Governance and Management Under Tomorrow's Schools

The researcher was concerned to learn in educational readings that governance and management and the governance-management interface is a sorely neglected area of research, and that since the inception of Tomorrow’s Schools in New Zealand, there had been an exponential growth in the number of court proceedings involving conflicts of governance and management between principals and boards of trustees. The researcher wanted to determine the views of principals and board chairpersons on governance and management and undertake and in-depth study of a sample of secondary schools’ governance-management interface. A considerable body of quantitative and qualitative research literature has examined the background to the educational reforms and the delivery and implementation of the ‘self-management’ model. Of particular relevance to this study is the fact that New Zealand followed the ‘New-Right’ philosophy that was sweeping other westernized countries and devolved the responsibility and accountability for the provision of education to local communities.