Managerial Development Project

1. General approach
- a multifaceted approach of the educational institution and the community to which it belongs -

"Equal Opportunities through Education - School Development in Roma communities" program, part of Center Education 2000+, proved that notable and long-term outcomes of the amending interventions are due to a multifaceted approach of the educational institution and the community to which it belongs. Any other interventions exterior to these frames either fail or have limited effects (both in time and in their span).

The new program "Equal Opportunities for Roma Children through School Development Programs and Parents' Involvement" starts from this holistic approach that is supported, in order to amplify its endurance after the financial ceasing of the program, by an institutional dimension - its target is to create a network of the pilot-schools.

2. Description

Starting from its main task - to elaborate school development and communitarian involvement patterns that efficiently promote direct access to education and high educational standards - the project's strategic options are:

• to facilitate organizational changes for an increased involvement on the community's behalf, and consequently
• to arise parents' interest in the school life, one crucial factor for Roma children' and youngsters' educational and social success.

Both strategic options have an increased managerial relevance and, what is more, the school management and the institutional development projects respectively have to ensure a consistent implementation of the activities subsumed under the "3A's Model - Awareness, Acknowledgement, Achievement" at the level off each participant school - including "adequate policy" sharing in the network of the pilot-schools. A desirable managerial strategy should incorporate as main components:

Explicit mission - to assist the institutional development of the schools by involving the community and, more especially, the parents, so as the Roma children will be able to:

• become aware of their status in society and community;
• actively involve in the social and communitarian life, ready to assume their cultural identity;
• acquire high educational, professional and social standards.

Implicit mission - to promote adequate strategies for school development in the educational system and to monitor the policies and methods adopted in this field.

Strategic target - to create and/or strengthen the managerial and organizational culture in order to secure the project's mission (both explicit and implicit) fulfillment.

3. Technical assistance

In the field of management and institutional development, schools will be assisted in programs focusing on:

Information -
The selected schools will be regularly granted informative materials; information seminaries will be organized at national, regional and local level; a web page will be created, etc.

Guiding -
The aim is to provide information to interest groups (teaching staff, local community representatives, parents representatives) in order to responsibly come to a common shared decision regarding program submittal; and to train and select the trainers; the discussions will be monitored by the project's experts as counselors.

Training -
Providing instruction on particular managerial issues: project management, institutional changing and development management, negotiation and conflict-solving, organizational culture, intra- and inter-institutional communication - all these issues are intended to provide self-evaluating feedback.
Stimulating school heads to adhere the training sessions specific to the program.
Initiating process counseling - January 2002 (one keystone stage in the process of counselor's training is daily practice).
Intra community counseling and negotiation sessions regarding the institutional development project.
Circumscribing the mission and the strategic targets for the institutional development project.
Elaborating operational plans for the first year (of implementation).

Experimentation -
This stage focuses on testing the operational plans in the first year and on reviewing and accomplishing the operational plans in the second year (of implementation).

Implementation - Fulfilling the operational plans in the second year. Establishing monitoring procedures.

Evaluation - Establishing performance criteria and school-heads training. Acquiring an overall high standard by the end of the first year regarding Roma pupils' school involvement and educational standards, the educational ethos, the performance of various activities rallied to the formation components, etc.