Regional South Eastern Europe Conference
Parental Involvement in Life of School Matters
23 – 24 April 2010, Becici, Montenegro
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General Info
(in English)
General Info
(in local language)
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Background
The systemic crisis of education, exacerbated by the global economic crisis, particularly in the developing countries, threatens to deepen the social division and drastically reduce the equal chances for the quality education for all children. By alleviating the barriers to the parental involvement in the school life and empowering parents for the meaningful involvement in the education of their children we hope to reduce this threat. The meaningful partnership between school and parents/community has been proven to bring about the more inclusive and better quality education.
Giving the parents the voice in the school administration and governance, from curricula to the budgetary matters, may lead to the fairer distribution of the public spending for the education and the greater accountability of the decision makers. It can also curb the burgeoning privatization of public education for lower income segments.
The South Eastern Europe (SEE) countries’ education policies make provisions for the parental engagement in the school governance and administration. However, the education experts and civil society organizations active in the education field in the all 10 SEE countries have agreed that the parents’ involvement in the life of school is insufficient and/or inadequate.
To address this issue, Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute has initiated and funded the regional research evidence based advocacy with an aim:
- To better understand the opportunities created by school leadership for parents to participate in school life and to assess the extent to which equal opportunity for parental participation in school life is promoted.
- To learn about parental needs, expectations and experience in regards of school efforts towards the engagement of parents and their influence on the school life.
For this purpose, the Center for Educational Policy Studies, Slovenia in the cooperation with country teams has implemented two cross-country national surveys.
The first survey, in 2008, has inquired about the principals’ views on the parental involvement. A total of 2,273 hour-long, face-to-face interviews were conducted with primary/compulsory school principals in the 8 SEE countries.
The second survey, in 2009, sought to determine the views of the parents, including the ones belonging to the vulnerable groups. It covered the all 10 countries where the total of 9000 ‘regular’ parents, 1500 ‘active’ parents, 600 vulnerable group parents and 300 principals were interviewed. Both surveys have followed a rigorous scientific methodology.
Parallel to the studies, the good practices of the school – parents partnerships have been collected and the innovative activities for building strong parents-school partnerships have been initiated. The latter focus particularly on enhancing the teachers’ led approach. .
We hope that the research findings, the innovative activities as well as the related projects in the region will lead towards sound policy measures and practices for meaningful and sustainable school – home partnership in the function of providing the equal quality education for all children.
The Purpose of the Conference:
1. To initiate the informed dialogue on the introduction and implementation of the policies and practice for the meaningful parental engagement in the life of schools.
2. To provide a venue for outlining the regional and national courses of action for advancing education inclusion and quality through parental engagement in the life of schools and establishing the sustainable home – school – community partnership.
Objectives:
1. To present the findings and recommendations of the cross-country surveys,
2. To get acquainted with the related initiatives in SEE
3. To learn about the experiences and practices in some EU countries
4. To outline the next steps in promoting the meaningful school – home partnership
The participants
The meeting will bring together the delegations of the countries that have participated in the surveys: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia, the regional and country research teams, representatives of the Open Society Institute network programs and national foundations, representatives of global, EU and other international organizations active in SEE, such as UNICEF, UNESCO, Council of Europe, the European Commission’s DG Education and Culture, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities; EC Delegation representatives, European Training Foundation(ETF), ERISEE, the Regional Cooperation Council, South East European Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (SEECEL), Education International, the Roma Education Fund, World Bank, bilateral government agencies such as KulturKontakt, Austria, Canadian International Development Agency, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) Swiss Development Cooperation, and distinguished international and local experts in this field.
Each country delegation will have up to 6 members, preferably as follows: a teacher, a school principal, a parent, a policy/decision maker of the highest possible level, the lead country researcher and the country team coordinator. The organizers are covering travel and accommodation expenses for the country delegations, central research team members and the invited guests.
The Open Society Institute network and national foundations staff and the members of the international organizations are expected to cover their travel and accommodation costs.
The lunches on the conference days and coffee breaks are free for all participants.