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

3

Authors: Editorial Board

Contents, SPVK/EPMQ, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2022

9-25

Authors: Vaida Padgurskytė

Recent transformations in the education sector have been receiving considerable attention both in the pedagogical society and in the political debates. Issues related to the updating of curricula and educational programmes, teacher training and professional development, an earlier start of compulsory education and other important issues related to education are being addressed. Particular attention is being paid to the improvement of the administrative sector of education – the submission and criteria of terms of office and performance evaluation reports of the heads of educational institutions (except for higher education institutions), the formation of the Reserve of School Heads. The most important provisions of the educational documents that have an impact on the assessment of the situation in the general education school sector have also been newly adopted and the lack of heads of educational institutions has become apparent. Although the Reserve of School Heads established by the government should provisionally eliminate this problem, there have been no significant changes in recent years. A questionnaire survey of the heads of educational institutions was conducted. The study involved 11 heads of educational institutions from Vilnius, Šiauliai, Panevėžys counties, who work in general education schools and pre-school education institutions and have different managerial experience in terms of duration. The qualitative content analysis of the data suggests that some of the heads of educational institutions who participated in the study are not satisfied with their salaries, high responsibilities, work for an idea, frequent transformations in education policy. The respondents also specifically identified solutions that could help education policy strategists eliminate the problem of the shortage of heads of educational institutions – the need and opportunities for further improvement, simplified assessment of competencies, higher salaries, extension of terms of office.

45-57

Authors: Nataša Brouwer, Iwona Maciejowska, Claire McDonnell, Matti E. Niemelä, Bob Pirok, Ştefania Grecea, Cristina Femoni, Josefa Ortiz-Bustos, William Byers, Iring Wasser

Today, we are faced with immense global challenges in finding sustainable equilibria between socio-economic, political, and ecological concerns. The European Chemistry Thematic Network (ECTN), the European University Association (EUA) and the European Commission are committed to sustainable improvement of the quality of university chemistry education to cope with these challenges. In this position paper, we advocate the creation of the Eurolecturer Academy (ELA), an innovative, European state of the art higher education learning platform serving academics in their continuous professional development of teaching competences and thereby supporting academics to educate students to be successful in the changing world. Within this newly established educational entity, there will be two levels of membership, Associated membership and Full membership. The ELA will not only facilitate continuous professional development of university teaching staff but will at the same time create a structure to support recognition of teaching competences of lecturers within the European dimension in teaching and learning. The certification will profit from the new 5th European Qualification Framework for micro-credentials, providing a much needed “academic currency” for the purpose of recognition of academic credentials. The ELA micro-credentials will be issued by certifying the learning outcomes of short-term learning experiences in the field of teaching and learning in higher education. The ELA will provide a micro-credentials catalogue that will address the needs for professional development of lecturers and ensure the quality of the micro-credentials through close cooperation with the internationally operating accreditation organization ASIIN (https://www.asiin.de/en/) using quality standards and valid assessment according to international best practice.

60-62

Authors: Editorial Board

End page, SPVK/EPMQ, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2022