The impact of ICA on leadership preparation and development policies in England and Sweden: Comparing policy and practice

This chapter uses the backdrop of the pressures created by international comparative analysis in a global education system through mechanisms such as PISA, PIRLS, TIMSS, and the OECD to compare the approaches taken by both Great Britain and the Swedish government over the last decade in their attitudes to leadership development with school staff, and particularly their leadership teams. It examines the national program rolled out in Sweden and the merits of tying this into university education departments. In England, this leadership development has moved away from universities to being centralized in a marketized process, with all the service provision outsourced to the non-profit and private sectors, thus having little to do with the higher education landscape, despite the international comparative analysis that is regularly published that demonstrates that this is where it is best placed.