The Swedish State commission:  2017 Educational Authorities Inquiry on the organization of educational state agencies main task is to analyse the Swedish educational agencies and how they support and work together for better schools in Sweden. The government write in Commission directives that the Commission should focus on looking for which changes in the structure of authorities could lead to higher efficiency and thereby support schools in a more efficient way than today (Dir 2017:37).

Even if all countries in Europe and around the world has a national interest and  ministries and/or  national agencies who influence the local school there is almost non comparative research on how this is done.  In this project we will do a comparative study of the different education state agencies mission – such as their normative and regulating function, support to school improvement, special pedagogical support and inspection, follow up on reforms and educational evaluations. This project is in that sense also filling a knowledge gap even in the international education community.

15 Countries/regions participate in the project; Australia, Canada, Alberta, Canada, Ontario, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zeeland, Norway, Scotland, Singapore and Sweden. In this symposium we will compare the agencies in Australia, Denmark, Germany and Sweden.

To make the study comparative the country articles follow the same structure: an introduction to the country educational system and then results based on the bullet points below, with a concluding section on the efficiency of the system.

• The organisation of school authorities in your country and the role of the government
• A description of the development of the agency structure with a focus on the period after the millennium
• A description of the different agencies mission, place and importance in the system
• A report on the discussion today. Can you see any special trends in the discussion that you think will change the agency structure in the near future?

We can see that the organization and culture among the countries differ in relation to how prescriptive the agencies are. There is different views in how to control and support schools as well as if other organizations such as union and private companies play an important role.

We know from research that principals’ leadership is bound by context. By comparing prerequisites and processes on national, district, and local levels and between countries, norms taken for granted become visible (Dimmock & Walker, 2004). The pace of reforms, together with more detailed policies that are externally controlled often with a focus on the deficits (Gustavsson, Cliffordson & Erickson, 2014.), also creates issues around power and trust. Trust both within the local school and among various hierarchal levels affects understanding and communication of what is both needed and expected (Tschannen-Moran, 2004; Kramer, & Pittinsky 2012).

Theories that will be discussed in the different presentation are all linked to implementation research related to government’s policy decisions and national laws for education. Thus rational implementation theories explain what is happing or is theories of local enactment action more appropriate to use. Or is the explanation in the intersection between policy implementation and local enactment?

x