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

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Authors: Editorial Board

Cover, SPVK/EPMQ, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2020

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Authors: Rita Makarskaitė-Petkevičienė

Journal’s introductory article deals with preschool and pre-primary education actualities. At the end of November, the President of Lithuania signed Education law amendments. From the year 2023, the conditions for the social risk families bringing up preschool age children (5-6 years) should get better, because municipalities are obliged to ensure pre-primary education for all children. There were a lot of discussions up to that. Municipality and parents’ forum and other organisation representatives expressed worries. Municipalities state lacking kindergartens, preschool and pre-primary education teachers, educational environments are not arranged for such age children, etc. Parent representatives fear if their children are not seated in a school desk as first formers, and learn from textbooks, and so on. This problem is essentially solved; 800 are planned to be requalified, among them preschool and pre-primary education teachers. The project “Innovations in the kindergarten” closing next year should significantly contribute to education content creation, and so on. Changes in preschool and pre-primary education are grounded on neuroscience research and recommendations as well.

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Authors: Dalia Dambrauskienė, Reda Ponelienė

Activity areas of the head of the educational institution include school administration and management, purposeful use of human and material resources to ensure the quality of education. The school context influences the heads’ working day and their time distribution; therefore, it is relevant to conduct research to evaluate the contextual factors determining the opportunities and limitations of heads’ working time planning. The aim of the research is to investigate the distribution of working time of pre-school institutions’ heads for performance of different functions and to reveal the opportunities and limitations of working time planning. The study was conducted in 2018-2019. During the first stage of the study, one head of the pre-school institution from each of three European countries (Lithuania, France, Italy) was surveyed. The results of the survey have shown certain similarities in heads’ activities due to the specificity of the head’s work, starting with the formation of strategic aims, parents’ and social partners’ involvement in the institution’s activities and finishing with the assessment of the quality of the institution’s activity. Given that heads of different countries work in quite different contexts and under different working conditions, it is not appropriate to draw summarising conclusions, but the obtained data can be used in developing the methodology of analogous research. During the second stage, the topics of planning the working time of the heads of pre-school educational institutions were analysed. The heads of Siauliai pre-school educational institutions, involved in the study, have revealed that they spend most of their time working with the documents of the institution, solving personnel and financial issues. In other words, the activity prevailing in the work of the heads of Lithuanian pre-school institutions is administrative-bureaucratic processes, while the heads themselves are inclined to use part of that time for supervision and improvement of the educational process and for their own professional development. Although one of the head’s functions is proper and timely planning of activities, and thus, of their own working time, in practice obstacles to time planning, related to management of human and material resources and multi-tasking, when several activities differing in content and scope are performed simultaneously, are encountered.

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Authors: Editorial Board

End page, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2020

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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