‘Being responsible for your decisions or actions and expected to explain them when you are asked’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries).

Accountability may be vertical (top down) or horizontal (e.g. school-to-school or peer-to-peer support systems). It may include compliance with regulations, adherence to professional norms and/or be driven by outcomes. The purpose of accountability is widely accepted as one of strengthening the education system (Brill, Grayson, Kuhn and O’Donnell, 2018).

Accountability starts with governments, as primary duty bearers of the right to education … Governments should therefore take steps towards developing credible and efficient regulations with associated sanctions for all education providers, public and private, that ensure non-discrimination and the quality of education … No approach to accountability will be successful without a strong enabling environment that provides actors with adequate resources, capacity and information to fulfil their responsibilities (SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee, 2018, p. 2).

Capacity building refers to the process of developing and strengthening mainstream schools’ capacity to meet all learners’ needs, rather than distributing additional resources for learners with additional support needs. This process involves increasing the knowledge and skills of all education professionals (i.e. leaders, teachers and specialist staff) and enhancing collaborative practices within schools and across local communities. The ultimate aim is to transform teaching and learning and improve learner outcomes.

Co-teaching or team teaching, also known as collaborative teaching, is a teaching practice to address the diversity of learners and needs in the classroom. It takes place when two (or more) educators work together to plan, organise, instruct and make assessments on the same groups of learners, sharing the same classroom.

In a co-teaching setting, the teachers are considered equally responsible and accountable for the classroom. Co-teaching is often implemented with general and special education teachers paired together as part of an initiative to create a more inclusive classroom.

Working together may include: one teach, one observe; one teach, one assist; station teaching, parallel teaching, alternate teaching; team teaching.

(For more information on these, see Understood, no date).

Community-based approach motivates women, girls, boys and men in the community to participate in a process which allows them to express their needs and to decide their own future with a view to their empowerment. It requires recognition that they are active participants in decision-making. It also seeks to understand the community’s concerns and priorities, mobilizing community members and engaging them in protection and programming (Defined Term, no date).

Governance refers to how decision making happens in education systems. It refers to the institutions and dynamics through which education systems allocate roles and responsibilities, determine priorities and designs, and carry out education policies and programmes. In today’s increasingly complex social environments, many countries are working to ensure effective planning, implementation and delivery of education policies (OECD, 2019).

Governance mechanisms refer to the structures and processes that are designed to ensure the education system’s accountability, transparency and responsiveness. 

Good governance has been accepted as one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is also expected to be participatory, accountable, effective and equitable and to promote the rule of law.

Leadership has been interpreted in different ways, but at the core it is found in social relationships with social goals; it is defined as a process of providing direction and applying influence (Lumby and Coleman, 2016). It has to do with managing people’s emotions, thoughts and actions decisively in order to influence others towards a preferred direction (Diamond and Spillane, 2016) (European Agency, 2018c, p. 8).

This refers to four main types of services that have traditionally supported learners with disabilities: the educational sector, the health sector, social services and voluntary bodies.