EUROPEAN MODELS OF EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Our paper has planned to review the facts and trends in the European management culture. At global and systemic level, we see that all European organisational models are structured on quality in various stages of its approach. School organisation tends to be based on a contract, both at institutional and community levels. At the organisational level, in our opinion, it is necessary to consider the organisation and classroom management, as well as the management of the group of students, in which the respect of human personality and knowledge are crucial. The European models tend to emphasise the involvement of the manager side which imply awareness of status, style and their roles in the school organisation. Therefore, the knowledge of psychosocial and transactional human personality is sine qua non.

Headnote

Abstract: Our paper has planned to review the facts and trends in the European management culture. At global and systemic level, we see that all European organisational models are structured on quality in various stages of its approach. School organisation tends to be based on a contract, both at institutional and community levels. At the organisational level, in our opinion, it is necessary to consider the organisation and classroom management, as well as the management of the group of students, in which the respect of human personality and knowledge are crucial. The European models tend to emphasise the involvement of the manager side which imply awareness of status, style and their roles in the school organisation. Therefore, the knowledge of psychosocial and transactional human personality is sine qua non.

Keywords: European culture management, quality, management of organisation and classroom, student group management, psycho-social and transactional knowledge of human personality.

1. Since the 80s, most EU countries have created specialised structures that promote the evaluation and development of schools. Some examples are: the National Service for Quality Education (Italy) and the National Institute of Evaluation (Sweden). Schools gain more autonomy, to contribute more effectively to manage resources and to assume their own institutional development. At European level, the educational policy guidance was subject to a quality assurance pilot project involving 101 schools from 18 countries (Mac Beath, 19991). The data of this project funded by the European Commission shows that the self-assessment tends to be preferred external evaluation and quality control. In many countries (Norway, Belgium, Finland, Romania), the self-assessment is officially recognised and integrated into legislative documents. These trends are recognised and encouraged through incentives for institutional development and self-evaluation. For example, France and Spain, where the education law provided that each school to define a project of the school unit and annual reports on this project. Development plan and public report exist in Belgium, Iceland, Ireland, and the Netherlands. In some länders in Germany, the reports are used for comparing and ranking schools. Stimulated by these initiatives, schools and research institutions have developed their own tools for self-assessment and quality assurance. For example, in Portugal, the document The European Quality Observatory (EQO2) recommends 18 performance indicators grouped into four areas: family, teaching and learning, the educational context, results); the project Indicateurs de pilotage des établissements secondaires3 in France; the project Quality in schools in Austria4 etc.

2. During the early 2000s, the interest in self-evaluation and quality assurance intensified. The experience gained through these projects showed that the three steps of quality assurance - taking objectives, selfassessment and public responsibility - have important effects in promoting the quality at school level. Data provided by SICI, for example, show that, in most EU Member States (including, the new member states such as Slovenia, Hungary and Malta), have adopted quality assurance methodologies already functioning on large scale, exceeding the research and piloting state. Here are some examples: the CIPO Model in Belgium (Flanders5), Integral School Supervision Model6 in the Netherlands, the system How Good is Our School?7 - Scotland, the ESSE model (Effective School Self- Evaluation8 - integrated project of the European Commission), etc.

Although there is an agreement in principle on quality assurance methodology, each country has developed its own system of criteria, indicators and standards, so we can speak of a variety of European models in this area. These sources reveal the following significant trends for the Romanian context:

a) Quality is a priority for all European education systems. The term is used as well contextually: there is not quality in itself, but in relation to certain criteria, with specific performance indicators and specific standards.

b) Quality management is done on several levels:

. the control structures level: school inspectorates, audit bodies, institutions of external evaluation;

. at the school level, by means of quality assurance.

Schools are encouraged to become competent in developing their quality assurance systems. To do this, schools are concerned to secure the three conditions defining quality assurance:

. clear definition of the mission and organisational objectives (e.g. through institutional development plan);

. mobilising internal resources for self-development, selfinnovation and self-evaluation;

. establishing a system of public responsibility, for example, through regular reports, audit and benchmarking.

c) Shiftemphasis towards autonomy for institutional development and collective responsibility led to the development of self-relevant tools to ensure objectivity, comparability and accuracy of self-evaluation. To this end, all European education systems are concerned to define criteria and areas of analysis, indicators and standards, evaluation tools. The Netherlands (secondary) were produced as 60 global indicators (plus 144 specific indicators), France is using 80 indicators and Scotland is working with 89 indicators.

The complex analysis of school organization involves a matrix structure on several levels:

. level I: key areas, criteria or aspects;

. level II: indicators or descriptors (information relevant to each criterion, area or aspect), expressed: in the statistical form - statistical indicators; by qualitative indicators - individual or collective behaviours;

. level III: variable or operational components of an indicator (for example, Scottish model uses the additional details);

. level IV: performance standards or excellence level of an indicator; if the indicators are describing the situation as such (expressed by the relevant information for the evaluated criterion), the standards contain rules or specifications desirable state (e.g. how should be an indicator to consider whether the objectives have been achieved). We represent the indicator as an ascending or descending scale, and the standard would be the exact place on the scale that we want to get the allocation and use of resources.

These findings vary, of course, from one country to another. They express the essential parts of quality assurance and development of schools as organizations of change.

3. Quality management is activity management is to develop and implement a set of rules and tools that form the quality management system aims to ensure the desired level of quality for the product organization.

Quality management has three main components:

(1) quality control;

(2) quality assurance;

(3) quality improvement.

During 1970-80, particularly, in industrialised countries, there has been a paradigm shiftin education: priority to move from quantity to quality. This is the development or emergence of schools (Per Dalin and Ali, 19959). What natural resources are increasingly scarce and expensive, the spotlight turned to investment in human resources, with direct consequences for educational policy: expanding flows school, raise standards of teaching - learning - assessment, management efficiency and supply of educational services. Most European education systems have opted for more autonomy and direct management of resources based on clear objectives and responsibilities assumed in the educational institutions since 1990. Decentralisation has become such purpose, especially for countries transition.

Function of systems is related to school - centred management: transfer of responsibi-lities from the external administration of school to professional staffwithin the school (Caldwell, 200510). The school - centred management involves more autonomy built on a set of individual and collective skills, shared, but with the individual and collective liability:

. competence to develop projects;

. competence to plan and manage their own resources;

. competence to respond to the public welfare of the institution;

. power to mobilise internal resources of the school ;

. power to empower its staff;

. power to achieve a democratic and participatory management.

Evolution is to use the potential of self-development of the school and its location in the centre of public policy. The evolution of the educational community has been seen often in the opening metaphors, such as "school without walls" (Reimer)11 "virtual school" (Gordon12) or "society without schools" (Ivan Illich13). Viewed under aspect of the generating quality human resources, school becomes mutatis mutandis, the centre of educational reforms. The school from which is expected to generate wider reforms and social changes is another type of public institution.

4. Trends and legislative measures in the Romanian society

In Romania, the concept that underpins the promotion of quality education through the enactment Ordinance No.75/ 2005 is compatible with European travel trends to focus on quality control assurance.

(1) The first component is based on an external authority - for example, inspectors, auditors, policy makers - that the administrative position has the responsibility to control the proper functioning of educational institutions in financial, pedagogical or managerial terms. This control traditionally has advantages related to the objectivity, authority and overview, but it does not reach the issues of mobilisation and accountability of the organisation. For this reason, with quality control in education in the member states of the EU's principle of quality assurance, applied initially in Japan in human resource management. According to reports SICI (The Standing International Conference of Central and General Inspectorates of Education14) European body in the field, quality assurance is an option in most European countries. In general, methodological choices are converging, although there are differences in the definition of quality assurance tools.

(2) The methodology for quality assurance in schools is governed by three principles:

* explicit definition of the mission and organizational objectives of each school;

* responsibility of professionals in school for using resources and achieving objectives at the level of performance: leadership, teaching and administrative staff;

* concrete ways of public accountability on the use of resources and achievement of quality assumed standards (ESSE, 2002 Birzeaetal, 200515).

In the new logic of quality assurance, schools receive well-defined responsibilities and resources, practice in self-development and effective use of resources, are responsible in relation to achieving the quality target level. Quality assurance becomes the operational space of the approaches of educational policies in Romania, decentralisation and promotion of quality.

By GEO, 75/2005, is regulated quality assurance in Romanian education: the operational framework and concrete benchmarksof policies in this area, in line with recent developments in Europe. The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Pre-university Education (RAQAPE) and Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (RAQAHE) are autonomous institutions that implement legislative measures of quality and ensure quality standards for all schools in Romania, both at pre-university and university level. The package and documentation of quality assurance give responsibilities to the educational institutions and resource management decisions, in particular, the use of information, evaluation and public responsibility. The basics of the program of decentre-lisation and promotion of quality are capacity schools are the ability to access, collect and use databases in the decision, the self and public reporting. The public responsibility and managing their resources are achieved by building capacity to know his potential and development needs in the immediate, short, medium and long term.

The new organizational profile of the school is linked to factors of change:

. services competition of lifelong learning within the global system and society: school is competed by other sources, for example, online learning, training services from other benefitciaries, competitive system of public school of the state - public school in private regime;

. the need for internal democracy: encouraging participation, equity and collective decision;

. decentralisation of public administration has direct effects on school-community relations;

. quality and quality assurance evolve in conditions of autonomy and responsibility of schools;

. funding regime change, for example, by funding focused on products (not entries), proportional financing, non-public sector participation and local authorities in school life.

Socio-cultural and political context is changing - as such, the status and role of the school manager is required to be adaptive and complex. Portfolio manager training school should require to proving a comprehensive and appropriate training, ethics to assume the role of leader, because he decides, organises, optimises the educational process. Students 'achievements and teachers' professional and practical performances are influenced by the global activity of school manager.

It can distinguish three types of managers within the school organisation: institution manager, class manager and manager of students group. Leader status is also co-determined in the triangle built by the powers, authority and management responsibility. There is a difference between the status and role of the teacher and director, because the switching from a function to another one requires specific training ¡V usually, the good teachers become good managers. Moreover, this practice of recruiting the good managers of good teachers, validated by the Romanian school tradition, was lost or, more accurately, we leftto lose it, in favour of so-called "technical manager", concept taken over mimetically in the current European context. Director of the school's is administrative manager, coordinator of all activities of the school unit, in administrative, accounting and educational areas. He is subordinated to the school inspectorates, ministry and, in some extent, local governments. To determine the competence of a school manager is required to determine status (school manager in the education system and educational establishment) and a role (school manager behaviour, expectations of subordinates or those who are subordinated).

5. Transactional competences of manager

Of current applicable regulations, are arising the following main roles that a school manager should assume:

* as a state and educational community representative - chairman of the teachers and administrative staffof the school -establishes, conforming to the Unique Management Plan, purpose and learning objectives;

* authorising officer, in the financial plan;

* decision maker, in the context of decisions ;

* organiser of school space that it manages;

* mediator - a negotiator in solving situations;

* evaluator of carried out activities of teachers and students.

The main tasks of the school manager are related to the compliance of management functions. At the same time, each school manager has its own personality, has a certain style and has a certain level of efficiency. Management style must be consistent with the personality of the manager, differentiated according to the situation to be solved, and possibilities of the subordinates.Performance managers are also codetermined by:

. the training and management level;

. exercise capacity and availability to specific problems in the community;

. correct decisions;

. support when necessary;

. success in activity.

For these roles, the manager achieves, usually, personal and professional development goals taken from the transactional competences area:

. proposing rational objectives;

. global approach to problems in terms of efficiency;

. identify resources and alternatives for solving optimal organisational problems;

. choice of the direct organisational and ergonomic alternatives in decision-making;

. recognise his own limitations and mistakes, identifying their resolution;

. effective communication with all educational partners;

. appropriate management style to the different situations.

On the other hand, as noted above, along with the role of manager of the institution, are also important the roles of classroom manager and students groups manager in a school organisation. The teacher leads directly and autonomous activities at the students micro group, at classrooms and school level. He is in an ongoing partnership relation with students in educational, formative perspectives. The teacher must assume a set of responsibilities, with increased powers to the class. The teacher is actively involved in what is being called change management. The roles of the teacher, as a leader, are multiple. According to D Hainaut16, roles that teacher can activate and use the different stages and forms are:

. receiver and emitter of the different messages, participant in the specific activities;

* creator , designer, organiser, responsible of any actions;

* decision in the selection of objectives, content, strategies, resources;

* source of information;

* ethos: model of behaviour, values holder;

* advice, guidance;

* security, protection.

In relation to all these roles, the teacher is militant and interactive factor in the classroom, being in direct contact with students. In the teaching / learning / assessment lesson, it handles a particular learning situation, any interactive strategies, each student and all together participate in a process quietly led by the teacher.

Management design approach starts at the map formed by school education skills and available resources (human, material, information). Considering simultaneously aims of the most general, also concrete reality, we can construct a non-contradictory curriculum. From this perspective, given the purpose of education that it aims, objectively and subjectively, the human being, every educational act must have at least two dimensions: the task of learning and human relationships (with individuals and / or groups), both as how to be set in concrete and real ways.

Model management style

Issues Involvement

Autocrat Paternalistic AdvisoryDemocratic

SayGiveInvolvesCo-determines

(After TannenbaumandSchmidt, 195817)

It appears, therefore, a new continuum, depending on the focusing on the task or human relationship, in which it may be identified four basic styles:

a) Directive style: for the persons to be educated cannot and will not carry out the required activities. The teacher asks the manager what to do student and controls every action;

b) Tutorial style: for persons to be educated which cannot, but want to achieve the respective tasks. The teacher tries to convince, uses, alternatively, suggestions, decisions, information.

c) Mentoring style: for the persons to be educated whose skills and motivation to be developed. Educator participates with hints, tips, help, when they are required;

d) Delegator style: teacher learners delegate decision-making authority.

It is recommended not only the adequacy styles to the concrete situation, but also the successive application of these styles, from the direct to the delegator one: the group of educators and / or are new learning task, the teacher should inform learners what and how to proceed.

The teacher leads directly and autonomously many activities, either in the micro group of students or the class or the school.

6. Psycho-social and transactional knowledge of student and group

Howard Gardner (2000)18 exploited the multifunctional cross and psycho-social knowledge and transactional human personality. Gardner talks about the following types of intelligence:

. Linguistic intelligence is the ability to think in words and to use language to express and appreciate complex meanings;

. Logical-mathematical intelligence makes it possible to calculate, quantify, assess propositions and hypotheses, and also complete complex mathematical operations;

. Spatial intelligence involves the ability to think in three dimensions, as sailors, pilots, sculptors, painters and architects;

. Kinetic - body intelligence refers to the manipulation of objects and physical nuanced skills;

. Musical intelligence is obvious for individuals who have sensitivity to reproduce, to hum, to keep the pace and tone;

. Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand and interact with others;

. Intrapersonal intelligence refers to the ability to construct an accurate perception about itself and to use their knowledge to plan and guide their lives.

* Naturalistic intelligence is to observe patterns in nature, identifying and classifying objects, understanding natural and human systems.

(N.B: translation is ours)

(a) Knowing the student and the group

(b) Personal and socio cultural managing according to interests and aspirations

Interests and aspirations consist of correspondence between a trend and a needi n the present at the subject, object or behaviour level which corresponds to:

* Perceptual, motor, lexical aspirations, interests and natural aspirations;

* Subjective interests and aspirations;

* Objectives interests and aspirations;

* Rational interests and aspirations: intellectual, social, moral and aesthetic (Emile Planchard, 197619).

(c) Human resources management

From the perspective of resource management class, the teaching action, mainly, should aim at:

* Personal and socio-cultural self-development;

* Ability to solve problems each encounters in real life;

* Ability to generate new problems to solve;

* Ability to make something or provide a service that is valued in each culture;

* Ability to make something or provide a service that is harnessed for the benefit of others.

There cord of human relations groups is well to observe student behaviours, depending on various parameters, such as: the potential expression, sociability versus privacy, peers influence, family influence, potential for learning through interaction, exchanges between peers in organised activities or support playfulness, friendship etc.

8. Management approaches in (peri) education

School development plan is based on the concept of the contract of the school as a public organisation in the local community. As such, we consider both education and peri-(education)-daily education in and through the local social community.

(After Emile Planchard, 197620)

Actionable premises of human resources management

(e) Relational management

After Gottman (1983)21, social skills of the students are in the phase of synchronisation with themselves and with others, establishing a common context, exchanging information and exploring similarities and differences, while simultaneously resolve conflicts that they instantly occur. Additionally, Dodge (1983)22 believes that bullying others is the factor that determines the status of similar groups. The class is comprised of heterogeneous groups, both of a variety of social problems, is connected to inculcate variety of reasons which include: dis - or smooth -related behaviour of a variety of causes.

In conclusion, we see that all European organisational models are structured on the quality at the global and systemic level. School organisation tends to be based on a contract both institutional and community levels. At the organisational level, in our opinion, it is necessary to consider management and classroom organisation, and management of the group of students, in which respect and human personality knowledge are crucial. European models tend to emphasise the involvement of the manager side which imply awareness of status, style and roles of this. Therefore, knowledge of psychosocial and transactional human personality is sine qua non.

Footnote

1 Mac Beath, John, Schools Must Speak for Themselves, The Case for School Self- Evaluation. London: Routledge, 1999.

2 The European Quality Observatory (EQO), http//:www.eqo.info, accesat la data de 12 .05.2014.

3 Indicateurs de pilotage des établissements secondaires (IPES): Indicateurs pour le Pilotage des Établissements secondaires: indicateurs de résultats, de ressources et de moyens, et sur la population prise en charge dans les lycées et collèges. Chaque indicateur est assorti de références permettant de situer l'établissement par rapport aux échelons national, académique et parfois départemental. http://www.infocentre.education.fr/, accesat la data de 12.05.2014.

4 Apud Sammons, Pam et al, (1995), Key characteristics of effective schools, report by the Institute of Education for the Office for Standards in Education, University of London.

5 The model CIPO evolves on four levels: Context Analysis and Evaluation, Input Analysis and Evaluation, Process Analysis and Evaluation, as well as Output Analysis and Evaluation.

6 Apud Joyce, Bruce, Changing School Culture through StaffDevelopment, Ed. the Taylor & Francis Library, New York, 2005.

7 How Good is Our School? Self-evaluation using quality indicators, HM Inspectorate of Education, Norwich, 2002.

8 Ibidem 4.

9 Dalin, Per, Rolff, Hans-Gunter; Kleekamp, Bab, (1995), Changing the school culture, School development series. London, Cassell.

10 Caldwell, B.J., School-Based Management, Paris, IIEP - International Academy of Education, 2005.

11 Apud Birzea, C. et al Tool and Quality Assurance of Education for Democratic Citizenship in Schools. Paris-UNESCO, Strasbourg - Council of Europe, 2005.

12 Ibidem 11.

13 Illich, Ivan, Une société sans école, Paris, Ed. Seuil. The concept of Ivan Ilich is related to the miss-schooling of school, which means, first of all, to create a gap in the school monopoly regarding the knowledge and its dissemination, 2003.

14*** The Standing International Conference of Central and General Inspectorates of Education, SICI, http://www.sici-inspectorates.eu/, accesat pe data de 9 mai 2014.

15 Birzea, C. et al, Tool and Quality Assurance of Education for Democratic Citizenship in Schools. Paris-UNESCO, Strasbourg - Council of Europe, 2005.

16 D'Hainaut, Des fins aux objectifs de l'éducation, Nathan, Paris, 1980.

17 Tannenbaum, A.S. and Schmitt, W.H., How to choose a leadership pattern, Harvard Business Review, 36, March-April, 1958, 95-101.

18 Gardner, Howard, Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century. Basic Books Inc, 2000.

19 Planchard, Emile, Introduction to Pedagogy, Bucharest, 20th Century Pedagogy, 1976.

20 Ibidem 19.

21 Gottman, John Mordechai; Katz, Lynn Fainsilber; Hooven, Carole, (1997), Metaemotion: How Families Communicate Emotionally, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publisher.

22 Dodge, K.A., (1989), Problems in social relationships, in Behavioral treatment of childhood disorders, edited by E.J. Mash & R.A. Barkley, pp. 222-244, New York: Guilford Press.

References

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