Abstract
As part of the current Review of Education Governance in Scotland, the Headteachers’ Charter is perceived as a central policy solution. The Charter changes the responsibilities of the headteacher by altering the relationship between headteacher and local authority, and thereby bringing about changes to the governance of education. If these changes are perceived as the solution, what is the perceived policy problem? This article examines policy documents to explore the policy problem using Bacchi's (2012a) ‘what's the problem represented to be’ (WPR) approach, which uses a framework of six questions to analyse policy texts. The article begins with a brief overview of the policy programme, the ‘Empowerment Agenda’. The article discusses Bacchi's WPR analysis framework and then presents the findings, using this framework. The article ends with a discussion of the impact of the reform of educational governance including the Headteachers’ Charter on the role of the headteacher.
Highlights
As part of the current Review of Education Governance in Scotland, the Headteachers’ Charter is perceived as a central policy solution
While the attainment gap is identified as the problem initially, it is the attendant problem of structural barriers (Humes, 2020) that has to be addressed: ‘...widespread variation in outcomes and in the performance of local authorities and schools’ (SG, 2017a:15)
The pandemic has demonstrated the critical importance of headteachers, where autonomy is not about enacting government policy but is about creating policy (Lipsky, 2010) by quickly making contextually appropriate decisions impacting on confidence and safety of everyone in their community
Summary
As part of the current Review of Education Governance in Scotland, the Headteachers’ Charter is perceived as a central policy solution. Bacchi’s (2012a) ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) framework of six questions was used to analyse Scottish policy on education governance through key policy documents.
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