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Schools today have to prepare students for life and work in a fast-changing world, for jobs and for using technologies some of which have not yet been created. But schools and school systems are not keeping up: all too often, teachers are not developing the practices and skills required to meet today’s learners’ diverse needs. The education sector does not have a great track record of innovating itself. Change is complex and multi-faceted; creating lasting change is hard. Reforms frequently fail to take hold or at best get “adopted” superficially without altering behaviours and beliefs (Fullan, 2015). Many reform efforts prepare schools inadequately for the changing environment (OECD, 2015a). Meanwhile, schools are under pressure to learn fast and teachers are urged to become “knowledge workers” to deal effectively with growing challenges of the changing environment (Schleicher, 2012, 2015).
In response, policy makers, educators and researchers have searched for alternative strategies to foster school-wide change, affect all aspects of school culture, and support schools in initiating and sustaining their own innovations. In this context, it is time to revisit arguments for reconceptualising schools as learning organisations (SLOs), a concept successfully practised in business and industry. SLOs have been seen as the ideal type of organisation for dealing with the changing external environment, for facilitating organisational change and innovation, and even improvements in students’ learning and other outcomes. Does this argument stand up to scrutiny? Though the concept of the SLO – also known as the learning school – has inspired hearts and minds of a group of researchers, educators and policy makers internationally for around 25 years, relatively little progress has been made in advancing it in research or practice.
While a read of SLO texts from 20 years ago highlight many resonances, global and policy changes indicate a greater imperative but also some cautions. This review is part of an attempt to work towards a common understanding of the SLO today which is both solidly founded in the literature and recognisable currently by researchers, practitioners and policy makers in many countries[1]. For us, this is not just a theoretical exercise. To be truly relevant and have the necessary impact, we would argue that the concept also needs to support those who are interested in transforming...