Improving schools is at the heart of all reform measures in recent years in India. The National Education Policy 2020 has highlighted the importance of professionalizing school leadership by providing various opportunities for in-service principals to avail themselves of professional development in diverse areas. It has been emphasized in the policy that school Improvement is a developmental trajectory leading to long-term and sustainable changes in school processes, practices, and outcomes. It includes but is not limited to, better management and utilization of resources, progressive changes in teaching-learning processes, staff participation in decision-making, strengthening school-community ties, and most importantly, enhancing student learning and outcomes. This paper addresses the current educational reforms, ground realities, School leadership programs, and future directions in India with research on evidence-based challenges of school principals in India. The research focus revolves around the changes in the requirements for the position of a principal in the Russian educational system. The unified qualifying directory, the certification itself created a system, where the professional training and education for principals is not homogeneous. Moreover, a candidate could become a principal having no experience in the educational field at all (Order dated August 26, 2010 N 761n (red. 31.05.2011). With the endorsement of the law, the majority of principals urgently completed a master’s degree or a professional retraining in the required fields which were not always related to the educational field (Bysik & Kasprzhak, 2016; TALIS, 2018). TALIS revealed that the majority of school principals (88% of those polled) undergo the required managerial training only after they have already taken up their positions (TALIS, 2018). Moreover, few of the candidates for school principal in Russia are aware of their impending promotion and are able to prepare for the position in advance (Bysik et al., 2015). Despite the fact that Russia has the unified qualifying directory, there is no information on the required skills for the position (Order dated August 26, 2010 N 761n (red. 31.05.2011). The striking point of the Russian education system is that no unified principal certification system, no professional standards for principals, no national qualification exists in the Russian education system. The first professional standards for principals were elaborated and adapted only in March 2022. As a consequence, the definition of the school leader’s profession is becoming more multifaceted.

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