The Question of Competence: the origins, strengths and inadequacies of a leadership training paradigm

During the 1990s the Teacher Training Agency showed its commitment to adopting elements of a 'competence' model of educational management training in the construction of the National Standards for Headteachers (TTA 1997, 1998). These same 'standards' have come to underpin the most ambitious programme of educational management training and development ever attempted in the UK (Glatter 1997) including the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH), the Headteachers' Leadership and Management Programme (HEADLAMP) and the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers (LPSH). This article attempts to trace the origins of competence-based approaches to management training and suggests that the model, though having much to commend it, contains within it a variety of underlying and unresolved tensions.