The National Professional Qualification for Headship: Perceptions of the providers of taught higher degrees in educational management in England and Wales

The introduction of the National Professional Qualification for Headship (NPQH) has created both 'opportunities and dilemmas' (Bolam 1997: 278) for the providers of taught higher degrees in educational management. It can be argued that a series of inherent tensions exist between the emerging traditions of education management training and development articulated in the national qualification and taught higher degree programmes. This study seeks to define, explore and analyse some of these tensions as evidenced in the emerging literature on the topic; to elicit attitudes of course leaders/tutors of taught higher degrees in education management to the introduction of the qualification; and to discover some of the potential effects of the introduction of the NPQH on higher degree programmes in England and Wales.