School director collectives in Senegal: How street-level managers respond to multiple institutional demands and an overstretched middle tier

• In Event: Reimagining the middle tier part II: Leadership and agency for advancing equity and foundational learning - Investigating the role of individuals

Proposal

How do school-facing district inspectors and school directors cope with overwhelming, often competing, institutional demands within a context of scarce resources to support elementary education? This paper explores the case of Senegal: its education system middle tier consists of regional Ministry of Education offices (Inspections d’Académie) and district offices (Inspections de l’Éducation et de la Formation). Elementary school support lies with the district office, which typically has 4-5 school-facing inspectors. Schools are subject to multiple ongoing reforms, including the Modèle Harmonisé de l’Enseignement Bilingue du Sénégal (MOHEBS) which introduced bilingual instruction to improve foundational learning. These reforms rely on the middle tier to sustain its implementation, particularly for MOHEBS given USAID withdrawal in early 2025.

Drawing on a mixed-methods triangulation convergence design, the research engaged 130 education stakeholders across three regions, six districts, and 12 elementary schools and municipalities in May 2025 (Author, 2025). Findings showed district school visits to support foundational learning were constrained by heavy workloads, competing priorities, and transportation barriers. Inspectors juggled multiple responsibilities: managing a circuit of around 20 schools, heading office departments (e.g., pedagogical management), and serving as district focal points for national reforms and development partners.

In response, school directors adapted to limited district capacity and extreme resource scarcity through voluntary school director networks: Collectifs des Directeurs d’École (CODECs). Adopting a street-level manager perspective to understand the complex world of policy implementation, this paper explores how school directors as street-level managers used CODECs to navigate competing institutional demands. Street-level bureaucracy theory conceptualizes frontline public service professionals as policymakers who must use discretion and coping strategies when implementing policy amid ambiguity and resource constraints (Brodkin, 2012; Lipsky, 2010). Recent decolonial perspectives (Eiró & Lotta, 2024; Lotta et al., 2022) argue this approach is particularly salient in the Global South, where actors are often tasked with implementing incomplete, frequently changing policies in conditions of extreme resource scarcity and societal inequality.

Such theories are salient in Senegal, as district inspectors face numerous constraints to conducting regular classroom observations, and primary schools receive no operational budget from the state. In the 12 schools studied, CODECs responded to multiple institutional demands: aggregating and sharing learning outcome data, coordinating information and activities (bureaucratic); fostering professional learning communities and resource pooling (professional); and liaising with municipalities (political). These networks act as a connective tissue—or as one participant described, the “trait d’union” between schools, districts, and municipalities. Though they have no official status, CODECs effectively fill what Hupe and Buffat (2014) call the “public service gap” in which districts and schools are expected to do ‘more with the same’ resources.

The paper examines CODEC as a self-sustaining innovation that takes on different roles across different districts. It also considers policy implications for sustaining and scaling CODECs’ work, particularly in supporting the MOHEBS reform. In doing so, it offers insights into what is truly needed for effective school support, and how systems could better facilitate both district and school work to strengthen state capacity for foundational learning.

Author

• Sheena Bell, O.I.S.E. University of Toronto