'School leader must be able to think strategically'
The Education Council advises the government to pay more attention to school leaders. This applies to primary education, secondary education and MBO. Managers are now given too little space to work on strategy, the council states.
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By school leaders, the Education Council means school directors, location directors, deputies, (con) rectors, program managers or team leaders who have personnel management in their duties.
The previous cabinet asked the Council for advice on managers in education. This group has received 'hardly any attention' in recent decades, even though their profession has become more complex. They must increasingly develop education and be busy creating a good working and learning environment for teachers, according to the council. Collaboration with parties outside the school has also become more important.
Recognition
Yesterday the Education Council released its report. In it she advises:
- Create a joint profession
The work of a school leader does not differ enormously per sector, the council states. Therefore, create a common image of the profession. This helps in recognition and in taking control of the development of the profession. Also, there should be only one register. There are currently two, in primary and secondary education, of which that is compulsory in primary education. - Offers a school leaders scholarship
Teachers get a teachers' scholarship, for school leaders there should be a school leaders' scholarship. The Council does think that there are too many training courses for school leaders and that they vary too much per sector. If it is up to the council, there will be more uniformity and in the future all managers will have completed a master's degree. - Allow the school leader to act as strategist
School leaders, for example, must return to the table when talking to the inspectorate, the report says. He or she must also have the time to think about the strategy of the school. To do that, school boards need to “relieve leaders of time-consuming tasks that are not part of a strategic role by ensuring a basic level of operational support in the school,” the council said.
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It is good that the Education Council is urging to clarify the positions of managers, responds AObchairman Liesbeth Verheggen. She does think that the order is important. “A register is a final piece in our opinion. First you determine together what a profession entails and you preferably lay down this legally. What is the professional space that the practitioners of the profession are given? What are the minimum requirements for this profession? Such a standard does not yet exist for the school leader subject. And at the same time there is indeed a forest of courses. ”
The differences within the profession will remain large, says Verheggen. That makes forming one professional group challenging. “It makes a big difference if you are the director of a school with a non-professional board and therefore have more or less final responsibility. Or that you are a director at a school where your position is actually the manager of the director. ”
Cheeky
The General Association of School Leaders (AVS) represents leaders in primary and secondary education. Chairman Petra van Haren responded positively to the advice. Getting policy space is also a matter of culture, she thinks: 'There should be more action-absolute school leaders who pursue and manage their own policy and who want to entrust it to them', she says in a message on the AVS website.
Advice
The makers of the advice mainly had a lot of discussions. With school leaders, but also with administrators and representatives of education-related organizations. The complete report is finished the website of the Education Council.
