ABSTRACT
This chapter will examine the role of governance in providing, through long-term planning, a clear sense of purpose and direction for the growing collection of schools bound loosely through the term ‘international’. It will consider the relationship between the governance of individual international schools and the governance in international education in its widest sense. The distinction is important. Individual schools serving particular and immediate needs may have a present sense of purpose. In fact, the mission statements of many international schools suggest that this is the case. All too often, however, external circumstances such as local, political or economic changes call these into question. Without a deeper idea of the meaning of the education that the school provides, such changes can, and do, cause disruption and often a feeling of disorientation through the loss of immediate purpose and a break in the continuity of the education provided.
