Educational Change Management

Some years ago, I first came across the work of the nineteenth century French writer, Alphonse Karr (1808-1890), who first wrote: “The more things change, the more they are the same”. Since then, I have been interested in how this applies to education and what make the implementation and management of educational change successful or not. In most cases, educational managers appear to be largely unsuccessful in bringing about positive, lasting change. There are many reasons for this, some of which I have researched and been publishing since 1998. As you can see from the list under Educational Change Publications, my work in this area began when I was in Asia, as the Asian Tiger economies, including Hong Kong and Singapore, were developing rapidly, which was bringing about major changes in education.

As well as research-based publications on the implementation and management of change in language education, under Educational Change Publications you can also find details of articles written for professional publications based on my years as the Executive Director of an EAP/IEP school going through a period of great change. Some of the changes I initiated and managed were more resisted than others, and some were more successful then others, but all of them taught me a great deal about leading and managing change in educational settings.

In addition to writing, researching and publishing on change management and leadership, I have been invited to give presentations on these challenging areas of education. Based on my research and my experience, I developed an online course on change management for the International Diploma in Language Teaching Management, offered by the School for International Training in Vermont. Also, as the Director for a new graduate program in Hong Kong from 1998 to 20000, I needed to bring about a great deal of educational change in a relatively short time. You can find details of this work under Presentations and Courses on Change.

If you or your organization would like support in bringing about sustained, positive educational change, please email me at icie@andycurtis.org.