Towards a Better Future

Chapter Six: Educational Leadership and Governance
CHAPTER SIX
Educational
Leadership &
Governance
INTRODUCTION
Until the mid-1990s, educational leadership was not regarded as a priority in Irish educational
policy, or in the management and the daily work of schools and colleges. In the aftermath
of the 1991 OECD report on Irish educational policy, however, a greater awareness grew of
the importance of good leadership for the health of an education system in a rapidly-changing
society. The beginnings of this new awareness are evident in the 1992 Green Paper Education
for a Changing World, particularly Chapter 5, which illustrated the need for new forms of
management. A major stimulus was then provided by the wide-ranging deliberations of the
National Education Convention (1993-94). Based largely on policy pathways identified in the
Report on The National Education Convention (1994), the 1995 White Paper Charting our Education
Future devoted three chapters to matters that had major implications for leadership – Ch. 10:
Governance of Schools; Ch.11: In-school Management; Ch.12: School Plan. As yet, however,
leadership was largely seen as something contained within management, as distinct from an
issue that required analysis and action in its own right. As the decade of the ‘90s progressed,
however, new research on educational leadership began to make a strong impact
internationally, including in policy-making quarters. In its early days, this research was
associated with scholars like Thomas Sergiovanni, Michael Fullan and Robert J. Starratt in
North America, but the field soon grew to be one of the larger domains within international
educational research.
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