engleski

What does it take to be a successful school leader in Croatia?

In the European Union, each country independently creates its own education policies. The same principle applies to the education of school headteachers. In the Republic of Croatia, a school culture is being created that would support partnership, teamwork and cooperation. In that process the so called pedagogical leadership comes into focus with its direct and indirect effects (The Appraisal of School Leaders: Fostering Pedagogical Leadership in Schools (OECD, 2013)). The instructive role of a headteacher should be replaced by the transformational role. While most countries do not prescribe a mandatory way of acquiring qualifications, Croatia seeks to join the countries with the compulsory education for (future) headteachers. The intention is to switch from a system in which a headteacher serves a (political) function within a school to a system in which being a headteacher is a profession based on licensing. In the process of professionalization of the headteacher's roles, a set of necessary competencies needs to be determined. The headteachers already occupying that position have some insights in the required competences. The research was conducted with the aim of determining what competencies are considered necessary for successful career by headteachers in Croatian schools so the responses were ranked in order to get a list of top headteachers' competencies. Special attention was given to those competences that can be developed through education, according to the headteachers. The results underline the need to design an educational program that would enable headteachers to develop exactly those competencies that they feel would help them do their job more successfully and achieve the transformation of school culture.

pedagogical leadership, key competences, headteacher, formal education, EU

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