ABSTRACT
Compared to other sectors of the educational system, leadership in the post-compulsory sector is much more concerned with the ways in which organizations conduct their affairs than it is about key roles and the characteristics of those who occupy such positions. The post-compulsory sector of education covers an enormous range in terms of age of students and in terms of the academic level of the work being carried out. In evidence to the Robbins Committee the former teacher training colleges' representatives complained bitterly about their relationship with their maintaining authorities. Academic self-determination has been shown to be a trend which has spread from the universities to public sector higher education and then to the remainder of further education. Paralleling this diffusion of academic self-determination has been the spread of participatory academic policy making. The spread of these two forces has, however, not reached school level in any formal sense.
