresses a need, identified in studies and seminal reports from independent researchers as well as the Ministry of Education, for the PD of school principals in collaborative leadership practices such as SL. The Centre for Character and Leadership (CCL) will work with the program developers to deliver CViL to 30 public secondary SLTs. The program will be delivered through;

• A PD academy promoting understanding and development of the SL virtues for self, staff and students,
• Monthly school- based coaching,
• A Regional Stakeholders Network (supporting both live and social media based events for a multi-tiered set of stakeholders).

Implementation and outcomes will be assessed to determine participant perceived relevance and satisfaction with the program components. Changes in SLTs virtue related attitudes and practices will be assessed via well validated measures. The primary outputs will be documentation of 150 school leaders’ completion of the program, a replication website, and local CViL program and research capacity.

The short term outcomes will be 150 Kenyan school leaders actively engaging in personal and professional virtue reflection and practices identified in participants’ customized character education implementation plans. Intermediate outcomes will include changes in virtue related practices, opportunities and support for ~1200 staff, 21,000 students’ and 30 school communities.

Long term outcomes will include the development of a critical mass of virtue oriented school leaders and their ascension to policy and system level leadership positions – significantly improving Kenya’s educational system.

The Centre for Character and Leadership is grateful for the support of the Templeton World Charity Foundation for this project: Cultivating Virtue in Kenyan School Leaders