Access, ethical leadership and action in Solomon Islands education: A tok stori

Abstract

Access to education, a key element of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, features in the ongoing planning of national education ministries and is of interest to donors in the Pacific. Access is generally an aspirational matter framed by concrete factors such as new building programmes, increased numbers of teachers, and so on. However, the discussion of access can helpfully be extended by paying attention to ethical educational leadership as it supports students to attend school, especially when associated with the related concepts of equity and quality. This article re-thinks access through a tok stori process in a Solomon Islands context. We propose a concept of access that employs a nuanced, strengths-based, widened lens to take account of the ethical, creative, purposeful actions of school leaders. This enables education authorities to recognise and develop the ‘soft’ leadership skills and ethical positions of leaders who have the potential to provide day to day enhancement of access through the ways they manage educational tensions.