Head teachers go to school: business acumen.
This week saw a number of the country’s top head teachers visit Number 10 to discuss a new approach toward educational management for 2007. I choose the word management carefully over more conventional terms for amongst these teachers sat not civil servants and members of local authorities, but business leaders.
The company at Tony Blair’s home on Monday was indicative of the discussions that took place there and the recommendations detailed in a new government-commissioned report released today by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the industry-focussed advisory service.
Rather than becoming bogged down in the negatives of the current situation - excessive bureaucracy and inflexible central government interference - it focuses on where these failings can be built on as well as predicting future needs of the industry as education and its systems continue to evolve.
Key to the consultation was the proposal that Britain’s schools should be led by business leaders and chief executives who may not necessarily originate from a teaching background.
PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ report recommends putting impetus behind the use of leadership teams. Sensibly, the proposal certainly doesn’t suggest the removal of experienced head teachers from schooling, but rather that they should become part of a team comprised of staff from a variety of backgrounds and specialisations which can be positively applied to educational practices on a local, school level.
There is a shortage of head teachers currently, a situation that stands to worsen throughout the coming decade. It stems from the slow climb up the career ladder for teaching staff, coupled with disincentives toward the position - namely low pay and benefits in return for the huge pressure and responsibilities the positions entail.
Fundamental to resolving this issue is the plan to set up a fast tracking scheme that would generate a group of choice head teachers able to tackle and reform underprivileged and troubled schools. These heads would graduate after fours years; the turnover of teachers reaching such a status on the career ladder would be quickened, plugging the gap whilst increasing skills and experience amongst a school’s staff.
Such changes would have great benefits, so far as I can see. In bringing corporate professionals to the table, they will be able to apply business acumen directly into the operations and processes of schools at the front-line. Business practices focus on efficiency and cost-effectiveness; two issues that stand to be highly valuable to failing schools. Head teachers already have a lot to deal with and leadership teams would allow them to both delegate tasks as well as seek information from fields in which he or she is likely not experienced: human resources, finance, etc.
This is a project designed around minimising bureaucracy. Whilst the premise has been devised in-house, its provision is being outsourced. It would appear that Tony Blair has finally become despondent with the slow and wasteful legislative processes used by central government, and is making sure that his initiative is being pushed through at pace and with great force.
There’s much discontent between the various parties involved, but the National Association of Head Teachers makes the most positive step, by reaching for a sensible concession. As Mick Brookes of the NAHT put it:
We have no objection whatsoever to people who are outside the education arena working with school teams, indeed being school leaders in charge of schools.
But we think the direction should still come from somebody who has that deep base and understanding about how schools work how children learn and those skills of teaching that you can only get by doing the job.
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Sounds good to me. Perhaps Tony is pushing this through directly rather than employing the “slow and wasteful legislative processes used by central government” because he knows he only has a limited time left in Number 10. Plus it is far from clear that Brown will want to continue with this measure once he comes to power. Good move. If it provies successful a similar thing could surely be rolled out across other government departments. Perhaps.
One horror story I recently heard came from a fellow student of mine who used to be a high ranking police officer. In charge of his department he was responsible for doing the budget each year - problem was that should he reach the end of the year with a surplus he would receive less the following year. Accordingly at the end of each year he would spend like crazy on unwanted goods. He tells me how his office was cluttered with boxes equipment totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds. Not once was any of it ever used. Sob.