Lifelong learning: policies and programme
European Policy Network On School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) Grant Agreement EAC-2010-1388 Specific Agreement number: EAC-2013-0536
Deliverable 3.1 EPNoSL’s support to enhance Networking at the National / Regional Levels – Report – Version 1.0:
Date: 10-07-2015
With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) Work Package:
No. 3, Knowledge Exchange and Stakeholders Networking
Author of the synthesis:
Ad茅l Csernovitz
Contributors to the report:
D贸ra Tomcsik
Status, Version No.
1
Submission date:
10 July 2015
Start Date of the Agreement:
12 January 2014
Duration of the Specific Agreement
18 Months
Dissemination Level:
Public
Project coordinator:
Kathy Kikis-Papadakis, FORTH/IACM katerina@iacm.forth.gr
Financing:
With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Page 2 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010)
Abstract This report has been developed in the framework of the European Policy Network of School Leadership (EPNoSL) project’s third work package (WP3) and presents EPNoSL contribution to networking at the national and regional levels and summarises conclusions that are based on the final reports of project partners that were collected and analysed.
Page 3 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010)
Table of Content
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 3 EPNoSL’s support to enhance Networking at the National / Regional Levels ........................................ 5 EPNoSL approach to National Networks (NN) and Regional Networks (RN) ...................................... 5 Overview and analysis of National Networking .................................................................................. 6 Approach to national networking ................................................................................................... 6 Stakeholders and activities.............................................................................................................. 8 Thematic focus ................................................................................................................................ 9 Nature of findings .......................................................................................................................... 10 Good practice cases....................................................................................................................... 11 Overview and analyses of Regional Networking ............................................................................... 12 Approach to Regional Networking ................................................................................................ 12 Stakeholders and activities............................................................................................................ 12 Thematic Focus .............................................................................................................................. 13 Nature of findings .......................................................................................................................... 13 Good practice cases....................................................................................................................... 14 The international perspective ....................................................................................................... 14 Statistics ............................................................................................................................................ 14 Sustainability ..................................................................................................................................... 17 Conclusions........................................................................................................................................ 19 References ............................................................................................................................................. 19 Annexes ............................................................................................................................................. 20 Reports on national networking .................................................................................................... 20
Page 4 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010)
EPNoSL’s support to enhance Networking at the National / Regional Levels EPNoSL approach to National Networks (NN) and Regional Networks (RN) The aim of work package 3 (Knowledge Management) was: to facilitate knowledge exchange between policy-makers, practitioners, researchers and other SL stakeholder groups both at the EU and national levels through the definition of “Good Practices” on SL perspective. to promote networking and collaboration between and with stakeholder groups and regions / countries. to identify Good Practices on/for SL policy development from the countries and subsequently to highlight these from a regional perspective Activities were targeted at the… „enhancement of the networking processes between and within the SL policy stakeholders community at the National and/or regional level by the encouragement of engagement in focus discussions – both from a thematic and national perspective, and on engagement in defining ways by which the academic underpinning can be translated and thus transformed into place based relevant Action Plans. …” (WP3) The main expected output was the mutual learning process that was expected to take place at the international, regional and national levels: knowledge exchange between different stakeholder groups. In particular, at least 16 national and min. 3 regional networks had to be further developed built on EPNoSL Phase 1 & 2 and altogether over 1000 individuals had to be engaged in national and regional networking. This output could be reached as we collected 20 national and regional networking reports and one additional joint report from the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) and the European Federation of Education Employers (EFEE). According to reports of project partners at least 7175 people from 38 different stakeholder categories were reached and involved in activities through active networking. Knowledge exchange between diverse stakeholders and networking was supported through regular reminders of important deadlines or events. A national and regional networking planning tool, more precisely an online questionnaire was designed and distributed amongst project partners in order to be able to plan thoughtfully networking activities. The questionnaire mapped each country’s o o o o
country/context-specific topic they selected for national discussions; activities (forms and working methods, time schedule) they planned; target groups (people, institutions from policy, practice, research) they planned to involve; resources they planned to produce.
A report template for NNs and for RNs has been developed as well. Deliverable 3.1 summarises conclusions that are based on the final reports of project partners that were collected and analysed. NN activities were monitored by mid-term monitoring questionnaires in September 2014 and in February 2015.
Page 5 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) To support networking a so called document database was compiled which also contained tips on how to utilise EPNoSL resources in national and regional networking. As mentioned earlier, knowledge management (KM) activities were designed to facilitate knowledge sharing between policy-makers, practitioners (school heads, teachers, teacher and leader trainers, etc.) and researchers both within the EPNoSL partnership and at the national level of the participating countries. The figure below represents how the concept of KM was realised within EPNoSL:
Illustration 1: Knowledge management spaces in EPNoSL – adapted from Révai et al., 2014.
Figure 1 shows the two spaces of knowledge transfer, which also serve to foster the generation of new knowledge. The left side is the Virtual Platform (VIP), the international virtual space where EPNoSL partners and other actors in the field of education – those invited by EPNoSL partners and European associations through their professional networks – come together to share their knowledge, while the right side is the multitude of the national networks on school leadership created by EPNoSL members. Clearly, the two spaces overlap and it is difficult to analyse and interpret their impact on school leadership development separately. This report will consider the impact from the perspective of national networking, whereas Deliverable 3.2 will focus on the impact from the point of view of the EU online space.
Overview and analysis of National Networking Approach to national networking We can characterise the strategies to national networking on one hand with “continuity” and on the other hand with “variety”. Firstly, we can see that participating countries made efforts to continue the work they had started 4 years ago so there weren’t considerable changes in the direction of strategies and the networks didn’t expand considerably. Secondly, the approaches to national networking show a large variety which is easy to understand if we take into account that the Page 6 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) different national systems and national policies towards school leadership require different approaches. There are, however, some patterns that can be identified based upon the national networking reports. It was already observed and described in previous reports that national networks applied mainly two approaches: the “pull” and the “push” tactics. (Horváth, 2014 in Révai et al, 2014.) Some networks intended to make a change in their educational system and the organisers of the network had specific ideas to facilitate planning and preparing further steps to establish a new leadership culture. Their approach was to provide as much information as possible about specific practices and policies they considered as worthwhile to explore. We called this the “push” tactics. This is what we could see in Austria where an “Austrian Policy Network on School Leadership” was established with representatives from all relevant institutions. Further steps are envisaged to embed this initiative in the official structure of the Austrian education system and to disseminate the ideas of the “Leadership Culture” in the community of school leaders and policy makers. Similarly, in Belgium (Flanders) network activities were focussing on using EPNoSL as leverage to initiate activities and provide tools to “put school leadership into the picture”. The use of EPNoSL resources was also crucial in the establishment of the national networking in Greece. Specific topics such as school autonomy, accountability, distributed leadership, policy response and capacity building were reflected in Lithuania and also Slovenia brought in information, expertise to introduce ideas on distributed leadership. The Lithuanian example is interesting because the national report of the previous year saw the need for a “push” approach but they considered that the resources are inadequate for this effort. This year they took a step further and organised a learning group representing the academic community, schools’ communities, and others from national educational institutions. The aim of this learning group was deepening members’ knowledge and understandings about EPNoSL and the main themes of EPNoSL. In another Baltic country, Estonia, the “push” approach is also clear as they were focussing hard on finding better ways of school evaluation within the network. On the other hand other countries made efforts to offer a wide variety of information without filtering and where the network operators didn’t intend to promote any particular concept or idea or to formulate educational policy. “The idea behind is that things will happen anyway if they want to happen, we can help the process by providing all the pros and cons so that stakeholders can make an informed decision. This is the “pull” approach.” (Horváth, 2014 in Révai et al, 2014) We could see a good example on this in the case of Sweden where several networks exist already and EPNoSL is seen as resource to relate to but not as a tool for implementing change. The Danish and Spanish networks focussed similarly on sharing best practices and offering ideas on how to implement changes for improving school leader training in case of the former and increasing performance, equity and equality in schools in case of the latter. In general, participating countries didn’t invest efforts in establishing new networks in 2014-2015 they rather continued the work that was started 4 years ago and they focussed on extending and strengthening their existing networks. Formalisation of national networks was not high on the agenda in most countries or it was even seen to be unproductive or not necessary. In Hungary the establishment of formal national expert network was simply stated as “not possible”. The reason for this can be that the formalisation of a network needs resources, some funding in any case, and some of the organisations who have been partners in this project cannot provide this. In Finland we can see a broader interpretation of networking Page 7 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) because people do not want to get formally involved in networks but they prefer to deal with issues from their own points of view. This means that they carry out activities motivated by EPNoSL and realise them in their networks in a dynamic way. In Germany we can see an ongoing cooperation between two project partners, the Lower Saxony State Institute for Quality Development in Schools (NLQ) and the State Institute for School and Media Berlin-Brandenburg (LISUM). The networking activities overlap with existing networks in the area of school leadership. However other partners chose another way and organised national networking with a strong government support. This method was chosen in Malta, Slovenia, Portugal, Greece and France. There was an intention in Flemish Belgium to formalise their national network, but according to ministerial decision this still has to be built on an existing network of schools and school leaders (network for innovative schools). The formulation of these networks required very good lobbying capacities and as a result the maintenance and the operations are also easier. The possible danger of top down organised networks is that it could be ambiguous after a while who is informing and influencing whom. Stakeholders and activities The report form on the national networking activities this year requested detailed information on participants. Project partners had to give a detailed overview on the distribution of participants by institution and stakeholder group. Partners listed a number of stakeholders and respondents were asked to provide numbers for each item. The form had an “other” item as well so that unmentioned categories could also be reported. Partners in some cases weren’t able to report on all attending or participating people because no record of attendance was kept. In other cases partners reported about events that are supposed to take place after the reporting deadline thus the number of participants could only be estimated. Moreover several partners organised a series of events for the same group of stakeholders. Numerical statistics therefore may be considered only indicative. Nevertheless, there were some partners who have involved a large variety of stakeholder types for example Finland, France, Germany, Latvia and Slovenia. Other countries focussed their activities more on particular stakeholder groups: Portugal (school leaders, school teachers and mentor teachers), Austria (school leaders, academics) and UK (school leaders, teacher educators, academics). Generally, stakeholders involved in national networking can be included in the following categories: researchers, policy makers, practitioners and other. We found very detailed information on the “other” stakeholder category. Several countries, reportedly Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Lithuania, Belgium, Austria, France and Poland involved stakeholders in their activities who could not be mentioned under any of the ordinary categories, examples are as follows: students’ representative, superintendent, municipal school board member, project coordinator/managers, librarians, education programme director, students/former students, representative of the municipality, private school owner, inspector, advisor, trade union member and representative of minority. Some countries, namely Belgium, Spain and Poland mentioned “other” types of institutions as well for example educational network, school board, business organisation or school inspectorate office. In general the participating countries focussed on different groups of stakeholders and tried to avoid the “one size fits all” approach in their communication. If there was more than one event organized these were aiming at partly different audiences – this holds for the majority of the partner countries. Page 8 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) It was characteristic for Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Slovenia and Poland that they tried to reach as many stakeholders as possible in order to disseminate good practices to all. So even parents were invited and involved in activities. Other countries omitted this stakeholder group. The reason might be for this that these countries work on very specific topics and in such a “language” that is too far from parents so the discussions and presentations wouldn’t be relevant for them. To sum up, all project partners established some kind of activity during the period in question. The three most popular activities were informing the network about relevant ideas and findings of EPNoSL, sharing recourses and organising face-to-face events. Although it was not compulsory in 2014-2015 to organise face-to-face events, all reporting partners organised events ranging from expert group meetings to conferences for a wider audience. Also workshops, expert meetings, briefings and symposiums were listed in most cases. The number of face-to-face events per partner varied between 1 (Austria, Estonia, France, Germany, Slovenia Denmark, Belgium-FL, Estonia) and 25 (Malta). Participants generally gave a very positive feedback on the quality of the events organised. It was also often mentioned that the particular event was on one hand a good opportunity to exchange ideas and network and on the other hand people confirmed learning and knowledge gains. Non-traditional ways of meetings, namely on-line discussions, webinars or e-forums have been reported in the minority of national network reports (Austria, Finland, France, Portugal, Sweden, UK). The Slovenian report mentions that the e-forum offered by EPNoSL was introduced to the national network. In Lithuania, the webinars and e-forums were evaluated as a way of communication participants liked very much. Thematic focus For a large number of national network meetings, conferences the thematic focus was on the main EPNoSL issues such as “Policy Response”, “Distributed Leadership”, “Capacity Building”, “Autonomy and Stakeholders’ Cooperation”, “Accountability”. These thematic issues have been presented and discussed in many European countries during the last years. In Portugal events often addressed the theme autonomy and distributed leadership for equity and learning. The focus of discussions was in Greece on three themes: “distributed leadership practices, the profile of school leaders (also in relation to the question of standards), and key competencies of school leaders in relation to addressing equity and learning challenges in Greek schools.” The German EPNoSL conference also addressed issues of equity and learning outcomes in schools. Besides dealing with the above issues from a broader philosophical perspective special emphasis was laid on presenting and discussing the policy toolsets that were elaborated in the last period of the EPNoSL project. The toolsets on “Policy Response”, “Distributed Leadership”, “Capacity Building”, “Autonomy and Stakeholders’ Cooperation”, “Accountability” were designed to enable and facilitate reflection on policy action planning across the EU. In the UK the toolset on distributed leadership for equity and learning (DLE) elicited particular interest in different policy jurisdictions. A rather pragmatic approach was taken by other countries where they concentrated on practical problems. In Sweden the intention was to gather principals in the national training program and from the surrounding municipalities, policy makers and researchers to learn about and discuss school development issues based on scientific research and experience from practice in the school system. In Estonia the key topic was how to improve the national education system, and how to provide a flexible and fast school feedback system for decision makers. Page 9 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) In some cases the event itself seemed to be very important if not even more important than the thematic focus. Some countries, like Latvia invited school leaders to enter into dialogue with all school stakeholders, such as teachers, students and community members with a view to promote equity and learning. In Denmark activities involved many stakeholders in discussions on the basis of EPNoSL but it was not the intention of the network to draw any conclusion. In Finland the motivation to participate at the events came in many cases from elsewhere and participants may not even have been aware that what they were doing was also related to EPNoSL work. The German partner reported that the fact that high-ranking representatives from ministries or ministers themselves actively participated in discussions at events strengthened the importance of the network. The Belgian-Flemish education system is going through reforms at several levels; there is an ongoing change in the special needs education system as well and the structure and content of secondary education is also under redesign. They managed to put school leadership on the policy agenda as an important topic. Implementing these policy decisions demands strong leadership in Flemish schools so training and continuous professional development of school leaders is a priority theme. In some countries, reportedly in Lithuania many questions were left open and the need was expressed for further discussions and solutions. For example, there was a need to look for the most effective cooperation ways between different stakeholders. In Hungary the conclusion was that school leaders need more information about EPNoSL and other European research findings with regards to equity and learning. More workshops need to be held in this field in order to facilitate discussion amongst school leaders, head teachers, teachers and teacher trainers from all over the country. Good practices need to be collected and disseminated as well. Nature of findings Many of the findings in the reports are very country specific. The solutions and suggestions described by the different national reports are well structured but most probably useful for local use. The real outcome and the conclusions will only show years from now. It is only then to see if there was anything that could be generalised or used in other national contexts. There are, however, a few conclusions provided either by the partners or could be drawn from the national reports. One important implication was that in some of the countries e.g. in Poland there is a common understanding that knowledge sharing and peer learning among school leaders is crucial. Similarly, it was also emphasised in Belgium, Malta and Latvia that school leaders need to be equipped with appropriate knowledge and skills to ensure equity and that educational leadership is a means to improve the quality of education. It was also confirmed in Germany that there is a common understanding amongst policy and practice that policy makers and school leaders are responsible for promoting equity and learning. Participants of Slovenian networking events even formulated suggestions to their policy makers. Other countries e.g. Austria and Lithuania stated that many questions were left open so there is a need for further discussion and investigation of solutions in order to create and plan further steps on a new “leadership culture in schools�. In the Greek report we found that wide divergences of positions existed amongst stakeholders on how they conceive and envisage policies on different areas of school leadership. It was also mentioned e.g. in Portugal and Hungary that school leaders need more materials and more knowledge on learning processes and strategies. Moreover they need more information on EPNoSL results, ideas and research findings and more national and international Page 10 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) good practices should be disseminated as well. There is also a desire amongst stakeholders in the UK to utilise and embed EPNoSL work within their existing networks and organisations. In a number of countries e.g. Hungary, Spain and Sweden competences were identified and discussed that are inevitable to be a successful school leader. Also the question was raised, which competences are necessary for school leaders to be able to support teachers’ professional learning communities. Finally, there is a technical finding that is coming back again and again from the national reports. It seems that school leaders have only limited access to EPNoSL materials because they are lacking sufficient English language skills. As English is the language of communication within EPNoSL and so it is in the international education arena the majority of key findings exist only in English. This suggests that any school leader who intends to be involved in international networks needs to be able to communicate in English. Many partners mentioned that the abundance of excellent materials has been spread in EPNoSL but they had no resources to translate them. The problem implies that intermediaries are needed in conveying international experiences on national level. One important function for national networks could be to provide this cultural translation of good or wellfunctioning practices. Good practice cases We found that there are some approaches which stand out in terms of their impact on national stakeholders or the new method of building networks in the area of school leadership. However, describing the following good practices does not necessarily mean that these were the only interesting examples. One of the specific approaches was presented by Lithuania. Besides organising regular informational campaigns via the University’s web pages, delivering booklets and EPNoSL materials, and communicating directly by e-mail or phone a so called “Continuing Innovative Conference Importance of Leadership for the Improvement of Education Process at Institutions of Education was organised in a blended learning methodology by linking EPNoSL VIP events with individual and group” work. They organised a learning group involving school leaders, teachers, ministry officials, head of department of higher education institution and project coordinators and invited them to face-to-face meetings that were structured in 6 events linked to EPNoSL VIP events. The objective of this activity was to “transfer EPNoSL knowledge into national context and encourage rethinking the existing educational policy and practice for equity and learning.” The thematic focus overlapped with main EPNoSL themes such as “Policy Response”, “Distributed Leadership”, “Capacity Building”, “Autonomy and Stakeholders’ Cooperation”, “Accountability”. Their intention was to provide support for improving the education process taking into account different factors influencing equity and learning. The participants expressed a high level of satisfaction about the opportunity to be part of VIP events and receiving first-hand information about latest EPNoSL findings and European trends in education and to have the possibility to bring in their own ideas and experience and work together on the spot. A general conclusion was that participants became motivated looking forward to “further learning, participation, involvement and change.” Another interesting example was provided by Portugal. The Portuguese network didn't expand significantly in the last period of the project but they tried to consolidate the work developed in previous years. There was a strong cooperation with the Heads of Teachers' Training Centres and also with the Ministry of Education and Science which became a project partner for 2014-2015. The main focus of activities was the organization of specific conferences, workshops and seminars for school
Page 11 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) heads and middle leaders, teachers and mentor teachers “having in mind their functional and individual needs as school leaders, according to their specific areas of responsibility, namely for the ones being Teachers' Training Centres Directors; members of the Pedagogical Council, all of them focused on teaching and learning strategies, as well as on school improvement and the issues of school autonomy, in the context of a still very centralised country.” School structuring and school´s self-evaluation, as well as the use of performance indicators were the main themes that were discussed amongst participants. The Ministry (MEC) has actively participated and contributed to the events. They reported having organised all together 15 events that directly involved 2590 participants. We can also talk about an indirect impact as EPNoSL ideas were transmitted to wider networks and clusters through participants directly involved in events. According to information received from the Portuguese partner we can estimate that this way over 8800 teachers and over 100.000 students were reached as well. Moreover, 6 meetings were also held between the two project partners to plan future collaboration within the national network, to discuss the work plan; and to prepare the joint participation in conferences and in a particular webinar. We can conclude that EPNoSL networking activities contributed significantly to the consolidation of school staff knowledge and good practices in Portugal.
Overview and analyses of Regional Networking Approach to Regional Networking The EPNoSL project intended to enhance regional networking as well. The original objective was to form three or potentially four regional networks as follows:
Southern European Network (France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain)
Central-European Network (Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary)
Baltic Network (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania)
(Potentially: Scandinavian network (Finland, Sweden, Denmark))
Reading through the reports we found that regional networking was understood in different ways amongst project partners. We could identify three main approaches. Regional networking was understood as: cooperation among the “regions” of a country (Estonia, Finland, the UK – cooperation of 4 separate countries)
cooperation with other EPNoSL partners from all over Europe (Poland, Sweden)
cooperation with neighbouring countries (Baltic network, Scandinavian network, GermanyAustria, Belgium/Flanders-The Netherlands)
Stakeholders and activities The Swedish, Finnish and Danish partners in EPNoSL have met in order to establish a Nordic network by involving the Nordic Council of Ministers, however there is still a lot of work to be done in order to strengthen the cooperation with the latter. There were two main types of regional networking in Finland. Firstly, different projects have been launched involving provincial level education and development together with superintendents, school heads and school management teams. The projects were designed to improve the operational and educational environments in a way that existing structures and processes on the provincial,
Page 12 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) municipal and school level could be developed into new structures and processes to enhance teaching and learning. Secondly, other projects intended to establish regional and/or municipal development plans for education. The municipalities were represented by “municipal school board members, superintendents, shop stewards and school heads with whom the development plans and their enactment were processed.” The establishment of national/regional networks in Germany have been realised in two ways. On one hand, the national school leadership conferences in Germany carried out by the states of Lower Saxony, Berlin and Brandenburg have always been a platform for cooperation with the Austrian EPNoSL partner. On the other hand both project partners LISUM and NLQ work together on a regular basis in the “Bundesnetzwerk Führungskräfteentwicklung” (Federal Network of School Leader Development). They have a great influence on the development of regional leadership topics and decision-making by introducing ideas of EPNoSL. In this context the UK consisting of 4 separate countries may be considered a region where the partners worked together actively through face-to-face meetings and on-line sessions in the planning, formulation, and delivering joint research and dissemination including joint presentations at conferences and joint publications. In particular, the toolsets produced by the UK partners were well received by existing networks. Thematic Focus The regional networking in Sweden is based mainly on two international research projects: ISSPP and PROFLEC. The ISSPP - International Successful School Principal Project started 2001 and has now 26 participating countries. Recently the project has been focusing on “cruising schools – schools that perform worse than expected in relation to their student intake”. PROFLEC – Professional learning through feedback and coaching is an EU funded project with members such as Switzerland, England, Denmark, Norway, Check Republic, Spain, Cyprus, Australia and Sweden. The main goal of the project is to develop needs-oriented programs which move away from the traditional “one size fits all” model. The project intends “to explore the potential of an ICT-based self-assessment instrument integrated as part of CPD-programs for school leaders in the participating countries.” In Poland the Jagiellonian University and Center for Education Development have been leading the project "Leadership and Management in Education – Elaboration and Implementation of the System of Teaching and Development of the Principals of Schools and Educational Institutions". The main aim of this project is to develop a new model of supporting schools leaders. Participation in the project enabled the organisation of study visits and cooperation with other EPNoSL partners e.g. Finland, Austria, Slovenia and Ireland. Nature of findings As regional networking was a relatively new element in the project in 2014/2015 partners seemed to be focussing more on their national networking activities than on regional networking. So in most cases they weren’t able to invest too much effort in regional activities. Therefore we do not have many data and experience to analyse, however some of the countries were active in this field. It was not easy to convince project partners to form a regional network that didn’t exist before the launch of the idea of RNs the example of Portugal shows. They tried to get in touch with the so called southern countries namely Spain, France, Italy, Malta and Greece, and invited their colleagues to launch the new EPNoSL Southern European Network. After giving positive feedback at the beginning, none of the above countries responded to further requests, except Greece. It seems that Page 13 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) geographical proximity only is not enough motivation to form a network. At the Nice PLA, other countries expressed their interest to start collaboration with Portugal to launch an RN e.g. Cyprus, Hungary, Malta and Poland but unfortunately the “Southern European Network” could not become a reality so this initiative remained unsuccessful. Good practice cases Cooperation was very active in the Baltic Network involving Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Regional networking started under the auspices of EPNoSL in 2013 at the Vilnius PLA. Currently they are developing a common action plan for the upcoming years. As a first step they plan to organise a training session for school heads and educational officials from all three countries in September 2015 in Tartu (Estonia). School leadership is considered in all Baltic countries to be one of the focus themes until 2020. The EPNoSL project “served as impetus” for the National Centre for Education to organise a Pestalozzi workshop1 on How to Support School Leadership for Equity and Learning for school leaders. Participants arrived from 15 countries to the workshop which took place in October 610, 2014. Members of the Baltic Networks keep contacts with each other on a regular basis and they share and discuss good practice cases, and plan future RN activities. The international perspective The European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE), the European Federation of Education Employers (EFEE) and the Secondary Education Council of the Netherlands (VO-raad) also implemented active networking activities in the project. During the past two years these organisations have been examining in their joint project the role of social dialogue and social partners in efficient school leadership. The three partners organised Peer Learning Visits to the Netherlands, Malta and United Kingdom and a final conference was held in November 2014 with 50 participants as well. These events enabled ETUCE and EFFEE members to exchange best practices and experiences on “Professional autonomy, accountability and efficient school leadership”. The partners used this platform to inform their members about the results of the European Policy Network on School Leadership, particularly on the Policy Toolkit. The main conclusion was that “the dialogue between and among teachers and school leaders, between trade unions and employers, between schools and their direct community is of utmost importance in guaranteeing good school leadership, in enhancing mutual trust and good-will and in striving for education quality.”
Statistics Statistical data on the national networking activities have been extracted from the reports on national networking submitted by partners and on the information provided by e-mail. We received 20 networking reports from 18 countries as Hungary and Portugal provided 2 reports each from different project partners involved on national level. This amount of reports is similar to those we received in the previous EPNoSL project phase (2013.) As far as the number of events is concerned, partners were very active in this field and engaged in networking reported on 73 events such as seminars, workshops, briefings, symposiums, conferences and expert group meetings. Some events involved several countries (e.g. the conference on Educational leadership in Germany). Although not all partners organised face-to-face events, all
1
The PESTALOZZI Programme is the Council of Europe programme for the professional development of teachers and education actors. Further information: http://www.coe.int/en/web/pestalozzi Page 14 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) national network reports give evidence on intensive networking and information sharing activities (e.g. press releases and coverages, discussion of priority issues or national associations involved). It is important to highlight that statistical data provided by reports might be misleading because in some cases it was not possible to collect a full set of data as e.g. no record of participants was kept or partners interpreted in different ways how data should be collected and maintained. However, the charts and diagrams below may provide a general picture of national networking in terms of figures. Due to the fact that this year we had very detailed information on stakeholders involved in national networking we created so called “main types of stakeholders” categories to avoid the confusion of too many stakeholder types in a chart. The pie-chart below shows the distribution of main types of stakeholders involved in networking activities from all countries that submitted a report (Figure 1.). The category “practitioner” includes mainly school leaders, school teachers, mentor teachers and school inspectors. Under “researcher” we mean in this case heads of HEI, teacher educators, leader trainers, academics, researcher, HEI students and PhD students. The category for policy makers incorporates ministry officials, advisors, representatives of local or regional authorities and representatives of public bodies. All other stakeholder types mentioned in the report were included in the “other” category. We can clearly see in the chart that the vast majority of stakeholders, 84% involved in NN (all countries) belong to the category of practitioners. The second highest proportion, 8% is occupied for policy makers. These two stakeholder groups seem to be the most important target groups of networking activities. The remaining two categories hold 5% (researchers) and 3% (other). Of course it doesn’t necessarily mean that the latter categories are not important at all for NN activities it shows only the intention of network organisers to facilitate networking in first line policy makers and practitioners in order to be able to bridge the gap between policy and practice.
3% 5% 8% researcher policy maker practitioner other 84%
Figure 1: Distribution of main types of stakeholders involved in NN from all reporting countries
Page 15 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) As we mentioned already in the first chapter of this report all together over 7000 people from 38 different stakeholder categories were reached and involved in networking activities. The diagram below shows (Figure 2.) the total number of participants involved in NN per country. In Portugal, Malta and Finland a significantly high number of people could be reached through networking. The number of participants of events was relatively high also in Spain, Estonia, Germany, Poland, Hungary and France. A reason for involving “less� participants might be that those countries chose a special form of networking and tried to involve persons who can further distribute EPNoSL ideas and do their own networking so that not so many participants had to be reached to achieve the same results.
3000 2590 2500
2000 1590 1500 1062 1000
500 127 15 197 6
183 179 198 50 28 40
366
247 27
150 120
0
Figure 2: Total number of participants in NN activities per reporting country
As far as institutions involved in NN we can see as figure 3 shows that mostly schools and institutions on the policy makers’ level were represented in activities but higher education institutions were quite active as well. However, other institutions such as NGOs, trade unions, etc. also played a role in the activities.
Page 16 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010)
278
39
55 20
18
15
13
7
1
19
Figure 3: Total number and type of institutions involved in national networking from all reporting countries
Sustainability The project partners engaged in discussions pertaining to their institutions commitment to support the population of the EPNoSL portal (FORTH is committed to maintain it for at least a three year period), to offer services to Network actors and to collaborate on future related to EPNoSL activity. (3rd Period Management Guide) Not only did partners express unanimously the wish that the network should be sustained on project level at the meeting on 29th May in Crete, but there was also a strong commitment on national level to continuing the work of the network maintaining and further developing resources which had been created. It is very country-specific how each partner planned to sustain its NN after the EPNoSL project will phase out. However, there are some general conclusions that can be drawn from reports. Depending on human and financial resources all partners saw a realistic way of continuing the work. The majority of partners plan to organise further meetings and conferences to discuss project findings and to communicate EPNoSL understandings, to share good practice or undertake common research activities (Austria, Belgium-Flanders, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Malta and Lithuania). The French team has produced or participated in the production of three books: Jean-Louis Derouet and Romuald Normand: The issue of leadership. European perspectives, Louvain la Neuve. Academia Editions 2014; Romuald Normand and François Muller: École: la grande transformation. Les clés de la réussite. Paris ESF 2013, and a special issue of the journal Educational, cultural and psychological studies, coordinated by Jean-Louis Derouet and Gaetano Domenici: Leadership in education: policy Page 17 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010) debates and strategies in action. They will organise workshops about these books in teachers’ resource centres on a regular basis in future. In other countries, e.g. in Latvia and the UK formalised networks are operating for a long time so well established structures can secure the sustainability of EPNoSL project results. In Finland the networks are genuine and not artificial thus constructed on the basis of national, regional and local needs. Therefore it is obvious that these networks will sustain and develop also in the future. There are some countries, e.g. Hungary and Slovenia where networks will be sustained mainly by disseminating EPNoSL information which is maintained on the particular organisation’s website or they plan to work on a future international cooperation project with former EPNoSL partners. In Poland and Portugal there are already ongoing Erasmus+ projects.
Page 18 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010)
Conclusions Considering the results of the knowledge management activities in the 2014-2015 phase of EPNoSL in view of the original objectives of Work Package 3, it seems that these latter were very satisfactorily achieved with regards to both the international and the national spaces created for this purpose. Tendencies observed in connection with networking on one hand turned out to be similar to those already experienced in the previous phases of EPNoSL. On the other hand, we explored that networks were extended and cooperation was strengthened amongst stakeholders. We have found evidence for the wide use of the international discourse in the national networks. Furthermore the analysis of the stakeholder involvement showed that all main stakeholder groups – practitioners, researchers, policy-makers – were represented although not to the same extent. They all engaged in the dialogue in different ways with diverse content, thus actively contributing to a transnational knowledge sharing. Analysing the reports provided on national networking we have found that problems and solutions are highly country specific in some cases which is understandable as different countries have different education systems, thus the same issues have to be handled also differently, however there are of course some common characteristics. One of the major conclusions of the EPNoSL project might be that nearly all countries agreed that school leadership and the main themes of EPNoSL (Distributed Leadership; Policy Response; Accountability, Autonomy and Stakeholders’ Collaboration) have to be addressed from the perspective of equity and learning. It seems that the work of EPNoSL that started 4 years ago has proved to be extremely fruitful both on national and on international level. A large pool of resources has been created which is available for a wider public from all over Europe. Moreover a lot of new international projects grew out of the EPNoSL network making a good use of EPNoSL expertise and partnerships. We believe that EPNoSL could significantly contribute to enhancing knowledge on school leadership in general across Europe.
References Révai, N., Erculj, J., Horváth, A., Lukács, L., Szegedi, E., 2014: Knowledge is Connections – Reflections on knowledge management activities in EPNoSL. Project report: http://www.schoolleadership.eu/sites/default/files/epnosl-d3.1-knowledge-is-connections_0.pdf
Page 19 of 20
European Policy Network on School Leadership (EAC/42/2010)
Annexes Reports on national networking
Austria_NN_RNrepor BE_Flanderen_NN_R Denmark_NN_RNrep Estonia_NN_RNrepor Finland_NN_RNrepor t_revised.docx Nreport.docx ort.docx t.docx t.docx
France_ENS_Lion_N Germany_NLQ-LISU Greece_NN_RN_repo Hungary_Debrecen_ Hungary_TPF_NN_R N_RNreport.docx M_NN_RNreport.docx rt.docx NN_RNreport_final.doc Nreport.docx
Latvia_NN_RNreport Malta_NN_RNreport. Poland_NN_RNreport Portugal_MEC_NN_R Portugal_NN_RNrepo .docx docx _final_version.docx Nreport.docx rt_p26.docx
Slovenia_NN_RNrepo Spain_NN_RNreport. Sweden_NN_RNrepo UK ETUCE_NN_RNreport rt.docx docx rt.docx NN_RNreport_joint_report.docx .docx
NN_statistics.xlsx
Summary_reports.xls x
Page 20 of 20