Strategic Management as Key to Improve the Quality of Education

During the last decade education systems have been undergoing a long process of restructuring from a model of educational management that was deeply rooted in the past to a strategic management model that is focused on the future. The present study aims to make a contribution in this direction. Firstly, we review the current scenario of change, and explore sustainable improvement in education as priority objective in educational management, making it clear that the most significant changes are those that are focused on improvement and on the educational establishment itself. Secondly, after finding that at both national and international level there is a growing consensus in the research about the existence of certain key elements that are necessary in order to achieve this improvement these being strategic educational management and effective educational leadership we describe the distinctive characteristics and the main components of this type of management in education. The paper ends with several implications for improving educational practice. In particular, some basic competences for the professionalization of educational management are outlined. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.