ARION scheme of study visits
for education specialists and decision makers
Study visit no. 16,11
Quality, School Leadership and School Autonomy
Brno, Czech Republic
21/04/03 – 25/04/03
GROUP REPORT
This report is a product of
team effort.
Group rapporteur: Francesca
Brotto
Hosting organization: Assoc.
Prof. Milan Pol
Ùstav pedagogických véd Filozofickà Fakulta
Masarykova Univerzita
A. Novaka 1
CZ – Brno
PARTICIPANTS
1)
Jürgen Strüder, Eichendorfstr. 17, 57501
Betzdorf (DE)
2)
Thorsten Schneider, Schwedengrabstr.11a,
57520 Steinebach/Sieg (DE)
3)
Gabriele Holz, Wendehalsweg 32,
12351 Berlin (DE)
4)
Konstandinos Tsentikopoulos, 29-33 Adrianoupoleos, 67100 Xanthi (GR)
5)
Francesca
Brotto, CSA Massa Carrara, Via Pascoli 45, 54100 Massa (IT)
6)
Isabella
Ferruda, Via Marconi 78, 35046 Saletto, Padova (IT)
7)
Anne-Grethe
Skjaerseth, Martin Døvingsvei 10, 6017 Alesund (NO)
8)
Leocàdia
Maria Agostinho Santos Guerriero, Cabeço Velhinho, lote 29, 29503 Palmela (PT)
9)
Edio Luis Martins, Rua Capitães de Abril, 6 – 3 Esq Alfornelos,
27001 Amadora (PT)
CONTENTS
I. THE TOPIC : common issues, different processes and outcomes
A. A common period of changes
and reforms
B. The approach to school
autonomy: a common event, different stages
C. A common need to prioritize
the use of limited financial resources
D. A common redistribution of
power: whose decisions and responsibilities?
E. A common challenge and
target: achieving quality, evaluating it
F. A common role of negotiation
G. Common questions: what
schools for tomorrow? whose leadership?
II. THE PROGRAMME AND THE
ORGANIZATION: strengths and suggestions for improvement
III. THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION:
European dynamics
IV. THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION:
European contacts and cooperation
V. APPENDICES: examples of
models produced
Foreword
A 5-day study visit on topics of
such complexity as school autonomy, leadership and quality can only give
participants from differing national settings a glimpse of the issues entailed
both on a global, international level and on the more specific national ones.
The considerations expressed in this report are in no way to be perceived as
value judgments regarding the ways in which individual schools and national
contexts are relating to these issues. Rather, in recording a summary of our
reflections and observations, our intention is merely to share with others some
of the rich intellectual and cultural interchange that has taken place amongst
us.
I. THE TOPIC : common issues, different processes and outcomes
A. A common period of changes
and reforms
During the week of observation and reflection, the group members could
not help remarking the global background of change and reform that the reforms
of their own education systems need to be considered against. Some of the
systems of the six countries involved in the study visit have been tackling the
issues for at least ten years; others are only at the initial stages of pilot
project experimentation. Varying degrees and forms of decentralization have
taken place or are in the making, granting regional and local administrative
authorities a greater say in educational matters, meaning also that schools
themselves are getting more of a chance, as John MacBeath says, “to speak for
themselves”.[1] To what
extent schools in their countries (and their own schools) may actually “speak
for themselves”, meaning also the extent to which their heads, their teachers,
their students, families and other stakeholders may be involved in the process,
has been constant ground for comparison and discussion among the participants.
B. The approach to school
autonomy: a common event, different stages
However, if the issue of school autonomy is a common concern “across the
board” so to speak, the ways to approach it, the stages reached and the
scenarios in the making are quite diverse.
There are situations such as the Norwegian or the rather “young” Italian
one, already in their second series of reforms involving varying degrees and
models of school autonomy related to the new political priorities of their
governments, even though the first were never completely implemented. Policy
churning and conflicting political agendas have been seen as a source of great
turbulence for schools trying to grapple with their new and “fluid” identities,
especially when the autonomy measures have come about as top-down impositions.
Other systems, such as the Czech and that of some of the German Länder,
are implementing gradual approaches to greater self-management. In the Czech
Republic, a comprehensive framework of needed instruments and measures seems to
be still in the recommendation stages, but steps ahead have been taken,
especially in new headship roles and the possibilities given to schools to
profile themselves to a certain extent against the specifications of a mandated
curriculum. Although the German schools represented in the group still cannot
make a flexible use of centrally-allocated money, there is a greater move
towards team involvement in decision-making and a greater emphasis on school
improvement from within, also through self-evaluation.
In needing to render the extremely fragmented situation of Portuguese
schools a manageable series of clusters that can function as learning organizations,
a matrix has been developed in this country, which is intended to foster
autonomy as bottom-up self-determination. Within this view, newly clustered
schools can negotiate with regional authorities for the degrees and varieties
of autonomy that they feel ready to take upon themselves and be accountable
for. Autonomy is thus not mandated, but applied for through an administrative
and educational pact.
In the Greek situation (as in the Czech), the upgrading of
infrastructures and facilities seems to be a major government quality priority
and, as far as school autonomy is concerned, in Greece certain pilot projects
related to extracurricular initiatives and alternative education programmes are
underway at the moment.
C. A common need to prioritize the
use of limited financial resources
Greater decentralization, as a “mega-trend” observed in many national
contexts, stems not so much from educational considerations as from financial,
and thus political, imperatives closely related to the globalization of world
markets and more aggressive forms of economic competition.
Greater social mobility not only within a country’s borders, but also
across borders, is commonplace. There is the need to integrate foreign or Rom
children into school systems. Children with special needs have the right to
develop to their full potential. There is the need to provide second chances to
those who fail to meet standards. There is the need to cater to adult
education, especially in a world that turns today’s know-how quickly into
yesterday’s. There is greater fragmentation in family and social life to
contrast. These are just a few of the challenges facing schools. And there is
the need to train and support teachers and heads to meet these challenges. This
costs money. In the face of increasing and more demanding tasks for schools,
the money available in all the countries represented in the visit, however,
seems to diminish. Whether this is true on a national scale or simply on the
scale of the money actually reaching the schools is perhaps open to debate.
Whatever the case, there is thus the need also for priorities in spending
whatever is available and the right, through autonomy, to be able to establish
those priorities.
During the study visit, particular attention was drawn to the issue of
how the work of education professionals is valued and recompensed. Although in
some countries teachers’ wages are perceived to be low, this problem seems to
be particularly acute in the Czech Republic, as many practitioners have
reported.
D. A common redistribution of
power: whose decisions and responsibilities?
Decentralization means more levels of decision-making, both outside and
inside schools. During the study visit, the participants continually asked each
other about external and internal governance bodies, about steering and
decision-making processes, about the accountability and responsibility that
comes with distributed power, when it actually is distributed. The
participants and hosts of the visited schools and organizations exchanged views
regarding who can decide what, when and how, and whether he/she/they are
effectively empowered to do so (= have the means to do so). The group
experienced, within its own contexts and in the host context, the narration of
experiences where people are now held accountable for the results of situations
they have little control over. A question heard over and over again might be
summarized as such: “how do you deal with a bad teacher when teachers have
civil servant status?”
Other debated issues, closely related to the issue of “whose
leadership?”, focused not only on the changing role of the school head, but
also on the role of student and teacher voice in decision-making and
responsibility-sharing.
E. A common challenge and
target: achieving quality, evaluating it
Control in most of the countries represented is still centrally
exercised on some of the inputs (according to the country, it may be mainly
focused on school structure and organization and/or on curriculum and/or on
human and financial resource allocation possibilities…). However, in all the
six countries there is a growing awareness of the need to implement quality –
in the “best” of cases to promote better learning opportunities for all those
involved, in other cases as a response to the sense of growing competition
amongst schools (both in the public and private sectors).
During the very interesting
Friday morning seminar organized with leader-practitioners from Czech
schools of the area, some of them spoke of their work as “a struggle to help
their schools survive”. In reflecting upon this statement together, we have
understood that just aiming to survive as organizations will not necessarily
guarantee a long and fruitful life to those organizations. The great challenge
is, like in Hamlet’s to be or not to be, the challenge of “being”, as
participating and acting to change, helping to shape the change by joining it,
in that we are living in a far from stagnant world. In order to understand how
to change and what to change, the question of “how good is our
school?” needs to be asked. This is the case for evaluation.
In devolving power, governments themselves are placing more emphasis on
the monitoring and control of output, although none of the countries present in
the study visit can claim to have an over-arching and organically developed
system of external evaluation. As far as the Czech Republic goes, on the
external evaluation side, full inspections and annual reports seem to be
significant means of control.
Self-evaluation is perceived by all to be essential to achieving
quality. The measures explained to the group members by the heads of the Czech
schools and organizations involved in the visit are based mainly on observation
of practice, on questionnaires and on reporting. In countries such as Norway
and Germany, quality development teams using self-evaluation are being worked
into the mainstream organization of schools. Many Norwegian heads have even
gone abroad to gather ideas on self-evaluation from other more developed
models, like the Scottish one. In Italy, less than half the schools are at
present involved in some form of self-evaluation, but the concern is growing,
as it is in Portugal with the implementation of the “autonomy pacts” between
newly clustered schools and regional authorities.
F. A common role of negotiation
G. Common questions: what
schools for tomorrow? whose leadership?
II. THE PROGRAMME AND THE
ORGANIZATION: strengths and suggestions for improvement
The draft programme and the background materials were sent to all the
group members in ample time for them to reflect upon them and prepare
themselves for the visit. There was a good balance in the types of activities
proposed, relating to both professional and more broadly cultural interests.
There was also variety in the schools and organizations visited (including a
“basic school”, two secondary schools and a Higher Vocational Institute, the
premises of a comprehensive leisure center for children and adults, the
Municipal Education Department and the Department of Educational Science of the
Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University), fostering the analysis of the issues
from different angles and perspectives. The sites selected were in the
vicinity, allowing for the best use of time.
From the very first moment, the organizers were happy to allow the
participants to suggest certain changes to the programme to suit the group’s
needs and pace, also in relation to extra time to meet and work. In every
school/organization visited, preparations had been made and the group was
expected and warmly welcomed. The organizing team showed care and interest and
was generous in dedicating time to the group during the whole week: in the
planned activities, the extra meetings and the evening moments of social
exchange.
A piece of general advice for the improvement of the ARION study visit
programme as a measure might be the following: it would be helpful for the
ARION catalogue to contain more specific information to guide participants in
better orientating themselves as to which offer to apply for. It would also be
helpful to indicate in the catalogue which sub-groups of eligible participants
each study visit would be best suited to. While appreciating the exchange and
input that this particular study visit was able to provide for each member of
the group, a few participants mentioned
they might have benefited more directly from other visits tailored more to
their specific needs if they had been able to identify them.
III. THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION: European dynamics
In the group there were participants from six different countries,
including the host country: Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway and
Portugal. Not only was there an interesting mix of countries representing
widely varying geographical contexts of the continent (Northern, Southern,
Western, Eastern and Central Europe), but the group members also came from an
array of professional backgrounds: a head teacher of an adult and second-chance
school, a headmaster of a lycée-type secondary school, a deputy head acting as
head of a comprehensive secondary school, an administrative director of a
comprehensive secondary school, a teacher-member of the quality management
group of a vocational school, a teacher training as department head in a
vocational school, a teacher in a
secondary school with experience as a ministry curriculum advisor, a
teacher-trainer and innovations advisor working for a provincial education
authority, a university professor acting as head of strategic planning at a
Ministry of Education, the hosting university professor and department head,
two doctoral students in education.
Although one or two of the participants expressed the desire to have
been able to take part in a more homogeneous group so as to face common
problems from concretely common perspectives, thus focusing on solutions to
everyday practical things, the majority of the group felt the different
professional backgrounds to be a storehouse of experience and knowledge to share
in tackling the issues of school autonomy, leadership and quality assurance.
The principle of subsidiarity, which is a cornerstone of much EU policy,
finds its worthy counterpart in the need to converge that such diverse people,
with only apparently diverging agendas, have embodied. Such a need to converge
within the group so as to garner ideas for development at whatever level was
represented – the school level, the district level, the ministry level, the
research level – can only mark one of its strengths.
This need to converge is highlighted by another consideration. All the
group members showed high motivation in reconfirming their participation, as
neither the participants nor the organizers were aware in 2002 of the fact that
the dates selected for the study visit coincided with Easter itself and the
Easter break. They thus knowingly decided to participate, give up their holiday
and family time and to come to learn, notwithstanding.
In evaluating its own performance, a group interested in quality assurance
could not fail to analyze its group
dynamics. The group members acted sensitively towards each other and the work
atmosphere created was felt to be focused and empowering for all. There were no
negative pressures and everyone felt there was enough room for exchange on the foci
each session was centered around. Having given themselves guidelines in the
discussions helped maintain a sense of direction.
Besides growing professionally, these same dynamics have helped us grow
as people. It is not easy to communicate across cultures and in a foreign
language. It is even more difficult to do so on such linguistically demanding
issues, as the ones appearing in the study visit topic. These issues are widely
debated the world over and a vast body of literature is available, most of all
in English, but it is not accessible to all. The study visit has thus made the
participants feel more comfortable in expressing themselves not only in English
itself, as the common foreign language, but also in English as a technical
language related to school autonomy, leadership and quality.
IV. THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION:
European contacts and cooperation
For some of the participants, this study visit has constituted their
first personal contact with the Socrates programme and it may well be the
starting point for future initiatives, especially in the Comenius 1 range.
Other participants are not new to EU opportunities for education and some have
even wide experience of projects involving EU cooperation in this field.
Whatever their past experience may be in the European dimension, all of
the participants are willing to disseminate the requests made by the schools
represented in the group or visited in the host country for partners in
international exchanges. They may even act themselves as intermediaries in
building up a partnership with their or other schools in their respective
countries.
An interest has been expressed among some of the participants to
continue exchanging information and maybe even to set up a joint research or
development project. Collaboration between the Italian and Portuguese
representatives may also take place in the dissemination in their respective
languages of a book with the methodology and tools of a recent EU key Pilot
Project on self-evaluation in European schools.
V. APPENDICES: examples of
models produced
The study visit has produced a relative wealth of thinking. Here
attached on the next two pages are two examples of a visual-graphic approach to
the topic examined. The first model (A) organizes the results of a
brainstorming activity the group participated in as regards the common issues
it had been discussing all week (produced by our German colleagues). The second
model (B) is a re-processing of a previous conceptual organizing tool developed
by our Norwegian colleague.
MODEL A:
The objective of all educational innovations is the improvement of
quality in the learning process. This process is embedded in a network of interrelations.
The actors in these processes are students, teachers, headmasters, local
governments as well as the Ministry of Education.
The interaction between the participants of the learning process takes
place on different levels as it is underpinned by various influences. The chart
only shows a selection of those influences we regard as being important, e.g.
the curriculum, finances or ways of evaluation. We are aware of the fact that
there are still more influences not mentioned in the chart and that the impact
of the different influences on the learning situation varies not only in
different countries, but even in different schools in the same country.
MODEL B:
Quality could be understood as a matter of what is happening between a
pupil and her teacher. Thus this meeting should be, not on top of, neither at
the bottom of a pyramid, but merely a centre of concern for all those
who care about education or make decisions; from politicians who deliver the
premises, from specialists, advisers, authorities - to heads.
Whenever or whatever leadership is practised; the aim ought to be
to secure quality in this meeting, and
when evaluation is taking place one should focus on each level to see in what
way they promote or hinder quality.