Skolverket invests in digital leadership skills - IT company leaders can coach principals in change management

Digitization Skills supply Education and training

The Swedish National Agency for Education is implementing an ambitious program in 2017 to strengthen the digital competence of school leaders, as part of a national strategy for school digitalization. At a meeting with IT&Telekomföretagen representatives on January 17, it was discussed whether IT company leaders through mentorship and other forms of collaboration can support principals in change management.

On Tuesday 17 January, a working group*) from the IT & Telecom Companies' IT Competence Council and two of the Swedish National Agency for Education's digitalization officers, Peter Karlberg and Lars Lingman, met. The purpose of the meeting was to explore the possibilities for member companies to collaborate with school representatives at different levels to accelerate school digitization. For the IT&Telecom companies, leadership has been assessed as the most prioritized issue (which was expressed at a meeting with Gustav Fridolin on 16/11 2017).

Lars Lingman, who is responsible for issues relating to school leaders and IT in schools, began by presenting the Swedish National Agency for Education's initiatives linked to leadership. Central parts:

  • The National Agency for Education's proposed vision until 2022:
    • All children and students have developed adequate digital skills.
    • The school system is characterized by taking advantage of the opportunities of digitalization so that the digital tools and resources contribute to improved results and more efficient operations.
  • Regarding the IT strategic competence, the strategy is to: "...ensure that head teachers/principals have adequate capacity to strategically lead digital development work..."
  • Governance and management issues are divided into general areas, of which change management is one, and subject areas, of which digitalization is one.
  • In the field of digitization, the National Agency for Education will work on two tracks during the year:
    • Launch the Lead Digital program, based on the same methodology as the successful Reading and Maths Leaps.
    • Implementing a development plan - according to the scheme below - in which different elements of the digitalization area are developed.

  • Participants in each area of the program:
  • All pictures Lars showed can be found here.

In the ensuing discussion, the question was raised of how IT companies, alongside their roles as suppliers of products and services, can contribute to leadership development. Peter K and Lars L then highlighted the general area of change management (cf. the third point above), where there are not the same elaborate programs as for the subject area of digitization. Here it would be valuable to have an exchange of expertise between leaders in IT companies and school leaders on issues such as agile development and coordination of IT and business development (so-called DevOps). One concrete activity that was mentioned was mentor meetings between principals and IT company leaders, which are being carried out on a trial basis in selected locations.

At the meeting it was decided that proposals for concrete activities would be discussed further between Per Grape, representing IT&Telecom companies, and Lars Lingman. They will meet on February 24.

Member companies that want to participate, with mentoring or otherwise, in contributing to the competence development of principals in change management are welcome to contact Per Grape or me.

Fredrik von Essen

*) Örjan Johansson, Atea, Lars Wiigh, IBM, Joke Palmkvist, Microsoft, Per Grape, One Agency, Carina Wiman, Tieto, Beatrice Silow, Sigma IT Consulting and yours truly.