The competent primary headteacher: Broadening the management competence approach or abandoning it?

Within management generally, and education management more specifically, th ere has been an almost continuous search for the key to effective managemen t development. Generic occupational standards, generated by the Management Charter Initiative (MCI), are claimed to be applicable and transferable to any manager in any organization. Thus, a manager in a school would be expec ted to meet the same requirements as a manager in any other organization at the same management level, In the education world, both practitioners and theoreticians are sceptical about the competency approach. This article ana lyses the relevance of the management standards to primary headship by repo rting on the experiences of six headteachers seeking NVQ management qualifi cations.