Training for innovation in upper secondary education. A formative school directors experience in Mexico

Abstract

The training of school directors is a major challenge for the different education systems, particularly when the level is undergoing a reform, such as the case of secondary school in Mexico. Therefore, strengthening continuous training of directors constitutes a challenge and an obligation for the system and for trainers and teacher training institutions.

The reform in upper secondary education in Mexico demands that managers acquire a profile based in competences that make them highly capable of leading processes of change and innovation in schools. For this reason, recently it was implemented and evaluated a training program for school directors which had two distinctive features: on one hand, it was the first integrating public educational training effort of public education subsystems in the northern state of Nuevo Leon; on the other hand, it provided an opportunity for directors to meet, compare and open to change and innovation, by participating in an exchange interacting with colleagues from the level in the city of New York, which led them to know and appreciate other practices. This experience was the Executive Diploma in Leadership and Management of Institutions of Higher Secondary Education, implemented in 2014 with the participation of 76 directors.