The History of the IMTEC foundation
The end of the 1960’es was characterized by student demonstrations and criticism against the school system. Books were written about ”de-schooling” (Illich & Christie), and the interest for what happens when schools face renewal challenges was awakened.
Center for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI in OECD) accepted the challenge and started a research program to analyze the educational systems’ capacity for change (Dalin, 1973).
As a result of this program, a leadership development program was created: ”International Management Training for Educational Change”, based on the assumption that knowledge about how schools improve is important to school leaders. This also instigated a number of national school leadership programs. Later the word “Management” was replaced by “Movement”, and today the foundation’s name is “IMTEC – International Movement Towards Educational Change”.
Professor Per Dalin was IMTEC’s founder and leader during the OECD period in Paris. Upon his return to Norway in 1977, he brought back with him the name and the project idea, and IMTEC was established as a Norwegian foundation.
