In his 19 years in a school leadership role, Wasan Panya has seen his share of struggling schools. Hailing from Phetchabun province in the north of Thailand, he somehow found himself as a school principal in the southern province of Krabi, where he felt like a stranger.
The first time Wasan stepped into the dilapidated building of Krabi’s tiny Baan Thum-Phet School in 2008, noting the cobwebs in every corner, the poor sanitation, the lack of any school supplies or furniture other than shabby old desks and chairs, he knew he had to do all he could to save the school, and, more importantly, the children learning there. He couldn’t have been assigned a more difficult school for his first full-fledged principal position, but he remained undeterred. “I wasn’t shaken,” he recalls. “I knew I had to fight.”
School principal Wasan Panya addresses the 19th UnescoAPIED International Conference
And so, with a staff of four teachers and a limited budget of just Bt30,000 per semester, plus Bt80,000 worth of debt inherited from the previous administration, Wasan set about utilising the network he’d built to find people who could provide support and help him improve the school.
“First, you just need to make whatever doesn’t work, work,” he explains. “It doesn’t have to be beautiful.”
Wasan is a school principal legacy – his father was a school principal, as was his grandfather. As a child, he felt inspired by seeing his father ride his horse to school in a far-off district every day, witnessing how much he sacrificed for the school and the community.
“I’d see my father sitting and eating with his staff,” he says. “I’d be somewhere near the meeting room and see him sitting at the head of the table. I’d watch how he talked to the teachers, and as a kid, I soaked it all in. Afterwards, he’d invite them to dinner and my mum would cook for all of them.”
This image of his father as a warm and caring leader stuck with him as he started out on his own school leadership journey. “I came back to this when I became a manager and when I was learning management. This work that my father did, the stories he told about the work his own father did, it was a great example for me.”
“Nothing predicts the sustained improvement of a school more than the active, passionate engagement of its teachers in their own learning.” School leadership expert Professor Philip Hallinger
Moving away from a more traditional notion of school leadership, one of top-down authority and leading with control and force, what’s needed now is a school leader who is a coach, facilitator and mentor with high emotional intelligence and strong interpersonal skills. “The school leader used to be on a pedestal, higher than the other teachers,” Wasan says. “I did away with the formalities, I sat alongside the teachers and made it a flat management structure.”
He is quick to say that leading by force doesn’t work and that it’s better to lead by example. “You can’t use power, especially as a leader; you have to be softer.”
In the 21st century, it’s also crucial that schools and their leadership contribute to sustainable development. One of the 23 working principles for sustainable development of His Majesty the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej that Wasan took to heart was the concept of “exploding from inside”, meaning that development must start from one’s internal thoughts, knowledge and ambition, not from external factors or from someone else telling you to do so. According to this principle, a person or a community should be developed and strengthened from within rather than trying to put external developments upon them, and what’s most important is that the person or community is open and willing to change. Wasan has found this particularly relevant in his school leadership role.
“Before development can happen, you and your co-workers have to be a team. You have to understand your shared purpose, and then take action together. Start from the heart. Only then can sustainability happen.”
But what happens when the leadership efforts are not sustained? To Wasan’s dismay, under new management, Baan Thum- Phet School was shut down. “Sustainability lives and dies by the leader,” he says. “If the next leader doesn’t continue on the sustainable path, then it’s over.”
This raises new questions: How do we develop school leaders who will sustain quality education for the future? What does this kind of leadership entail?
School leadership expert Professor Philip Hallinger talks about sustainable leadership as Bhutanese participants Dorji Nidup, right, principal of Lhuentse Higher Secondary School, Lhuentse and Udai N Bhattarai, left, principal of Tashidingkha Middle Secondary School, Punakha look on.
School leadership expert and Thailand Sustainable Development Foundation (TSDF) chair Professor Philip Hallinger agrees that, when it comes to sustainable leadership, the emphasis must be on the leadership and not just the leader.
“Leadership has to be at all levels of the organisation,” he says, referring to distributed leadership, which increases the leadership capacity in the school by extending beyond principals and senior managers to include other staff and teachers. This harnesses collective strengths and expertise for the betterment of the school, regardless of hierarchy or years of experience.
In addition, school leaders must encourage learning not only in the students, but also teachers. According to Hallinger, nothing predicts the sustained improvement of a school more than the active, passionate engagement of its teachers in their own learning. In doing so, leaders must be models of learning themselves. Hallinger urges school leaders to be the “head learner” – a model learner – and to take on the challenge and responsibility to inspire, encourage, and support the learning of their staff and teachers.
“Remind teachers how important their work is every day. There is no role in society that will have more to do with the sustainability of our planet and our societies than teachers. But they have to see that and remember it, and that really requires leadership.”
Wasan agrees that the success of a school counts not only on its leader, but also on those who support the leader, whether they are teachers, staff, students, parents or even the community. He saw that when he received overwhelming support after reforming Baan Thum Phet School, and to this day, he’s still very appreciative of his co-workers at his current post at Muangkrabi School.
“A smart principal listens to his or her vice principal,” he says. “I don’t do anything on my own. My vice principals and I, we work as a team.”
Today, Muangkrabi School is a model example of a flourishing sustainable and future-ready school. The use of paper is discouraged and documents are distributed digitally by downloading with QR codes. ICT tools are utilised not just for the sake of having ICT tools, but for the benefit of the students. Every semester, the school has an open house showcasing students’ work and an open class for parents and potential students’ parents to observe the teaching in the classroom.
The school received the Asean Eco Schools Award in 2012. And Wasan is most comfortable being a role model to other school leaders, documenting the school’s innovative practices and achievements online.
“You have to be a PR person too,” he laughs.
These kinds of practices are needed now more than ever if we are to provide quality education for future generations. “The idea of sustainable leadership is nowhere more relevant than in schools,” Hallinger adds. “It’s the values and virtues that we pass on to the next generation that will determine the sustainability of life on this earth and the sustainability of our organisations and societies.”
– Chariya Chiumkanokchai is a Programme Assistant for Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship at Unesco Bangkok.
Learning to Lead
– Both Wasan and Hallinger were speakers at the 19th Unesco-APIED International Conference this year. Hallinger gave the keynote Raja Roy Singh Lecture on the importance of sustainable leadership in schools, while Wasan was a presenter during a session on technological innovations on the ground.
– Unesco Bangkok has been organising the conference since 1995, providing a forum for dialogue and information sharing on educational innovations and best practices in Asia-Pacific and beyond.
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