This article explores the responses of school principals of small rural schools in Victoria, Australia to leadership challenges they identify as characteristic of these contexts. The research is an exercise in grounded theory building, with the focus on the principalship as it is enacted in small rural settings. The article also seeks to trace the…

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss the teaching and assessment strategies for an organisation-centred curriculum. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a case study. Data were collected from interviews and a focus group with worker-learners enrolled in a Graduate Certificate in Education (Educational Leadership) course. Findings: The…

Purpose: This paper aims to document the development and use of cases for the leadership development of principals in one large education system in Australia. The case initiative was specially targeted at deepening understandings of the department's recently released statement about the principalship, "Leadership Matters". The…

Major changes in the context in which education managers will be operating in the 1990s presents challenges for heads of schools, while at the same time providing opportunities for heads to function more powerfully at the school level. The dominant professional management models are discussed from a historical perspective; they include the…

This document provides three resources in support of "Approaches for Sustaining and Building Management and Leadership Capability in VET Providers" (ED499670), which examines the existing and potential strategies for sustaining and building greater levels of management and leadership capability in training organisations. The resources…

This paper reviews the major ideas of the seminal total quality management theorists, such as Deming, Crosby, Juran, Ishikawa, and Imai, to illustrate how total quality management is applicable to education. It is argued that there is a need for a paradigm shift in educational administration. The first part reviews current Australian societal…

The vocational education and training (VET) sector has experienced substantial change in the past decade, characterised by ascendant industry-driven needs and mantras of flexibility and responsiveness. A number of public policies underpin these changes and simultaneously point to the need to manage diverse employing bodies, industry standards,…

This report describes and analyzes the role played by key actors in initiating and implementing major reform in the management of the department of education in Victoria, the second largest state in Australia. Focus is during 1979-84, the time of the greatest administrative reform in the department's history. Study goals include the analysis of…

Challenges certain theoretical assumptions underlying educational administration. Demands critical thinking about ethical aspects, particularly the relationship between "quality of judgement" and "deciding rightness." Proposes an ethics program for school administrators incorporating values reflected in schools as a social…

This paper compares two Australian educational administration texts published in 1963 to reflect critically on the radical changes that have occurred in educational administration in Australia since then. The books are "Headmasters for Better Schools," by Bassett, Crane, and Walker; and "Training the Administrator," by…

This paper reports on the objectives and specifications of an "educative leadership" project that aims to synthesize experience, research, and theory and to develop complementary inservice and postgraduate learning materials. Researchers and theorists are now addressing the lack of philosophical machinery in educational administration.…

This publication offers suggestions for improving management so that organizations, especially further education institutions, will be more effective. The conceptual bases for the book are three "tool chests": strategic thinking, speedy decision, and total quality improvement. Chapter 1 clarifies strategic planning and provides case…