Project Number: 142320-LLP-1-2008-1-TR-COMENIUS-CMP

PROJECT BASED SCHOOL MANAGEMENT PRO-SCHOOL

Training Needs for School Managers in Europe Pro-School Project International Research Report

Tiziana Pedrizzi, Stefania Quattrocchi and Mirco Franceschi

Agenzia Nazionale per lo Sviluppo dellAutonomia Scolastica ex Irre Lombardia

Training Needs for School Managers in Europe

Pro-School 142320-LLP-1-2008-1-TR-COMENIUS-CMP

Abstract
The research involved upper secondary schools in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Czech Republic and Belgium. It was run both at quantitative and at qualitative level and it aimed at developing a list of main indicators for school effectiveness and at defining a set of issues that could be used to prepare a transnational in-service training course for school managers with the contribution of all partners of the above mentioned countries. School managers of these countries consider that education and training is the area they need generally to be trained in, therefore they think this is the most important mission of the school. The next thematic areas they mentioned as relevant to them are school management and planning and financial aspects. Aspects connected with social life, physical conditions of the schools and relations with environment are considered less important as training topics. The assessment of students performance in some areas of the Core Curriculum has became more important in the last years in many national policies; this fact can explain the shifting of the focus of the debate from learning opportunities to learners achievements and to the process that can promote them. Even if school managers are not directly involved in producing achievements and outcomes, their activities have play an important role in improving them, especially because of the external image of the school they lead. On the basis of this analysis we drew some conclusions for the training course: the transnational dimension of the project can offer the opportunity to compare different national contexts with respect to these topics; the countries involved can develop the session of the course they consider to meettheir school managers training needs even if in a common framework; the topics the course will focus on are school managerial and organisational competences and skills concerning that part of their activity that can impact on improving students output and outcomes; the methodology used in the course will be based on various didactical activities and tools such as frontal lesson, case study, role play and simulation.

Summary Summary...........................................................................................................................2 Training Needs for School Managers in Europe..................................................................................3 Preface..............................................................................................................................................3 Introduction. The aims of the Research................................................................................................5 Methodology.....................................................................................................................................6 Manager questionnaire results..............................................................................................................8 A. Personal data................................................................................................................................8 B. Indicators...................................................................................................................................10 C. Training needs............................................................................................................................11 Teachers and Parents..........................................................................................................................14 CZ.......................................................................................................................................14 Conclusions........................................................................................................................................15 References..........................................................................................................................................18

Training Needs for School Managers in Europe

Preface As a research becomes more informative when embedded in the ground of the knowledge already gathered, we give some references about school management in Europe, taken from a wide-ranging overview of the organisation and functioning of European education systems (Eurydice, Key Data on Education in Europe 2009). Given the increasing school autonomy in most European countries, school managers face with tasks concerning teacher staff management, financing and curriculum contents, more then in the past. Selection criteria are therefore crucial and a number of different preconditions are considered, by the different countries, in appointing someone as a school head. In Europe, only a few countries do not officially stipulate any requirement other than having a teaching qualification as a condition for appointment to the position of school head. In general, prospective school heads must have received special training for headship and, in most cases, they must also have fulfilled this requirement before taking up their responsibilities. All countries providing special training for headship include in it educational or teaching aspects, administrative aspects, and aspects relating to the management of school resources, including finances.

Fig. 1

Professional experience and training for headship officially required in order to be a school head

Among the requirements to become a school head, a minimum period of professional teaching experience is the most common.

Fig. 2

Minimum number of years of professional teaching experience required to become a school head in primary, general lower and upper secondary education (ISCED 1, 2 and 3), 2006/07

The salaries of school heads are related to per capita GDP in each country. In most countries, the size of schools has a direct bearing on the salaries of school heads in that the higher the enrolment at a school, the higher the salary of its head. Regardless of the number of pupils in schools or the level of education, the salaries of school heads are in general equivalent to or higher than per capita GDP in each country. More important to our purposes is to take account of the time spent by the school managers in their daily activity. As mentioned above, school heads are generally qualified through professional teaching and administrative experience and/or special training for headship. Even though this covers some of their professional activities, school heads may also devote their working time to other activities that they are entrusted with. The time spent on the different activities carried out by them is fairly similarly distributed across countries in Europe. In most countries, school heads spend the majority of their time on management and administrative activities such as appointing and managing staff, and budgeting. In the majority of countries, over a fifth of the working time of school heads is devoted to communication with parents and pupils, which includes maintaining parent and community relations as well as interacting with individual pupils. This is followed by professional activities related to developing the curriculum and pedagogy for the school. Least, school heads spend on average only a little part of their time on teaching activities. In the Communication of July the 3rd 2008, European Commission put in evidence that European schools had become more and more autonomous and complex organizations; they need school managers able to connect the school management aspects of their role and the aspects of a leadership focused on learning. Future cooperation among countries should improve the process of recruitment for school managers, providing the necessary means to focus on the task to increase students learning and on the development of school staff. For the European Commission, the fulfilment of school autonomy needs a school management able to hold in the same time leadership and management.

Fig. 3

Proportion of the time spent in a range of activities by the heads of schools attended by pupils in the 4th year of primary education, 2006

Introduction. The aims of the Research The school improvement movement puts great emphasis on the role of leadership, especially in a time when schools have to change in order to adapt themselves to a changing environment and to educate students for the so-called knowledge based society. It is generally agreed upon that school managers who are equipped with good leadership competencies are the most important agents for an effective school. The more successful is a school the more successful are likely to be the students who are educated there. But it is difficult to monitor results in educational organisations because most of the objectives are qualitative, general and long term and for these reasons they are difficult to be measured. The aim of the research was to conduct a comparative analysis in order to identify best practices at national and trans-national level and to obtain a clearer picture of the target group needs and expectations. Our intention was to give an answer to two important questions: what are the achievements indicators of the schools in each participating country? what are the in service training needs of school managers in each participating country? To investigate these areas we used questionnaires and based ourselves on literature about existing research. The questionnaires were used to measure the perceptions of parents, teachers and school managers about achievements indicators.

In the transnational final report on the indicators of school achievements and school managers inservice training needs are aggregated the most important results of national reports and of the comparative analysis we carried out. The final report delivers an in-depth mapping of the in-service needs of school managers and a description of the current situation together with a clear list of school achievements indicators shared by all partner countries. In the last decades, the focus of training for school managers was put on process factors as schools evaluations and self-evaluations were focused on these factors. But the needs of the national economical and social systems compelled to devote more interest to the real results of these processes on students learning achievements especially in the Core Curriculum. OCSE PISA is the most important world-wide programme for the analysis of these achievements and from the beginning it tried to understand which factors have the highest impact on the results of fifteenyears old students. Individual and motivational characteristics are no doubt crucial such as the influence of socioeconomical background, but it is very important for governments to individuate the influence of the educational systems in order to help policy makers and among them school managers to take useful decisions. In fact PISA 2000, PISA 2003 and PISA 2006 examined also school factors selected on the basis of three strands of research: studies on effective teaching and instruction, studies on school effectiveness and studies on resource inputs. The questions that the various PISA surveys asked students, school principals and parents were drawn up from three areas, concentrating on those aspects that had received support in earlier empirical research. We have chosen between them the factors school managers could influence. These factors have different influences on the level of students performance in the different countries and different degrees.

Methodology Aim of the questionnaires was mainly to detect the learning needs of school managers, also considering their impact on the various stakeholders involved in school management. The task was not simple and was carried out following a set of planned steps. At the beginning it was necessary to share knowledge about the different national educational systems, and to put in common the assessment factors already defined in the partner countries, in order to establish a set of indicators that were shared by the partnership. So we proceeded defining a report template that was first shared by all partners and then filled in. All partners were asked to write down: the structure of their national education system; a classification of high schools; the number of secondary schools, classes and students; a list of theoretical and methodological references related to school effectiveness; a list of indicators used for the evaluation of schools and school managers. Regarding to this latter point, the report model proposed a division into areas/dimensions with the aim to guide and facilitate the insertion of indicators. The dimensions/areas we considered were: physical conditions; management and planning; education and training; social life; financial aspects; relations with environment. Finally, the report model provided to indicate the in-service training opportunities for school managers. Starting from this initial report a synoptic table of indicators of all countries was developed that were consistent with the previously mentioned areas and grouping them in order to be synthesized. This work led to the development of a short list of indicators to use for the formulation of the questionnaires.

Tab. 1 Summary Indicators

Dimensions Summary Indicators
Nr of indic. fused

Hygiene, safety and security system (hygiene standards, health-policy, medical care, precautions in case of a fire or natural disasters, youth protection, safety and security of work environment) Infrastructure, classes and laboratories (adequacy of school in terms of classes, buildings, activity rooms, conference halls, laboratories and auxiliary areas) Physical conditions ICT and the Internet (adequacy of ITC equipment, computer network and internet connection, availability of Internet access for students and staff) Documentation (development of the school library, up-to-date books, information and documentation resources) Quality system (existence, structure, content and standardization of projective documents and procedures, organizational chart, job descriptions, data management and quality indexes) Effectiveness of school operations (sufficiency of teachers for all disciplines, didactic continuity, transfers and shifts, number of students in relation to teachers and potential students) Curricular offer (school time in relation to needs of society, number and kind of lesson hours) Extra-curricular offer (extra training courses, activities outside school time and outside school) Staff and human resources management (carrying out the management of teaching and Management non-teaching staff - recruitment, selection, work loads, use, motivation, - development of and planning human capital, competencies and skills) Absenteeism of teachers and staff (absenteeism rates and short absences) School climate (to create a cosy living-and-learning climate within the school, to care well-being of the staff and of students, to survey students, families, staffs and other stakeholders satisfaction) Management style and participated decision making (information and participation of students and teachers to decisions, involvement of teachers in management and delegated functions, leadership style) Guidance (tutorship and guidance for staff, tutorship and counselling services for students) Teaching activities (teaching styles, use of materials and tools, focus on general education or specialization, homework) School results in terms of output (testing sessions, achievement levels for main subjects as Literature, Math, Science, Civics - class promotion and repetition rates, age regularity, abandoning and drop outs, Education graduation rates) and Training School results in terms of outcome (success of students in university and higher education admission, students employed after some years from graduation, access to the labor market coherent with studies) Students behavior coherent with students role (sufficient use of educational tools and equipments, engagement towards school tasks, disciplinary situation and corrective measures, rate of absenteeism, attires) Social Life Participation in social life (community, athletic, cultural and environmental activities, celebratory events, clubs) Effective use of budget (budget control, ability to decide expense promptly, ability to meet educational aims using available financial resources, suitability to the development project)

10 11 3 3 7 13 5 4 7 3 13

15 4 9

42

17 14 13 6 10 7 3

Financial Aspects

Ability to attract financial resources (donations from parents and other sectors, project financing, school nets, other takings) Parents involvement (school parents associations, cooperation with school management) Relations Relations with community with (relations with other institutions, promoting the schools image, relations with media) Environment Other services to community (adult and continuing education, public use of school spaces)

After sharing this framework, we developed the first draft of the questionnaire. All partners agreed to create a questionnaire based on common indicators and having the following characteristics: a scale of 1 to 5 to indicate a measure of the indicator regarding to the effectiveness of school; the expression (Y / N) of the possible training needs with respect to the indicator.
Tab. 2 Importance of Indicators (example)
Indicator Infrastructure, classes and laboratories (adequacy of school in terms of classes, buildings, activity rooms, conference halls, laboratories and auxiliary areas). Importance
(1 = not important : 5 = maximum importance)

Training needs YES NO

Target schools for research were generalist schools and the international research group decided to exclude vocational schools from the survey. Research was run both at a qualitative and at a quantitative level. First of all, we selected some national groups of managers who were already involved in training activities. The groups was chosen to make a preliminary screening of indicators, to test the final questionnaire before distributing it to the target group, and to make a qualitative analysis of managerial situations. In this way, the managers of the selected groups had the opportunity to contribute to the definition of indicators to be included in the questionnaire. The questionnaire for school managers (and the derived questionnaire for teachers and for parents) was validated by the group of school managers through this process. Later on, we developed an electronic version of the questionnaire that was available on line (as automatic form) and it was filled on line directly by the target groups, to which we sent an invitation letter via email. On their side, the school managers forwarded the invitation to the other stakeholders. On the other hand, some national research teams decided to use the more traditional way to ask to fill a paper questionnaire. The questionnaire was translated into the national languages of the partner countries, validated and filled in by the institutions they involved. The other two questionnaires one for parents, the other for teachers went through the same process, except for the part concerning training needs. The national data were then collected for subsequent processing that led to the identification of the indicators considered as being the most important and the most urgent training needs of school managers. In total 234 managers, 368 teachers and 343 parents completed the questionnaires.

Manager questionnaire results

A. Personal data
Ch. 1 Gender (percent)
Ge nde r 100 80 60 40 20 0 Belgium Czech Greece Female Italy Male Romania Turkey

The bar chart above represents the comparison of managers by gender and by country.

Looking at the data, we can observe that there are significant differences among countries involved in the research as far as the gender of school managers is concerned. National samples differ from the highly feminine manager group of Romania, to the almost balanced sample of Belgium, to a strong masculine prevalence of Italy that is even higher in Greece and Turkey.
Ch. 2 Age (percent)
Age 100 80 60 40 20 0 Belgium Czech Greece 41-50 Italy Romania Turkey

up to 40

51 or more

The bar chart above represents the comparison of managers by age and by country.

Samples also differ in age distribution. It is interesting to underline that the younger national group is the Turkish one, followed by the Belgian and the Romanian. The older groups are the Greek and Italian ones, whose larger group is composed by managers over fifty years old.
Ch. 3 Education (percent)
Education 100 80 60 40 20 0 Belgium Czech Greece Italy Romania Turkey

Bachelor's d.

Master or higher

The bar chart above represents the comparison of managers by education and by country.

The differences in education are interesting, too. Belgium, Czech Republic and Italy show the highest educational levels. Lower degrees of education are observed in Turkey and Greece. The Romanian group holds an intermediate position.

Ch. 4

Experience (percent)
Expe rie nce

100 80 60 40 20 0 Belgium Czech Greece Italy Romania Turkey

0-5 years

6-10 y.

11-15 y.

16-20 y.

20 or more

The bar chart above represents the comparison of managers by experience and by country.

Data about experience show further important differences between countries. The whole international group of managers have a long experience in terms of years spent in the managerial position. Only Belgium and Italy have some managers with less than five years of experience. If this is consistent with the age distribution for the Belgian sample, the data about the Italian group would wonder any international observer as in spite of the short experience the majority of Italian mangers are the oldest in international group. These data show an apparent paradox between Italy and Turkey, as Italian school managers are the oldest with the lowest experience and Turkish school managers seem to be the youngest with the longest experience; but this is probably due to the semantic connotation of the word experience in the questionnaire translation, that induced to consider more than the formal position of school manager for Turkish sample that, as explained in the preface, need an earlier administrative experience to be recruited.

B. Indicators According to the mangers answers the importance attributed to the indicators affecting school efficacy in the different countries does not vary considerably. The focus of the research was to individuate the areas that were considered more relevant than others. So, we used the mean value to order all the indicators and we chose the first ten indicator of each country, to make a top ten list of the indicators.
Tab. 3 Order of Indicators for importance. Most important indicators to managers (top ten for each country)
Belgium 1 2 3 2.9 School climate Czech Greece 2.9 School climate Italy Romania Turkey 1.4 Hygiene, safety and security system 2.4 Effectiveness 2.4 Effectiveness of school of school operations operations 1.1 5.1 Effective use Infrastructure, of budget classes and laboratories 1.2 ICT and the 2.2 Curricular Internet offer 2.5 Staff and 3.4 School human resources results in terms management of outcome 5.1 Effective use of budget 6.2 Relations with community 2.5 Staff and human resources management 2.4 Effectiveness 2.9 School of school climate operations 1.1 2.4 Effectiveness Infrastructure, of school classes and operations laboratories 3.1 Teaching 2.7 Management activities style and participated decision making 3.4 School 3.1 Teaching results in terms activities of outcome 1.2 ICT and the Internet 5.1 Effective use of budget 2.4 Effectiveness 2.9 School of school climate operations 2.2 Curricular 2.8 Guidance offer 2.9 School climate 2.6 Absenteeism of teachers and staff 1.2 ICT and the Internet 1.4 Hygiene, safety and security system 2.2 Curricular offer 3.1 Teaching activities 2.7 Management style and participated decision making 2.4 Effectiveness of school operations

1.3 Documentation

2.7 Management style and participated decision making 2.7 Management 1.2 ICT and the style and Internet participated decision making 1.4 Hygiene, 2.5 Staff and safety and human resources security system management 2.8 Guidance 2.9 School climate

1.4 Hygiene, safety and security system 2.8 Guidance

2.2 Curricular offer 1.2 ICT and the Internet

1.1 Infrastructure, classes and laboratories 3.1 Teaching activities

2.6 Absenteeism of teachers and staff

10

2.5 Staff and 1.1 human resources Infrastructure, management classes and laboratories 2.1 Quality 3.4 School system results in terms of outcome

1.1 Infrastructure, classes and laboratories 2.5 Staff and 1.4 Hygiene, human resources safety and management security system 3.4 School results in terms of outcome 4.1 Participation in social life

To make a comparison, and to have a classification, that could take into account the value of the answers, we considered the mean of the means of each national sample.
Tab. 4 General order of Indicators
Order of indicators according to the mean of all countries means (managers) Indicator 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 2.4 Effectiveness of school operations 2.9 School climate 1.4 Hygiene, safety and security system 5.1 Effective use of budget 1.2 ICT and the Internet 2.5 Staff and human resources management 1.1 Infrastructure, classes and laboratories 3.1 Teaching activities 2.2 Curricular offer
2.7 Management style and participated decision making

BE 4,6 4,8 4,4 4,5 4,5 4,5 4,6 4,2 4,0 4,4 4,1 4,4 4,2 3,7 4,5 4,0 3,9 4,2 3,7 3,5 3,7 3,2 2,9

CZ 4,5 3,6 4,9 4,4 3,8 3,8 3,4 3,5 4,1 3,9 4,0 3,5 3,5 4,0 3,3 3,4 3,4 2,9 3,3 3,4 3,1 3,3 3,3

GR 4,4 4,5 4,1 3,9 4,2 4,0 4,4 4,3 3,7 3,8 4,2 4,1 3,7 3,3 3,8 3,7 3,9 3,3 3,9 3,8 3,0 3,2 3,5

IT 4,6 4,6 4,2 4,5 4,3 4,7 4,3 4,5 4,4 4,5 4,3 4,0 4,2 4,0 3,9 4,3 4,1 4,1 3,8 3,7 4,1 3,7 3,6

RO 4,6 4,6 4,6 4,4 4,6 4,5 4,5 4,5 4,6 4,4 4,4 4,4 4,3 4,4 4,3 4,2 4,3 4,6 4,2 4,2 4,1 4,1 4,0

TR 4,4 4,7 4,4 4,2 4,3 4,3 4,4 4,5 4,5 4,5 4,2 4,5 4,3 4,2 4,0 4,2 4,2 4,4 4,3 4,4 4,2 4,1 4,0

Average mean of means 4,5 4,5 4,4 4,3 4,3 4,3 4,3 4,2 4,2 4,2 4,2 4,1 4,0 4,0 4,0 4,0 3,9 3,9 3,9 3,8 3,7 3,6 3,5

3.4 School results in terms of outcome 2.8 Guidance

3.2 Students behaviour coherent with students role

6.2 Relations with community 1.3 Documentation 3.3 School results in terms of output 2.1 Quality system 2.6 Absenteeism of teachers and staff 6.1 Parents involvement 4.1 Participation in social life 5.2 Ability to attract financial resources 2.3 Extra-curricular offer 6.3 Other services to community

C. Training needs

The following step in the analysis of manager questionnaire responses, was to select the areas in which managers think to need in service training. To the question: Do you need in service training in this area?, managers answered as reported in the following table.

Tab. 5 Training needs (percent of Yes) by country

Area 1 2 3 4 5 6 1. Physical conditions 2. Management and planning 3. Education and training 4. Social life 5. Financial aspects 6. Relations with environment BE 38,7 64,5 71,0 45,2 32,3 35,5 CZ 75,0 62,5 12,5 50,0 0,0 75,0 GR 82,1 78,6 89,3 64,3 46,4 89,3 IT 36,7 63,3 86,7 10,0 66,7 46,7 RO 45,2 80,6 61,3 35,5 83,9 71,0 TR 33,3 69,7 69,7 30,3 51,5 42,4 Mean 51,8 69,9 65,1 39,2 46,8 60,0

If we do not consider the areas where national samples indicate a lower need for training, we can see clearly that only two areas are considered as relevant almost by all national samples (Education and training and Management and planning).
Ch. 5 Training needs
Training needs > 50%
95 90 85 80 75 70 65 60 55 50 3. Education 2. 6. Relations 5. Financial and training Management w ith aspects and planning environment BE CZ GR IT RO 1. Physical conditions 4. Social life

TR

The bar chart above represents the need of training for the majority of managers by country, as reported in the Table 5.

The next step was to integrate the two parts of the questionnaires, to select the indicators we should focus on in the training course.
Tab. 6 Areas with main indicators (synthesises areas with related indicators)
Area 1 3. Education and training Indicators 3.1 Teaching activities 3.4 School results in terms of outcome 3.3 School results in terms of output 2.9 School climate 2.4 Effectiveness of school operations 2.5 Staff and human resources management 2.7 Management style and participated decision making 2.8 Guidance 2.2 Curricular offer 2.6 Absenteeism of teachers and staff 2.1 Quality system 6.2 Relations with community 1.1 Infrastructure, classes and laboratories 1.2 ICT and the Internet 1.4 Hygiene, safety and security system 5.1 Effective use of budget 4.1 Participation in social life Countries top ten GR, IT, RO, TR GR, IT, RO, CZ -BE, GR, IT, RO, TR, CZ BE, GR, IT, RO, TR, CZ BE, GR, IT, RO, CZ BE, IT, TR, CZ BE, GR IT, RO, TR, CZ RO, TR GR CZ BE, GR, IT, RO, TR GR, IT, RO, TR, CZ BE, GR, RO, TR, CZ BE, IT, CZ TR

2. Management and planning

3 4 5 6

6. Relations with environment 1. Physical conditions 5. Financial aspects 4. Social life

Teachers and Parents

The last two steps in the data analysis consisted in the integration of the results with the information gathered in the stakeholders interviews. The following table shows the teachers responses, by national sample.
Tab. 7 Main indicators for teachers
Average mean of means 4,3 4,3 4,3 4,3 4,2 4,2 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,0 4,0 4,0 3,8 3,7 3,7 3,6 3,6 3,3

Indicator 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
2.7 Management style and participated decision making

2.4 Effectiveness of school operations 5.1 Effective use of budget 3.1 Teaching activities 2.9 School climate 2.6 Absenteeism of teachers and staff 2.1 Quality system 3.2 Students behaviour coherent with students role 3.4 School results in terms of outcome 2.5 Staff and human resources management 6.2 Relations with community 1.3 Documentation 2.2 Curricular offer 2.8 Guidance 3.3 School results in terms of output 1.1 Infrastructure, classes and laboratories 1.2 ICT and the Internet 1.4 Hygiene, safety and security system 6.1 Parents involvement 5.2 Ability to attract financial resources 4.1 Participation in social life 2.3 Extra-curricular offer 6.3 Other services to community

BE 4,2 4,3 4,3 4,4 4,3 4,4 4,1 3,9 4,3 3,8 4,3 4,4 3,8 4,1 4,2 4,1 3,8 3,0 3,1 3,2 3,7 2,8 2,4

CZ 3,6 4,1 3,8 3,8 3,9 3,1 3,9 3,5 3,7 3,8 3,8 3,4 3,9 3,6 3,5 3,5 4,0 4,2 3,5 3,4 3,5 3,6 3,2

GR 4,2 3,9 3,9 3,9 3,9 4,1 3,7 3,8 3,8 3,7 3,5 3,6 3,5 3,2 3,6 3,3 3,5 3,1 3,6 3,3 2,8 3,3 2,9

IT 4,5 4,4 4,5 4,5 4,4 4,5 4,2 4,4 4,1 4,5 4,3 4,3 4,3 4,2 4,2 4,0 4,1 3,8 3,7 3,5 3,6 3,7 3,6

RO 4,7 4,5 4,7 4,6 4,4 4,6 4,6 4,7 4,4 4,5 4,4 4,6 4,5 4,9 4,3 4,7 4,3 4,3 4,2 4,6 4,2 4,3 4,1

TR 4,7 4,5 4,4 4,4 4,5 4,4 4,3 4,4 4,4 4,4 4,3 4,3 4,4 4,3 4,3 4,5 4,1 4,1 4,3 4,3 4,1 4,0 3,8

The following table reports the parents responses, by national sample.

Tab. 8 Main indicators for parents
Average mean of means 4,3 4,2 4,2 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,0 4,0 4,0 4,0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Indicator 3.1 Teaching activities 2.1 Quality system 2.6 Absenteeism of teachers and staff 2.4 Effectiveness of school operations 2.9 School climate
2.7 Management style and participated decision making

2.5 Staff and human resources management 5.1 Effective use of budget 1.3 Documentation 2.8 Guidance 3.2 Students' behaviour coherent with student's role 3.3 School results in terms of output 1.1 Infrastructure, classes and laboratories 3.4 School results in terms of outcome

BE 4,4 4,5 4,3 4,3 4,2 4,4 4,0 4,6 4,5 4,4 4,1 4,5 4,2 4,5

CZ 3,4 3,4 3,5 3,7 3,4 3,2 3,6 3,4 3,0 3,5 3,3 3,3 3,4 3,2

GR 4,1 3,8 3,7 3,7 3,6 3,6 3,9 3,5 3,7 3,2 3,4 3,5 3,5 3,7

IT 4,8 4,3 4,6 4,5 4,6 4,4 4,4 4,4 4,3 4,3 4,4 4,1 4,2 3,9

RO 4,7 4,6 4,6 4,4 4,7 4,5 4,4 4,3 4,5 4,8 4,6 4,4 4,4 4,2

TR 4,3 4,3 4,2 4,0 4,1 4,4 4,2 4,2 4,4 4,2 4,3 4,3 4,4 4,4

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

6.2 Relations with community 2.2 Curricular offer 6.1 Parents involvement 1.2 ICT and the Internet 1.4 Hygiene, safety and security system 5.2 Ability to attract financial resources 4.1 Participation in social life 2.3 Extra-curricular offer 6.3 Other services to community

4,3 4,2 3,2 3,7 3,5 3,4 3,7 3,0 2,7

3,4 3,4 3,3 3,6 3,7 3,4 3,4 3,0 3,1

3,2 3,3 4,0 3,5 3,5 3,2 2,8 3,2 3,2

4,3 4,1 4,1 4,1 4,0 3,6 3,5 3,8 3,5

4,2 4,3 4,3 3,9 3,9 4,1 4,0 4,2 3,6

4,3 4,4 4,3 4,1 3,9 4,3 4,2 4,0 3,9

4,0 3,9 3,9 3,8 3,7 3,7 3,6 3,5 3,3

As it can be observed, despite some differences that are more significant for parents than for teachers, the data can confirm the analysis we did for the managers answers. The difference can be explained by the different point of view of the various stakeholders as compared to the managers point of view. To teachers, for example, managerial and financial issues seem to be less important. This is quite normal because, in general, teachers perspective is more oriented to what happens in the class, to their relationship with students and to teaching-learning aspects. It is very frequent that teachers are disappointed and this happens very often in the present time -when a lot of work and words are spent in dealing with management problems instead of trying to solve teaching and learning problems. Physical conditions are more important to parents. This opinion is quite normal too, because in general parents are more concerned in physical and concrete identity of their children than teachers and school managers. In addition, most of them cannot really judge what schools do because of their lack of knowledge, so they are more interested in what they can understand better. Apart from these considerations, the opinions of the stakeholders about the importance of indicators are quite similar and close to managers opinions.

Conclusions
We can summarize the research results about training needs as follows. Area Education and training: this area of indicators is the one that obtained the highest level of interest by the school managers as far as the school efficacy is concerned. The highest percentage refers to the Greek school managers (89, 28%) followed by the Italians (86, 7%), the Belgians (71%) and the Turkish (69, 7%), while the Romanians and Czech expressed the lowest. The main indicators in this area are considered to be the teaching activities and the school results in terms of outcome. Area Management and Planning: this area obtained the second position but the percentages attributed by the partner countries differ from the previous ones. Greece and Romania express a high and similar level of interest (78.57% and 80.6%) followed by Turkey (69.7%) and Belgium (64.5%). Italy (63.3%) and Czech (62.5%) occupies the last position and for the former this can be explained by the reasons we described in the national report. The main indicators in this area are School Climate, Effectiveness of School Operations and Staff and Human Resources Management These areas are the two that deserve the highest interest as compared with the other ones proposed. In fact the area Relations with environment receives a far lower interest, even if still significant with Greece showing 89, 28%, followed by Czech and Romania whose school mangers expressed a good level of interest for these issues. Italy, Turkey and Belgium (that attributed 46.7%, 42.4% and 46.7% respectively), do not show a special interest for these issues, maybe because they focused on them for many years in the last decades. Social Life and Physical Conditions are considered as being interesting only by Greece. In fact less than the half of school managers in all other partner countries do not think that these two areas are relevant. Physical conditions obtained 45.2% in Romania, 38.7% in Belgium, 36.7% in Italy and in Turkey 33.3%, while issues connected with Social Life received 64.28%, in Greece 45.2% in Belgium, about 30% in Turkey and Romania and only 10% in Italy. Financial aspects are considered as more relevant by all partners, except by Greece due to its particular context characterised by the centralisation of the national system as detailed in its national report. These issues are considered as very relevant by Romania (83.9%) even if less than the first two areas. The other

partners are generally ready to consider these issues as central even with different level of interest (Italy 66.7%, Turkey 51.5% and Belgium 32.3%). A first analytical study of the partners school systems would show for sure the great differences existing at legislative level in the different countries, a fact that binds the school managers to very different laws and norms, thus making almost impossible to find a common framework of financial aspects for the course design and plan. Teachers and parents opinions about the importance of indicators listed in the questionnaire are homogeneously very high (between 4 and 5 excepted Greek and partly Belgian ones). It means that all indicators have been well chosen according to the point of view of those two important types of stakeholders, but it means also that it is impossible to make clear alternative choices. In this case in fact there is no ranking. On the basis of the above explained and commented results and pieces of information, we propose the following course framework. First of all, we think it is essential to choose a core focus (selected from the areas as in the questionnaire) since to have a priority in dealing with specific thematic issues would allow to concentrate on them, avoiding to work in a dispersive way in the attempt to deal with all the competencies mentioned in the questionnaire, and running the risk to be less productive and effective. As the partner countries showed different levels of interest for different areas, we could also consider the opportunity to plan the course with some sessions that can vary in the partner countries according to a specific national planning and implementation, and other ones in common (and eventually to evaluate if it is opportune to include them or not in the final Comenius course). Furthermore we propose that the course focuses on the managerial and organisational functions with the aims to raise the level of learners outputs and outcomes in strict relations with the external environments intended as context, institutional and social stakeholders and parents. The proposal to choose this specific focus is based on two types of reasons. The research showed that a higher level of attainment of the learners knowledge and competencies is a crucial issue and important to school managers in all the partner countries. Moreover, the issue of organisational and managerial competencies of school managers is still considered as interesting even if it was widely dealt with in the last decades at European level. The relations with the environment seem to be less crucial, but anyway significant, and therefore we propose that the connected aspects for the school managers function are taken into account in the curse design, especially from the above mentioned perspective. The second reason derives from the context issues that characterise our educational systems. In the last two decades the focus in learning of the social and economic systems has shifted from teaching to learners achievements. As a matter of fact, in the years following World War II and till the eighties it was thought that it was enough to invest in initial and in-service training structures and pathways for teachers to raise the level of learners outputs and achievements. Nowadays international research and analysis in adult literacy question the assumption that investments always impact on outputs with the same direct proportion. Therefore two types of policies developed. The first one is to assess school outputs through the generalization of the participation in international standardized pupils assessment survey (like PISA) or in national assessment procedures. The second one concerns the learners assessment by the introduction of external standardized final exams (total or partial examination procedures) as external assessment is considered to be more reliable than the internal one. At the same time, at a supplementary and complementary level, an interest for more refined form of internal evaluation developed, such the authentic evaluation and the Portfolio. These two study threads and policies are not antithetic, though complementary, as already mentioned before. School managers have to confront with these policies that use new systems and new indicators to assess their performances. The results of the present survey confirm these statements: without any doubts management and organisation would have been considered as the most relevant area twenty years ago. In the same way, managerial and organisational skills were the focus for school managers, leaving out of consideration their work content and the peculiar mission of the school. This approach and focus was necessary to make school organisation more efficient and to make available results for monitoring and assessment. But good results could not be given for granted any longer in school systems that were rather a mass educational opportunity than for elite. Therefore, it was necessary to train a manger who was no longer only a primus inter pares but who had skills and competencies similar to the ones that managers in other sectors had.

Now the focus has partly changed, following to the reasons we explained above. This does not imply that the school manager has to turn to be a teacher again or the teacher of the teachers as we say in Italy when speaking of the primary school managers. His/her activities should primarily include: Information about the above mentioned topics and evaluation of the priorities for in-service teachers training; Management of external assessment of school outputs and learners achievements; Exploitation and development of internal assessment/evaluation procedures; Organisation and management of the school to these aims; Maintenance of external relations as far as this issue is concerned. To this purpose, we consider essential that an in-service training aims at giving to the participants up-todate and scientifically correct knowledge about organisation and management models focusing on this particular area of activities. Project Based Management method has been widely used and successfully and, adapting this method to the purposes of school management, will allow school to become more effective and act successfully.

Further information can be found at http://www.pro-school.eu/

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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