Educational leadership in Australian private VET organisations: how is it understood and enacted?

Abstract

Ongoing reform in vocational education and training (VET) has placed significant pressure on leaders in private training organisations in terms of striking an ‘appropriate’ balance between educational and business imperatives. This paper draws on data from 34 interviews with leaders from 16 private registered training organisations in Australia to investigate how educational leadership is understood and enacted in their work. The study found that these leaders were able to articulate clearly the tensions between managing business imperatives and assuring quality educational outcomes. Further, they were conscious of the ways in which their leadership extended beyond their organisations into external environments in order to further educational as well as business goals. The findings suggest that, contrary to the popular notion of seeing educational and business leadership as competing priorities, leaders view them as complementary and integrated domains. They are therefore better understood as situated practices embedded in specific organisational contexts.