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Leadership: external context and culture
Leadership: external context and culture

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3 The potential impact of context

The film clip you are about to watch demonstrates how this awareness of the international context impacts on one particular school’s curriculum.

Activity 4

Timing: Allow up to 30 minutes

Watch the film clip below, which was filmed at a private school in China.

Write a short analysis of your own organisation in terms of the international contextual factors that need to be taken account of. Identify what these are and why they are important to the organisation.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 3
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Transcript: Video 3

NARRATOR
Anglo-Chinese Independent is a private school which targets high ability students. It's now started marketing outside Singapore to attract academically gifted pupils from the region in the hope of raising its academic standards.
FANNY TAN
We go to China, India, and the Asian countries to market because we want to attract the top ranks. As I said, this is good for us. Singapore is good for us-- for ACS to have the brains from the region come to Singapore and come to our school and receive their education here.
So we sell our school in that way. We go out and recruit. And we conduct tests in those countries that we visit.
NARRATOR
In China there's very little parental choice. In the early years, children attend their local school.
At secondary school level, they sit an entrance exam. And based on their results, the government assigns them to a school.
But there's now a growing number of private schools, like Camford Royal, an English medium school which offers students the chance to enter some of the best universities around the world, reflecting the increasing internationalisation of the educational marketplace.
YUAN LIU
Now the majority of the Chinese students who wants to go abroad, they pick up American universities rather than UK. And from my school's practice is about something like, you know, four, so among 100 students, almost 70 students willing to go out to America to study. And about 20 we need to go for UK to study. And about 10 per cent of them want to go to other countries to study.
NARRATOR
Camford charges fees of 6,000 pounds per year. And it is heavily oversubscribed. It doesn't have an entrance exam and recruits mainly on performance in an interview. Its track record of sending students to foreign universities is a key part of its appeal to parents and students.
WEIFANG ZHU
Their aim is so clear. In their mind, they want to go to Cambridge, and they want to go to Oxford-- you know, Yale and Harvard.
The top 15 universities name in their mind. And they want to go there.
ZHANG YUTONG
My dream is go to Cambridge University. And I know it's the best university in England. And I must come back because I love China.
CHEN FENG
Some parents may choose some private schools because these private schools have their special education plan curriculum which has some special attraction to the parents.
Like this school, this is not a school like other state-owned schools. Because state-owned school prepare the student for the Chinese entrance examination to the universities.
And this school prepares the students for the world's top universities and the colleges. And this is some goal many Chinese parents would love to seek.
Parents are free to choose schools. But there are some good schools which are very competitive. So your kids have to be very smart and make very good scores in the examinations in order to get into those schools.
End transcript: Video 3
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Discussion

The school has decided to provide students with greater chances of access to international higher education. The international connections are very clear in terms of local market competitiveness and a vision of global citizenship. It can be seen that this perspective is shared with the parents.

Another context, this time a hypothetical one, might be an early years centre in a rural area in a developed country. National data indicates a trend towards rising pupil rolls impacting on local schools, and there are plans for new house building in the area. A group of Children’s Services partners have a vision for a brand new local lifelong education campus, including an early years centre, and are successful in their bid for government funds. However, in the event of a change of global economic circumstances, the proposed new local employer, such as a military base or factory, may decide to relocate. The local funding for housing is withdrawn, and the national government withdraws funding for new lifelong education buildings.

The shifting context here is socio-economic, where local issues of housing, jobs and transport will affect families and related services. The group of educational leaders might decide to collaborate and join up services despite the lack of a new building because of their vision for the children of the area, or there may be increased polarisation and competition between schools.