SDG4 Seminar 2025 "Leadership in Education"

Welcome and Introduction to the Seminar (E101 Aula – hybrid)

• Marja-Leena Laakso, Vice Rector (University of Jyväskylä) 

  and

• Hanna-Kaisa Pekkarinen, Head of the Institute of Educational Leadership, (University of Jyväskylä) 

Keynote (E101 Aula – hybrid)

Development needs for ECE leadership- global and local perspectives

• Elina Fonsen (University of Jyväskylä), Hannele Roponen (City of Helsinki), Tuelo Matjokana, and Matshediso Modise (University of South Africa)

In our presentation we will discuss development needs of ECE leadership in global and specific local needs in South Africa and Finland. Our theoretical approach is based on Pedagogical Leadership theory, that can be understood as a broad concept including the ECE leader's various actions supporting the implementation of the aims of curriculum and the quality of pedagogical work. In order to interpret the curriculum and lead its implementation in the constantly changing work environment, ECE leaders require strong educational knowledge. Furthermore, the ability to develop and support distributed pedagogical leadership with teachers is essential.  

First, we introduce the Pedagogical Leadership Training Project aimed at enhancing leadership in rural Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres in South Africa. It addresses the prevalent economic-focused leadership that neglects pedagogical issues, hindering access to government funding and regulatory compliance. The research explores the need for professional development of South African ECD leaders and their learning experiences through the project. The findings highlight the critical role of ECD leaders in educational and administrative capacities, emphasising the necessity of leadership development and its impact on improving competencies.  

From the Finnish perspective, we will examine today’s operating environment, its challenges, and development needs, with a particular focus on leadership culture and practices at the unit level, municipal level, and national level. We will highlight how distributed pedagogical leadership requires meaning making as well as the importance of building a shared understanding of the pedagogical mission in today’s ECE. 

Parallel Workshops

Workshop 1: How to become engaging team leader in education (D101 Juho – in-person)

• Facilitator - Dr. Bahare Afrahi (Faculty of Business and Social Sciences, Kingston Business School, UK)

This interactive workshop is designed to provide practical interventions and research-based strategies to improve leadership practices and policies within educational institutions. It offers students interested in educational leadership, leaders,  managers, and their teams an opportunity to reflect on their current approaches and consider how to cultivate an organisational climate that supports inclusive, high-quality work, education, and learning. The session also encourages participants to view their leadership style from the perspective of their colleagues, and vice versa. The workshop builds on five years of research and interactive sessions delivered to leaders and managers in various organisations, including educational settings. Our findings indicate that leaders benefit from reflecting on situations where their actions or communication may have unintentionally affected their teams, sometimes leading to disengagement or reduced motivation.

Workshop 2: From the Classroom Up: Transforming Education Through Leadership (E213 Lauri – hybrid)

• Facilitator- Neli Koleva (Teach for Bulgaria)

What does it truly take to lead change in education—across classrooms, schools, and national systems? Rooted in real-life case studies from Bulgaria, this interactive workshop explores how leadership emerges when individuals take responsibility for the success of every child, especially in underprivileged communities. Drawing on experience from Teach for Bulgaria’s work in teacher training, school leadership, and policy advocacy, we will examine the emotional and systemic challenges of driving transformation—from fear and resistance to entrenched habits—and the tools leaders use to navigate them. Participants will engage with 2–3 powerful case studies, reflect on parallels in their own contexts, and explore how building strong communities is essential for lasting change. Whether you're a teacher, principal, policymaker, or researcher, this session invites you to reflect on what kind of leadership today’s education systems truly need—and how we can each be part of the solution. 

Workshop 3: Leadership as a Living System: An awareness- based leadership design experience for educational transformation (C101 Lucina – hybrid)

• Facilitator- Dr. Bhavani Ramamoorthi

What role do human capacities such as curiosity, compassion, and courage play in leadership development—and what do we gain by reclaiming them?

This interactive workshop invites educators to explore how to cultivate nurturing leadership ecosystems within educational spaces through participatory design thinking, awareness-based leadership frameworks and creative exploration.

Participants will examine the conditions that allow leadership to emerge organically in learning communities and consider how human-centered approaches can transform hierarchical structures into dynamic ecosystems where leadership is both distributed and relational.

Together, we will explore leadership capacities—such as deep listening, presencing and generative dialogues, while engaging in hands-on activities to design “leadership containers” that support both self-leadership and collective leadership.

This experience is for participants eager to move beyond traditional leadership frameworks toward organic, relationship-based approaches that nurture learning and leadership potential in educational settings.

Workshop 4: Contextualising Collaborative Leadership Across Europe (D104 Helena – hybrid)

• Facilitators- Eija Hanhimäki, Mika Risku and Silvia Pesini (Educational Leadership Network Europe)

In this workshop, we present the aims and findings of the Educational Leadership Network Europe ELNE project and work around the third-year theme of the project, especially from the perspective of the ELNE research committee. The main goal of this project is promoting collaborative leadership in Europe. The ELNE is a 4-year project funded by the European Commission and working with over 60 member organisations from 34 countries at the European, national, regional, and local levels. These organisations represent education employers, teachers, school heads, parents, students, researchers, and policymakers. 

The third project year (2025-26) has just started and now our aim is to explore the stakeholder perspectives on practices and views of collaboration and collaborative leadership. We would like to gather and analyse these practices and expressions from the perspectives of diverse contexts and stakeholder groups. 

Workshop 5: Teachers’ leadership in Argentinean Early Childhood Education (ECE) (E207 Toivo – hybrid)

• Facilitator- Juan Cruz Dall’Asta (Doctoral student, University Austral in Buenos Aires, Argentina)

This workshop explores the evolving role of teacher leadership in Argentina’s Early Childhood Education (ECE) sector, where educators are increasingly seen not only as caregivers and instructors but as agents of systemic transformation. Drawing on current research, lived experiences, and participatory frameworks, the session invites participants to reflect on teachers’ leadership potential within diverse institutional and socio-political contexts. Participants will examine the cultural and policy-driven dynamics shaping teacher agency, engage in collaborative and comparative inquiry, and explore strategies to elevate leadership in classrooms, communities, and policy dialogues. The workshop emphasizes collaborative leadership, equity, and advocacy as key levers for reimagining ECE in Argentina and own participants’ contexts.

Workshop 6: The One Thing (E214 Onni – in-person)

• Facilitator - Samuel Madtha (University of Jyväskylä)

Leaders analyze deeply and have critical insights. Leaders consider factors beyond the obvious. Leaders solve problems resourcefully, creatively, holistically and sustainably. Leaders simplify. Leaders sift through the clutter, and home in on the one thing that needs attention to affect change. After all, can't complete attention be given only to one thing at a time?

Join Sam in an active, participatory experience if you wish to explore a process of identifying the one thing that warrants your focus in taking the current reality of your operational environment towards your desired reality. The session is inspired by the book, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan.

Panel Discussion (E101 Aula – hybrid)

Global Promises, Local Pressures: Education Leadership Amid Austerity

• Convenors: Finnish University Partnership for International Development UniPID and Finnish Society for Development Research (FSDR) 

Education remains central to Finland’s international identity and its development cooperation policy, reflecting its commitment to addressing the global education crisis. The 2018 report Stepping Up Finland’s Global Role in Education, commissioned by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, suggested a range of recommendations for stronger Finnish contributions: through increased financing, strengthened human resources, dedicated bilateral cooperation, clearer strategies, leadership and thematic priorities, and more active participation in international education fora. Yet, at the same time, domestic austerity measures and uneven education outcomes raise questions to whether Finland can deliver on these global ambitions while remaining aligned with local political and economic realities.  

This SDG4 seminar session will create space for critical discussion on the current and potential capacity of donor countries—such as Finland—to act as leaders in advancing education cooperation, particularly in developing countries. It will bring together policymakers, practitioners, and academics to explore how Finland can strengthen its contribution to SDG4 in ways that are both internationally significant and locally grounded.  

Key questions include: 

• What has happened since 2018, and how successfully has Finland been able to seize opportunities for stepping up its role?
• In Finland’s foreign policy, education is highlighted as a strength in development cooperation, under the overarching objective of creating closer connections between trade and development. But how are policy shifts and fiscal cuts—including the abolition of four country programmes and prioritization of Ukraine—influencing Finland’s global education leadership?
• How do domestic austerity measures impact Finland’s credibility and capacity internationally?
• What are the implications of recent cuts to US development assistance (e.g., USAID and contributions to the UN system) for Finnish development NGOs, CSOs, and their ability to take part in multistakeholder initiatives?
• In what ways can Finland’s approach move beyond branding education as an “export product” and towards building more equitable partnerships? 

By sharing insights into policies, strategies, successes, and challenges in global education development, the workshop seeks to provide critical reflection on Finland’s evolving role amidst the pressures of local austerity. 

• Panellists:
  • Hanna Alasuutari, Senior Adviser for Education/Development Policy, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
  • Pauliina Kemppainen, Lead Advisor for Lifelong Learning, Finn Church Aid
  • Prof. Emmanuel Acquah, professor of education specializing in Minority Research at the Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies at Åbo Akademi University
  • Bonn Juego (moderator), senior lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä

Networking Event (refreshments provided) (E101 Aula – hybrid) 

BellyBolly Jyväskylä-Dance Performance

• Facilitators- Apoorwa Hooda, Daria Anttila and Henriikka Koivukoski 

How about ending the hectic seminar days with some culture, movement, rhythm and joy of coming together? 😊

The dancing trio, Henriikka, Daria and Apoorwa, present a mix of Bollywood and Belly dancing styles, followed by everyone dancing together! Bollywood dance comes from the Bollywood film industry in India and contains a mixture of many traditional and modern dance forms, known for its dynamic movements and expressive gestures. Belly dancing, also known as oriental dance and Raqs Sharqi in Arabic, is an expressive dance form with rich cultural roots in the Middle East and North Africa.

Keynote (E101 Aula – hybrid) 

Presentation 1: Leadership in Education: Lead for Learning

• Anna Cristina D'Addio (Chief Education Policy - GEM Report Team at UNESCO)    

In this keynote presentation, the focus is on how strong and effective leadership in education leads to improved learning outcomes. There is an acute need for capable education leaders who can set clear expectations, prioritize learning, foster collaboration, and invest in developing people. Leadership at school, system, and political levels is essential for driving sustainable educational progress.

Presentation 2: Nature-based education: building a new past

• Ferenc Jordán (Group Leader at the Institute of Biological Research, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and Associated Researcher at Stazione Zoologica, Napoli, Italy)

The partnership between Homo sapiens and the Biosphere is in deep crisis. The time of our infinite growth is over and we need to seriously re-think who are we on this planet. Beyond studying emissions and microplastics, discussing sustainability and green solutions, time has come for the need of a new culture. Based on a system perspective, focusing on interactions and networks of multiple processes, we understand the non-local nature of environmental problems and also the global context of any potential solutions. Creating an old-and-new mindset, based on nature-based thinking, agro-ecological best practices and rewilding, is a crucial challenge for the next generations. If we want to inherit a habitable planet for our kids, we must replace dominance by partnership, re-considering our ecological footprint (both population size and consumption). Shaping this new culture together with the next genration is more logical than developing a strategy and showing them the manual. I will discuss the aboves at several levels, ranging from the most practical one (e.g. whether to cut the grass) to the most philosophical one (e.g. whether to protect nature or just leave it alone). 

Moderator- Mika Risku

Parallel Workshops 

Workshop 1: Student thesis presentation [1] (E214 Onni – hybrid)

Workshop 2: Student thesis presentation [2]  (E208 Päivö – hybrid)

Workshop 3: Student thesis presentation [3] (E207 Toivo – hybrid)

Workshop 4: The Creatnet Way: A Practice of Building Lifelong Learning Communities and Collaborative Leadership in Education (D101 Juho – hybrid)

Facilitator - Creatnet Education

• Darshan Bhat - Co-founder, Creatnet Education

• Jasmeet Walia - CEO, Creatnet Education Co-founder

• Mohita Jaiswal - Research and Design Leader

• Mika Risku - Moderator

This workshop highlights Creatnet Education's approach to enable conscious learners and build learning communities across youth, teachers & school leaders. The Creatnet’s practice of learning in small groups using metaframeworks and led by facilitators (who practice what they enable) is considered a major contribution to leadership development and building of learning communities. The Creatnet Way is experienced as a practice of learning, leadership and organization that integrates the inner-outer and part-whole. In a small group, learning is experienced as an individual and collective emergence, a growth of mind, heart’s ability to take required action according to nature. Leadership is experienced as a presence of responsibility, trust and influence. Organization is experienced as a learning community with collaborative leadership. 

The workshop intends to provide an experience of the Creatnet way and shares how the Creatnet Way has built learning communities across youth, teachers & school leaders in India since 2012. It invites reflection and discussion on how the practice of Creatnet Way can influence the future of learning, leadership and organizations across different contexts. It provides a space for participants to explore synergies and possibilities of collaboration.

Workshop 5: Campus Crucible: Leadership Under Fire (C101 Lucina – in-person)

Facilitator - Stockholm University Team

This workshop aims to create an understanding for collaborative leadership through immersive role-playing-based simulations of real-world school crises. According to the GEM report 2025 collaboration is one of the essential leadership dimensions and therefore an important part of successful leadership in education. Likewise, clear, frequent, honest and consistent communication is a key component for keeping all parties informed about the actions being taken in order to manage the crisis with shared knowledge and skills. The workshop will help build leadership capacity, collaborative problem-solving, and develop crisis response strategies among academic leaders. Workshop participants will be divided into smaller groups and given 1-3 case studies of real-life examples along with a specific character to play. They will be tasked to solve the crisis in collaboration with the rest of the group. 

Panel discussion (E101 Aula – hybrid)

Sustainability and Leadership in Education 

In this keynote panel we present some perspectives on sustainability and leadership in the field of education. We define the main concepts and findings based on our previous and current research on this topic. In particular, we make use of the following points of view: what is sustainable leadership and how can we define its connections to ethical leadership in education? How can we support professional development in sustainable leadership? Why is sustainable leadership urgently needed in education? What can we learn from sustainable leadership in other sectors of society? What kind of sustainability competences are essential in leading transformations to sustainability in an educational organisation?

• Panellists:

  Henna Rouhiainen (Postdoctoral researcher at the Biodiversity Unit of the University of Turku)

  Eija Hanhimäki (Senior Lecturer in Educational Leadership in the Department of Education at the University of Jyväskylä)

  Anna Lehtonen (Postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä)

• Moderator:

  Kristóf Fenyvesi (Senior Researcher in STEAM education at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä)

Coffee Break (provided)

Learning Café (E101 Aula – hybrid)

Feedback session (E101 Aula – hybrid)

Closing Words (E101 Aula – hybrid)

• Anna-Maija Poikkeus (Dean - Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Jyväskylä)