The Inspiration

In 2021, a GPE KIX initiative being implemented in Saint Lucia aimed to examine teachers’ change agency by creating a space for teacher teams to use a human-centered approach to innovating solutions to challenges and opportunities in their classrooms and schools. (Learn more about the human-centered innovation approach). This space, facilitated in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, included capacity building exercises, team coaching and continuous learning in a blended setting. It was dubbed the Saint Lucia Education Innovation Lab. For over three years, teachers and teacher teams exercised their autonomy to select issues to explore, ideate and prototype solutions. In addition to facilitating teacher-led innovation, the Lab also supported school leaders in building and strengthening an innovation culture that encourages such innovation; it also worked with education administrators to explore Innovation Portfolio Management for scaling. These administrators were impressed with the outputs and made a request that the space and the facilitation that it provided be a permanent one. 

The Lab shared its approach and outcomes with other Caribbean islands that indicated an interest in teacher-led innovation and its supporting structures related to leadership. To facilitate this expressed need, the Caribbean Innovation & Leadership Lab was conceptualized.