A systems approach to education in the secondary sector

The soft systems approach developed by Professor Peter Checkland and colleagues during more than 25 years is introduced here as a means of enquiry into organizational problems. Recursive and engineering participation, the methodology’s philosophy of trial‐and‐error learning, proposes logical models of viewpoints thought likely to clarify complex issues. Like earlier scientific approaches to problem solving, the models should be subjected to tough criticism, though any model is never an attempt to imitate part of the world (in scientific style) but merely to organize quality discussion.