ABSTRACT

In this chapter we want to draw together the key concepts around networks and collaboratives and discuss how they relate to emergent policies and issues within education systems in the UK and internationally. In doing so we want to not only provide insights into the potential future for more ‘networked’ education systems but also the nature of the leadership such systems will require. Of course we are not alone in attempting to do this. In what was the first sustained consideration of the potential of networks in education, the OECD (2003) came up with a series of future scenarios. These varied in the extent to which networks became the norm and to the extent they operated as part of an education system or in fact became the system. One scenario, which they called ‘learning networks and the network society’, encapsulates their view of what might be the case if education systems were not organised by bureaucratic or markets means and instead became ‘fully’ networked:

Dissatisfaction with institutionalized provision and expression given to diversified demand would lead to the abandonment of schools in favour of a multitude of learning networks, quickened by the possibilities afforded by powerful, inexpensive information and communication technology. The de-institutionalisation, even dismantling, of school systems would be an important feature of the emerging ‘network society’. Various cultural, religious and community voices would be powerfully to the fore in the socialisation and learning arrangements for children, some very local in character, others using distance and cross-border networking.