Švietimas: politika, vadyba, kokybė /Education Policy, Management and Quality

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Authors: Editorial Board

SPVK/EPMQ, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2020

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Authors: Daiva Malinauskienė

Reviewing the significant changes that have taken place in the pre-school education sector in European countries and Lithuania in recent years, we notice that a lot has been achieved in implementing the goals and objectives set in the strategic education documents for the development of this sector. Of all levels of education, investment in education from birth to 5 years has been shown to provide the highest economic return. Pre-school education can also be defined as a professional institutional education and care service for a family raising a pre-school child. Pre-school education provides a basis for a child's early physical, social, cultural, emotional and cognitive abilities, increases social integration, and creates conditions for a child's successful education now and in the future. Pre-school education services are especially important for children growing up in conditions of social risk and social exclusion. European countries, including Lithuania, are intensively and purposefully striving to improve the quality of pre-school education. In Lithuania, pre-school education has been and is considered a priority area of education, and quality assurance of pre-school education is the most important strategic direction. There is also a need to place more emphasis on the role of parents as key partners in the context of quality pre-school education. Recently, the nature of the pre-school institution's relationship with the family has changed significantly. These two institutions become active participants in the pursuit of quality child education from an early age.

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Authors: Vaida Padgurskytė, Daiva Malinauskienė

Activity evaluation questions of education institution managers have been and are the focus of attention of education policy strategists not for one year already. Seeking concrete changes in Lithuanian education system, quite a lot of political decisions were legislated in the latter years, which became very important for the education institution managers’ activity and its evaluation. This increased not only delegated responsibilities for the managers, but also foresaw bigger accountability for every year cadence. A written survey was carried out for the data collection of the managerial activity evaluation of the managers. 11 education institution managers from Vilnius, Šiauliai, Panevėžys districts, who work in general education schools and pre-school education institutions, participated in the research. The respondents differ in the aspect of gender and age, have different managerial work experience according to length. Since every manager’s experience was analysed as an individual case, their demographic characteristics did not have influence on the results. A carried out qualitative data content analysis allows asserting that the respondents justify school community expectations, which are to see managers – leaders, who evaluate their managerial activity as successful. However, there happen to be difficulties in the activity of managers as well. Prior to becoming an education institution manager, many of them face competency assessment difficulties, which is a national problem in education sector, requiring clearer decisions for many years. Being an education institution manager, one has also to face internal, external and personal difficulties: lack of bilateral trust, lack of managerial experience, managerial stereotypes, community split and other mentoring activities, which are not the primary functions of a manager, however, become an inseparable part of manager’s activity.

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Authors: Editorial Board

SPVK/EPMQ, end page, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2020