In the post-digital era, secondary school leaders face challenges as they strive to lead education for sustainable development (ESD). School leaders must develop professionally to meet these challenges. An exploratory qualitative design was used to understand school leaders' perceptions, challenges, and training requirements regarding ESD in the post-digital era. The data were collected by means of interviews from ten school leaders from Ibadan metropolis secondary schools, Oyo State, Nigeria. Key findings uncovered challenges that pertain to students, government policy, teachers, parents, and society. Furthermore, digital training, leadership consciousness, leadership skills, professional opportunities, and upskilling of leaders are ideal development programmes for ESD. Thus, it implies that the Nigerian government and other African governments in similar circumstances, through agencies, individuals and donors, are to support and train school leaders to drive ESD in line with schools’ digital needs. It is expected that the insights of this study will provide guidance to secondary school leaders and policymakers on how continuous professional programmes can enhance leadership capacity for ESD in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. The study highlights the need for tertiary institutions in Nigeria and other African countries to include digital skills in their educational leadership programmes for ESD.
Awodiji et al. (Thu,) studied this question.