• The Australia and New Zealand School of Government

19 January 2010 

Course leaderTony Mackay, Centre for Strategic Education, Australia

The program

This executive workshop focuses on the multiple requirements for creating and sustaining change across entire school systems leading to improved student outcomes and greater public confidence. In recent years some school systems have been able to improve student outcomes across large numbers of schools in sustainable ways, pointing the way to new strategies for improving education.

This executive program will take participants through the multiple focuses required to create lasting and meaningful change in education systems. The sessions will address not only the need for good policy for education, but also issues that are equally important but often neglected, including effective implementation of large-scale change, keeping focus, and maintaining system and public support through effective communications. All of these will be discussed in the context of the realities of government culture and operations.

The context

Australian school systems are facing increased social and economic demands. The Council of Australian Governments has set ambitious goals and targets for schooling, a process of national curriculum development is in train, and significant funding and policy interventions are being initiated in schooling

These developments add to the challenges that face policy makers across Australia’s school system and its complex array of sub systems. Policy makers face the challenge of maintaining and building the capacity and performance of their own systems but also of these new sets of demands and opportunities and of shaping the responses.

Participant benefits

At the end of the program, participants will have a clear understanding of the kind of overall, comprehensive strategy that is required to create change in entire school systems. Specifically, the course will address:

• the main elements needing attention in each of these four areas
• the kinds of processes, systems, infrastructure and resources a government department requires to create and sustain such an agenda
• • the challenges and constraints facing comprehensive efforts of this kind.

   

  Participants will have the opportunity to share experiences and challenges and to explore policy actions with colleagues across school systems and to build professional alumni through ANZSOG.

the multiple requirements (policy, implementation, engagement, distractions) needed for effective change in a large education system

The Australia and New Zealand School of Government