As the international education sector grows towards a network model, standardization, while bringing efficiencies and quality improvements, risks limiting the autonomy and subsequently, diluting the spirit of individual member schools. A balance, however, can be found, shares Dr. Ahmed Mitwalli, Chief Strategy Officer at Esol Education, and the sum can indeed be greater than its parts. Here, he explores a model where school leaders can activate network benefits for their schools, while maintaining their community’s autonomy and independence, thus keeping the essence of a school community intact.
By: Dr. Ahmed Mitwalli, Chief Strategy Officer, Esol Education
From the writings of the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle and the concepts of Gestalt psychology to the work of theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate, Murray Gell-Mann, the world of science, mathematics, philosophy and art have long sought to explain and quantify how complex systems evolve, or “emerge,” from the interactions of seemingly discrete parts, creating a greater whole.
A school perfectly exemplifies this long-standing theory of emergence, where the efforts of individual teachers, leaders, students and their families manifest as a greater community that returns immense, immeasurable, intangible value to its constituents, over and above exam results and university entries.
Over the last 20 years, the international school landscape has experienced a shift from individual, independent, non-profit schools serving expat families, to a large and rapidly growing industry, increasingly dominated by small to large networks of schools. In the face of this change, how can forward-thinking leaders benefit from a closely connected group dynamic, to provide significantly more value to their respective schools, and emerge as a stronger, more cohesive community?
When companies attempt to standardize and optimize their operations in search of synergies and efficiencies, they sometimes lead to a loss of autonomy and community that educators, staff, and families value in their school environment. Yet there are ways to counterbalance the independence of member schools with targeted initiatives and methodologies that can leverage the scale and scope of the group. This strategy can bring value to each individual community and help the group evolve as a stronger, greater whole. With a common goal of progressing together, silo mentalities can be transformed into learning mindsets, where new initiatives can be collaboratively piloted and refined, not just internally but across member schools, together mining shared resources, organizational memory and experience, without compromising the unique character and identity of each school.
With a common goal of progressing together, silo mentalities can be transformed into learning mindsets….mining shared resources, organizational memory and experience, without compromising the unique character and identity of each school.
It starts with an operating model that uses comprehensive governance and support to achieve the highest quality. Organizations must strive to empower highly qualified leadership teams in their core academic areas, while supporting them with more harmonized processes and centralized resources in business and operations. At Esol Education, for example, we provide quality assurance and best practice sharing in academics, strategic direction and management in core business operations such as Finance, IT, HR, and partner/regulator management, and centralized or outsourced operations in services that benefit the most from scale or are better provided by third parties, like benefits, procurement, and transportation.
At first, exploring synergies outside a school’s core educational offering may offer the most frictionless entry point for school leaders. It is easier to leverage network benefits in areas such as business, operations and administration. These are less sensitive, and small changes can quickly bring forth the value of the network, forming the “easiest” set of benefits to secure, though not necessarily where the most value might be. Economies of scale in purchasing goods and services across schools offer greater purchasing power, leading to better value for everyone. Sharing best practices for different functional areas such as human resources, staff/teacher onboarding as well as standard operating procedures, including related documentation such as policies and handbooks, offer a greater operational efficiency. Strong network relationships with regulators, accreditors, universities, and accreditation bodies can facilitate school improvement. A consistent and global approach to school governance, performance management, succession planning, and transition management enables a steady helm during times of leadership change, ensuring institutional knowledge is carried over and a school community is fully supported throughout the handover period and beyond.
Academic harmonization, while challenging to achieve, is an area that would most benefit from a collaborative network approach, with higher quality benefits and access to opportunities for schools than they would be able to attain as stand-alone entities. Professional development, stands out as an exemplar, where a group of schools would benefit from bringing together educators and staff from across schools. With over 1000 educators in the Esol network, the potential for sharing knowledge and generating excitement among like-minded colleagues is powerful. Our initiatives in PD have been a great source of enthusiasm for our staff, offering learning opportunities and building stronger relationships between schools. Working together on aligning academic standards is another area where schools and educators can form working groups to tailor pedagogies and resources within the high-level framework of American curriculum standards. This ensures world-class academic standards and enables efficiency and effectiveness through recommended, not dictated, resources, tools and pedagogies. A recent project on aligning Computer Science teaching and learning at Esol Education was a great step forward, with teachers from four schools working together to develop a superb curriculum model. Sharing approaches to distance learning also proved very helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Enrichment programs are another area where a network connection can provide a much-needed boost. While it may be difficult for an individual school to partner with a university or external institution to provide college-level programs for gifted students or source world-class future-focused resources and toolsets, a bigger group will have the reputation and relationships to implement a plethora of enrichment programs. At Esol Education, examples have included an AI training program in partnership with a top US university, a pre-collegiate prep summer session for our Sophomores and Juniors, and a Common Core aligned sustainability training with a prominent US-based institution.
In this age of AI and data, the value of the network and its wealth of data and resources will only become more important. How well a group and its member schools extract value from a plethora of resources will depend on its ability to maintain this balance of leveraging scale and scope with prescriptive solutions so as not to dilute the community experience offered by individual entities but add value to their shared experience.
Dr. Ahmed Mitwalli has served as the Chief Strategy Officer for Esol Education since 2014. Serving on the organization’s Board of Directors, he is responsible for new opportunities and development as well as cross-network collaboration. He also oversees the American School Hong Kong, the first Esol school in East Asia. Prior to joining Esol Education, Dr. Mitwalli was a Partner with McKinsey & Company, where he worked for 12 years with clients in healthcare and education on technology, organization and strategy. Dr. Mitwalli holds a Bachelors, Masters, and Doctor of Science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the holder of five patents and member of several honor societies.