School Leadership Training under Globalisation: Comparisons of the UK, the US and Norway

In common the three countries see a need for increased quality of schooling as necessary because of globalisation. Leadership is crucial to achieve quality. However, there are distinct critiques in all countries fearing ineffective bureaucratization. There is resistance among education researchers towards the market orientation and the application of the language of business. Universities have played a conservative role. In terms of differences, the UK is uniformby its centrally organised National College, while the US with over 500 programmes and no national coordination shows complexity, if not chaos. Norway, with its National Network gives much freedom to individual institutions, although the diversity leads to tensions when the municipalities now can choose the training providers. All three nations are attempting to ‘reframe and reform’. Some educators think the defining factors will be quality of performance and quality of collaboration, while others believe that there must be a shift from focus on performance to focus on learning.