10th U6+ Consortium of African Universities International Conference

The Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR) is reshaping education through human-centred artificial intelligence (AI), creating new opportunities for sustainable human capital development while simultaneously presenting complex ethical and governance challenges for educational institutions. As Kenya advances implementation of the Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), secondary schools are increasingly adopting AI-enabled technologies to support teaching, learning, assessment, and institutional management. However, existing Educational Management scholarship and AI governance frameworks remain largely technology-driven, regulatory, or higher education-oriented, offering limited guidance on how secondary school leaders can ethically govern AI within African educational contexts. Addressing this conceptual and theoretical gap, this paper employs a systematic critical integrative literature review and theory-building conceptual synthesis informed by Ethical Leadership Theory, Responsible Innovation Theory, the Technology Acceptance Model, and the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (2021). The review develops the Ethical Educational Leadership for Artificial Intelligence Governance Framework (EELAIGF), an original Educational Management framework that conceptualizes ethical educational leadership as the institutional driver linking responsible AI governance, educational justice, stakeholder trust, inclusive innovation, and sustainable human capital development. Unlike existing AI governance models that primarily emphasize technological regulation or operational efficiency, EELAIGF advances Educational Management theory by positioning ethical leadership as the strategic mechanism through which responsible AI adoption promotes institutional accountability, digital equity, learner protection, organizational resilience, and continuous policy improvement. The framework provides an African-centred governance model aligned with the University of Eldoret U6+ International Conference theme, 'Africa and the Fifth Industrial Revolution: Inclusive Innovation, Indigenous and Citizen Science for Sustainable Transformation.' The paper contributes new knowledge by extending AI governance beyond technological implementation to an ethically grounded educational leadership paradigm that offers a theoretically robust foundation for educational policy, leadership preparation, institutional governance, and future empirical research aimed at advancing sustainable educational transformation across Africa.