I was delighted to see the very strong affirmation given to our colleagues in the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development in a recent OECD Report.

The Report, 'Building Leadership Capacity in Victoria, Australia', is part of a larger project designed to provide educational leaders, worldwide, with data that will help in developing school leadership policies and improving learning and teaching.

The Report concludes that "Victoria provides a working model of system-wide leadership development from which other systems can learn". Strong praise indeed!

Especially commended, amongst many other features, are the systems alignment of evidence-based theory and school-based opportunities, and its emphasis on school leaders being aware of themselves as learners who belong to learning communities, observing, mentoring and networking with each other.

An interesting exercise would be to cross-reference the underlying principles and strategies of the Victorian system with our own. Here will be found much validation of our own diocesan initiatives. It will also remind us that we are a learning organisation, operating in a worldwide setting whose professional perspective is certainly local and national but becoming increasingly global.

The report is titled Building Leadership Capacity in Victoria, Australia: A case study report for the OECD activity: Improving school leadership (December 2007).