Educational marketing and the pace of innovation

During the last two decades, education systems worldwide have been working under an increasing need to adapt to a rapidly changing postindustrial external environment with social, technological, economic, and political transformations. The unprecedented growth, complexity, and competitiveness of the global economy with its attendant sociopolitical and technological developments have been creating relentless and cumulative pressures on education systems to respond to the changing environment. Today, educational institutions from primary schools to universities are being forced to compete and excel in the international arena, and are thus expected to go far beyond simply providing pure knowledge and skills as before. Increasingly, more institutions in primary and secondary education are embracing innovative practices from the global business world and dedicating growing attention to strategic and marketing aspects of educational management. The European Commission has defined innovation as the ''building block of the future competitive workplace during the 21st century'' and the strategy of educational institutions around the world is being affected to a large extent by this statement. This chapter focuses on the identification and definition of the future challenges in schools' governance, and presents a novel logical framework for the arena of educational marketing. Special attention is given to innovation as a key driver for further development of educational institutions and its possible impact on marketing efforts in educational institutions. These aspects, previously overlooked by research literature, are discussed in the present chapter, adding a new dimension to the understanding of strategic facets in the educational marketing arena.