Leadership For Learning: International Perspectives

The impact of globalization is being felt in numerous spheres of educational policy and practice, in rapid growth of information and communication technologies, in economic transformation, and international market competition, all of which conspire to create new demands and place new pressures on school leadership.
Drawing on examples from 12 countries in different parts of the world. The Editors have brought together 28 renowned scholars in Europe, Australia, North America, and Asia-Pacific countries to contribute to this book. The first six chapters address key themes and provide the framework for the 12 country reports which follow. With the aim of increasing international understanding and teasing out issues of transfer and application across cultural and linguistic boundaries, we have chosen national reports which cover a range of countries representing a diversity of culture and contextual backgrounds. We believe, these chapters and the book as a whole, can provide important theoretical, policy and practical implications that will inform the debate about the future of education and of schooling. While each of these country narratives underscore the importance of context, at the same time there are insights and values held in common.

John MacBeath is Professor Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, Director of Leadership for Learning: the Cambridge Network and Projects Director for the Centre for Commonwealth Education. Until 2000 he was Director of the Quality in Education Centre at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. As well as his interest and research on leadership he has, for the last decade, worked with schools, education authorities and national governments on school self-evaluation. Five books on self-evaluation have been addressed mainly to a teacher and senior management readership. These include Schools Must Speak for Themselves, Self-Evaluation in European Schools, Self-evaluation: what's in it for schools? Self-evaluation in the Global Classroom and School Inspection and Self evaluation - all published by Routledge and now in twelve European languages. All of these books derive from collaboration with schools, with teachers and school students, the Global Classroom book being written mainly by school students from eight different countries. Issues in School Improvement, a CD-rom resource for schools in Hong Kong, contains many of these self-evaluation tools in both English and Chinese while a recent addition to self evaluation and inspection Hong Kong is an interactive website illustrating good practice in Hong Kong special, primary and secondary schools. He has acted in a consultancy role to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), UNESCO and ILO (International Labour Organisation), the Bertelsmann Foundation, the Prince's Trust, the European Commission, the Scottish Executive, the Swiss Federal Government, the Varkey Group in Dubai (Emirates) and the Hong Kong Education Department. He was a member of the Government Task Force on Standards from 1997-2001 and was awarded the OBE for services to education in 1997