Strategic Management in Education

Due to the level of political violence over athirty-year period in Northern Ireland there havebeen numerous calls for change in the educationalsystem to allow Catholic and Protestant children toattend the same schools (e.g. Fraser 1974; Heskin1980; Spencer 1987). There are perhaps two separateissues. The first is whether or not the claims forthe effect of integrated education are valid and thesecond is whether the system that has developed hasdone so in the most effective way and almostregardless of the first issue. This research dealslargely with the second issue and has consideredintegrated schools through an organisational lensusing strategic management literature. The researchidentified the nature of the relationship between thevarious stakeholders in the integrated 'sector' andfound that there is a lack of awareness ofcommonality or diversity between the schools. Thishas resulted in a weak sectoral identity and a lackof synergy. The research findings suggest that theintegrated education movement has reached across-roads in its development and requiresappropriate strategic management for futuredevelopment growth and maybe even survival!