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WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2013

Leadership for 21st Century Learning

by Marco Kools
Analyst, Innovation and Measuring Progress Division, Directorate for Education and Skills

Against a backdrop of increasing globalisation, rapid technological innovation and a growing

knowledge workforce, few would dispute that the primary task for management today is the
leadership of change. The education sector is no exception to this. 

Contemporary learning environments (schools) must be able to keep pace with the changing
times, while delivering on their core task - equipping students with the knowledge and skills for
life in the 21st century. This requires leadership to set the direction, taking responsibility for
putting learning at the centre and keeping it there. Sounds simple, but what does it really mean
in practice? Where does one start? Who does what?

These are some of the challenging questions that the recently released OECD
publication Leadership for 21st Century Learning responds to. The publication builds on the
prominence given to the concept of learning leadership in the recently released Innovative
Learning Environments. It addresses the "Why? What? How? Who? Where and When? of
learning leadership and presents a selection of leadership strategies from Austria, Australia,
Canada, Israel, Norway, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. 

The analysis of the leadership strategies, international literature and the contributions to this
volume by leading international experts shows that by its very nature, learning leadership is
social and connected. It shows the importance of participating in professional learning
communities and networks as a vehicle for learning leadership to flourish and to make it more
effective. This is not argued principally in order for community members to feel more positive
about themselves through a sense of belonging. Rather, it allows professional learning
communities and networks to serve as a means for shared strategies and visions to emerge
within learning environments, and for developing appropriate expertise through sharing. A key
role for government therefore lies in creating the conditions that facilitate networked professional
learning opportunities. 

For 21st century learning to flourish on the ground, learning leadership must be exercised at
different levels of the education system. Although the initial impetus for change might come from
any level - from within the system or outside - it needs the corresponding decision making and
action at other levels of the system in order for it to be sustained at scale. This is increasingly
relevant as learning environments become more innovative and involve a range of different non-
traditional partners like businesses, foundations or cultural bodies from outside the formal
system.  

A key question for governments to consider therefore is what these changing leadership
dynamics mean in terms of issues like quality assurance, governance and accountability when
the education system's boundaries deliberately become more blurry. These are some of the key
issues being investigated in the last strand of work of the OECD Innovative Learning
Environments (ILE) project on"Implementation and Change" and its sister project Governing
Complex Education Systems (GCES), which are activities of the OECD Centre for Educational
Research and Innovation (CERI).

Links:
Leadership for 21st Century Learning
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation CERI
Innovative Learning Environment project 
Governing Complex Education Systems
Related blog post by Marco Kools: Designing 21st century learning environments
Photo credits: Cover © Inmagine LTD.
at 9:00 AM 
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Tags: CERI, GCES, ILE, leadership, learning environments

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