Huddersfield professor elected to lead Commonwealth Council

A UNIVERSITY of Huddersfield professor has been elected president of an officially-accredited organisation that works to improve standards of school leadership and management throughout the Commonwealth.

Paul Miller is Professor of Educational Leadership and Management at the University and has a global reputation for research in a field that he says is vital for social and economic improvement, especially in developing countries.

Now, he has become President of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management (CCEAM), holding the office for four years.  One of his goals is to establish a new Commonwealth Leadership Institute that would provide support for the professionalisation of head teachers and seek to influence policymakers.

CCEAM was established in 1970 and has accreditation from the Commonwealth Secretariat.  It is the organisation responsible for leading research and fostering collaboration amongst education leadership, administration and management professionals across the Commonwealth, with its three billion citizens.

It is also affiliated to the Commonwealth Consortium for Education and has national affiliates in 27 Commonwealth countries located on six continents, from New Zealand to Mozambique, from Malta to India, and from Malaysia to Jamaica.

Professor Miller’s links with CCEAM began after he founded the Institute for Educational Administration and Leadership in his native Jamaica (IEAL-J).  He affiliated it to CCEAM and was invited on to its board in 2012.  This year he submitted himself for the CCEAM presidency and topped the poll.

He has already held meetings with his multi-national board, but his role will also include travel, especially to smaller island nations such as Fiji and to countries in the developing world, such as Kenya and Ghana.  He will also represent CCEAM when the Commonwealth’s education ministers meet, and he will have access to policymakers.

School leadership

The author of articles and books that include 2018’s The Nature of School Leadership: Global Practice Perspectives, Professor Miller is in no doubt of the importance of his subject.

“There is a fundamental relation between school leadership and society,” he said.

“Governments are holding schools to account for a lot of what happens in terms of national development and school leaders are the drivers of this growth.  We cannot expect to see societies innovate and we cannot expect to see solutions to social or medical problems without focussing on and investing in schools.”

Professor Miller plans to set up a Commonwealth Leadership Institute, possibly in partnership with a member of the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

“It would not seek to replace any education system within any country, but we need to recognise that some Commonwealth countries do not have money and resources to set up national institutes for education and therefore a Commonwealth Leadership Institute would help,” he said.

Professor Miller’s previous overseas roles have included membership of the Caribbean Community’s Working Group on Educational Leadership and Teaching Innovation.  He has also been made a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences, in recognition of his expertise on educational leadership, in particular the discrimination faced by black and ethnic minority teachers when they aspire to leadership roles.