Aktørernes oplevelse af et styringspres: Italesættelsen af styrings- og ledelsesrelationen på uddannelsesområdet

Abstract

This thesis is about control and management. The stakeholders in the educational part of the public sector experience being subject to a pressure of control from the State. The main analytical question is the following: How is the relation between the Ministry of Education and the educational system articulated in relation to the question of control and management with emphasis on the self-governing educational institutions covering general upper secondary education, vocational education and training and general adult education? There are several reasons to focus on how the dialogue and the cooperation in the public sector can be strengthened. The Danish welfare State faces a number of challenges – economically and in the relation to innovation. There is therefore a need for demands being made to the quality of this dialogue of control and management that the stakeholders pursue in the public sector. Through an analysis of written sources I investigate how the relation of control and management is articulated.
I account for the following themes:
• A criticism of the lack of professional expertise within the Ministry of Education. • The experience of a comprehensive pressure of control.
• A proposal of enhanced professional identity.
• An injunction of a protective leadership of professional teachers.
Through the analysis I conclude the following:
• The stakeholders use a normatively founded form of criticism and their position is highly based on nostalgia and a glorification of the past and with a strong concern for the actual situation of society.
• The stakeholder’s vision of recreating a control and management understanding based on an educational professionalism. They do not want rationalized management thinking.
• The stakeholders emphasize educational based professionalism which represents a guard against the experience of constant change.
• The stakeholder’s wish is not realizable due to the last decades of modernization of the public sector where certain professionals cannot monopolize a certain sector or claim special treatment.
• The stakeholders isolate themselves in a glorification of their own professional culture and they praise the tradition, the cultural formation, pedagogy and their educational professionalism.
• The stakeholder’s comprehension of control and management cannot be translated in a way that is understandable within the concrete frames that we have to have an eye for when it comes to an understanding of the organization, professional work, leadership development, human relations management, economy etc.
In a perspective section of this thesis I describe how the educational stakeholders are in a somewhat locked position and it is difficult to see how they can manage to be included in a constructive dialogue about control and e.g. contribute to develop a language for public creation of value. Therefore I reflect upon how the stakeholders can be linked to changes, caused by modernization, of control and management in the public sector. I relate to the reform and control pressure and look upon these reforms as a management tool in the so called Competition State. I examine the shift within the division of political and professional management. Finally I outline that there could be a perspective by developing a language about management and looking at management in a context beyond the educational based professional culture. Ultimately I describe my own managerial development in light of the ongoing studies at the MPG.