Educational Leadership, Management, and Policy for Preparing the Future Workforce: Global Perspectives and Local Realities

Introduction 

Across the globe, education systems are undergoing rapid transformation in response to technological change, global interconnectedness, demographic transitions, and the climate crisis. These changes are not only reshaping general educational goals, but are profoundly transforming the world of work and the skills, competencies, and professional identities required in contemporary labour markets. Accordingly, they are challenging education leaders to navigate complex policy environments while fostering inclusive, future‑ready learning environments (OECD, 2021; UNESCO, 2022). In this context, the concept of Vocational Excellence has gained prominence as a framework for aligning high-quality skills and competence development with innovation capacity, productivity, and inclusive economic and social development.

Educational leadership plays a pivotal role in translating ambitious global agendas—such as the Sustainable Development Goals, UNESCO’s strategies for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), and ILO frameworks on lifelong learning—into coherent, locally responsive practices (ILO, 2022; UNESCO-UNEVOC, 2020). This includes connecting learning with real work processes and occupational standards.

A central element of this agenda is the expansion and professionalisation of work-based and work-integrated learning (WBL/WIL), encompassing diverse formats such as apprenticeships, dual study programmes, traineeships, internships, industry projects, and simulation-based workplace learning. These formats require deliberate leadership, coordination, and quality assurance to ensure that learning in and through work becomes an integral and valued component of education systems.

Leaders and managers at system, institutional, and community levels are therefore at the forefront of decision-making about curriculum reform, cooperative learning formats, and sustainable partnerships with industry, employers’ associations, trade unions, and other labour market representatives, including the joint design of curricula, shared responsibility for assessment, and innovative governance arrangements for jointly managing education and training.

This special issue aims to bring together research that explores how educational leadership, management, and policy are shaping the preparation of the future workforce, with a focus on both global perspectives and local realities. By focusing on leadership in the context of Vocational Excellence and work-based learning ecosystems, the issue highlights how education and training professionals build capacity, negotiate reform, and create meaningful, equitable, and sustainable pathways between education, work, and lifelong professional development 

Purpose of the Special Issue

This special issue aims to:

Investigate the leadership practices that drive future‑oriented workforce education at school, college, and system levels.

Explore the role of management and governance in strengthening technical, vocational, and higher education for employability.

Critically examine how education leaders interpret and adapt global policies within local and national contexts.

List of topic areas

• Educational Leadership in Vocational and Technical Education (VTE/TVET)
• Strategic leadership in vocational, technical, and higher education.
• Leading organizational change to meet future skills agendas.
• Leadership capacity-building for workforce readiness.
• Transforming colleges into Centers of Vocational Excellence
• Management, Governance, and Policy
• Comparative perspectives on education management and workforce policy.
• Institutional governance and global–local policy translation.
• Mechanisms of working with industry and labour market actors
• Leadership in industry–education partnerships.
• Managing digitalization and innovation in technical education.
• Leadership for lifelong learning, reskilling, and upskilling.
• Curriculum Innovation and Pedagogy
• Leaders’ roles in embedding digital, green, and 21st‑century competencies.
• Instructional leadership for connecting classroom learning to workplaces.

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at:  ScholarOne Manuscripts 

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: Education Innovations: Systems and Future Learning  | Emerald Publishing

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else while under review for this journal.

Key deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 05/01/2026

Closing date for manuscripts submission: 01/06/2026    

Closing date for abstract submission: 06/02/2026

Email for submissions: r.sawalhi@ju.edu.jo