Introduction

A programme of study typically refers to the organised components which make up a specified set of content and activities over a defined period of time, while programme management involves organising available resources – materials, human skills and time – for the efficient and effective delivery of the programme. Programme management includes identifying teaching and learning goals; establishing standards of performance; identifying and deploying resources (including financial and human); implementing the delivery of the programme within a budget; monitoring actual performance; comparing actual achievement against planned targets (both learning and financial); taking corrective action to align goals and performance, and developing insights into and understandings of the delivery and management of the programme with a view to continuing improvement.

Background

Educational management has long been a significant field, with its own body of theory and research (see, e.g., Musgrave 1968; Houghton et al. 1975; Goulding et al. 1984; Bush 1985), as well as being concerned with issues such as managing ethics (Bottery 1992), change (see Fullan 1982, 1991; Newton and Tarrant 1992), schools (e.g. Glatter et al. 1988; Everard and Morris 1996), teams (e.g. Bell 1992), quality (e.g. Murgatroyd and Morgan 1992) and marketing (e.g. Stott and Parr 1991). Until the late 1980s, TESOL remained relatively isolated from this body of principles and practices and – with the occasional exception of articles on project management (e.g. Bowers 1983; Woods 1988) and languages for specific purposes (see Robinson 1988b) – even the accounts of the former were largely concerned with matters of language content (Smith 1998: 35).