Managing Further Education: Learning Enterprise, Vol. 5

'This is a welcome addition to an impoverished field and will be referred to extensively by management developers, college managers undertaking postgraduate studies and by researchers' - Learning and Skills Research Journal

The incorporation of the further education sector in 1993 was followed by a period of extreme turbulence. Colleges plunged into the complex task of managing huge organizations while under pressure from cuts in funding and a steady expansion in the number and range of students. While financial scandals may have attracted attention, the success of the further education sector in continuing to provide a vital educational service for millions of people has been less recognized.

Despite the significant contribution of the sector to education and training, practitioners struggle to find adequate research evidence on which to base reflection and practice. They need material relevant to the specific situation of managers working within this very hybrid sector, part public sector education and part commercial organization, catering for an age and ability range greater than that of any other educational sector.

Based on a national survey of college managers, this book investigates how managers are responding to the challenge to increase the numbers and range of students and to improve learning and teaching. The author shows what it means to lead in a college and how the culture has evolved. Each chapter focuses on an aspect of management. The book concludes that 'learning enterprise' is an apt description of further education, a sector which has retained learning at its core and has learned to adopt an entrepreneurial spirit to shape itsfuture.

Managing Further Education will be essential reading for professionals working in further education and all those interested in the management of this complex and vital part of educational provision.

Professor Jacky Lumby's main interests are in educational leadership and management, particularly focused on how some learners and staff may be excluded. This has led her to engage with issues of diversity, gender and power. She is concerned to explore how leaders can be supported to lead people, systems and processes which offer success to all learners and staff in the context of living a life they value. Her work encompasses a range of perspectives, including critical theory and comparative and international perspectives. She is interested in challenging the assumption of the appropriateness of Western-derived concepts, theories and suggested practice in different cultures and in an increasingly diverse UK culture. She has researched and published widely on the leadership and management of schools and colleges in the UK, Ireland, China, Hong Kong and South Africa.

Her most recent book (with Professor Fenwick English) explores the use of metaphors in the language of education and its links to the ways we think about and develop education. She has also published books on diversity and leadership (with Dr Marianne Coleman) and on 14-19 education (with Professor Nick Foskett).

Professor Lumby entered higher education after a long and varied involvement with education, having taught and led in secondary schools, adult and community and further education She also worked in a Training and Enterprise Council with responsibility for the development of managers in both business and education, managing a network which allowed the cross-fertilisation of skills and experience from education into business and vice versa.

She is co editor of two international handbooks on leader preparation and development.

Awards and Memberships

Research Advisory Panel - Leadership Foundation for Higher Education

Expert Group member - European Policy Network on School Leadership

Expert Group member - Diversity in HE Leadership, funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education

Consultant - The Cyprus Council of Educational Evaluation Accreditation