Incentives, conduct and strategies of heads of education preschool education institutions

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No. 1 (83), 2015 Author: Irina Abankina,  Maya Savelyeva The National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE) jointly with the Yuri Levada Analytical Center “Levada-Center”* continued in 2013 a series of sociological surveys of preschool education institutions’ heads in the framework of the monitoring of education markets and organizations conducted by the Higher School of Economics since 2002.

Contents

Introduction   

1. Characteristics of parameters of the sociological survey of heads of preschool education institutions    

2. General information about an institution   

3. Resources   

4. Educational strategies        

5. Financial policy     

6. Personnel policy    

7. Remuneration of teachers’ labour  

8. Increasing the teachers’ qualification         

9. Managing a preschool education institution          

Conclusion     

The National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRU HSE) jointly with the Yuri Levada Analytical Center “Levada-Center” continued in 2013 a series of sociological surveys of preschool education institutions’ heads in the framework of the monitoring of education markets and organizations conducted by the Higher School of Economics since 2002.

The changes that had taken place in the educational policy, personnel and resource provision of general education institutions in 2013 were analyzed based on the results of the survey of their heads in comparison with 2010, 2011 and 2012 surveys when those issues had been examined at the level of general education institutions.

The survey dealt with the following subject areas: general information about institutions and their heads, educational strategies of preschool education institutions, financial and personnel policies, remuneration of labour of the pedagogical personnel and other categories of employees, qualification improvement, managing a preschool education institution.

Upon conducting the survey of preschool education institutions’ heads the collected data were analyzed and an Information Bulletin presenting the following results in more detail was prepared.

The 2013 survey included 81.9% of state-owned education institutions and 18.1% of private education institutions. In rural localities the survey included 100% of state-owned (municipal) preschool education institutions and there were no private institutions.

At present, owing to the increasing birthrate, the availability of preschool education institutions is an urgent issue.

Most preschool education institutions work with an overload. Currently it is the most actively developing sector of education in this country. In this situation the town councils, education authorities need to solve the problem of accessibility of education institutions and support both the municipal and private sectors because it is rather difficult to expand the network of municipal institutions.

The outcomes of the survey confirm an increase in the usage of the capacity of preschool education institutions in the localities of all types. When answering the question related with the change of children’s enrolment in preschool education institutions during the past 3 years, the majority of the heads record the growth of enrolment in their institutions. Such result reflects an increase of the demand for services of preschool education institutions stipulated both by the parents’ trust in preschool education institutions and in the highly professional pedagogical personnel and by growth of the birth-rate all over this country, even in rural localities with a small number of people.

The outcomes of the survey show that there were no noticeable changes in the development of the financial and economic independence of preschool education institutions. Despite an expansive outreach performed by the educational authorities among the heads and specialist working at preschool education institutions, the heads are undecided concerning the type of their preschool education institution. They gave the initiative of choosing the type of the education institution to the founders. The founders in their turn would rather prefer to transfer preschool education institutions to the types of institutions that are more toughly controlled in the framework of the existing regulatory and legal base, i.e. budgetary and public institutions. The heads of education institutions have actually abandoned the development of their financial and economic independence and preserved the command and control style of managing the subordinated network of preschool education institutions.

The monitoring revealed that the authority to control the usage of the capacity of preschool education institutions (sending and enrolling the children in concrete preschool institutions) had shifted from the level of preschool education institutions’ administration to the founders’ level – the municipal education authorities, this being related with the high indicators of priority of attending a particular institution, especially in cities. We are actually talking about the centralization of the authority, placing the process of children’s enrolment in preschool institutions under the control of the managerial bodies with the purpose of decreasing the abuse of office, increasing the transparency and providing equity.

Summing up the results of analyzing the personnel policy in preschool education based on the data of the monitoring one can note its conservative character, an extremely occasional personnel rotation, a small proportion of young teachers. The analysis revealed that compared with the outcomes of the 2010 survey the age structure of the pedagogical personnel has not changed.

The preserving of the personnel age structure is explained by the preferences of the heads of preschool education institutions when they are hired. When replacing the vacant positions of the teaching staff the most important criteria, in the opinion of the education institutions’ heads, are the teacher’s qualification category and references from the previous place of work. The measures of the social support of young teachers by the administration at the level of regions and municipalities has not yet lead to a noticeable change of the personnel structure at preschool education institutions.

Due to lagging wage growth of the pedagogical personnel at preschool education institutions in comparison with the schoolteachers’ salary growth many institutions appeared to be understaffed with speech therapists, psychologists, pathologists who do really affect the quality of preschool education, provide the timely correction of children’s development. The children’s health is the main criterion of the quality preschool education from the point of view of parents, therefore limited opportunities of preschool education institutions in respect of preserving, strengthening and correcting children’s development lowers the assessment of the activity and adversely affects the level of families’ satisfaction with preschool education.

As to financing of preschool education institutions, one would consider successful the results of action plans of implementing the national educational initiative “Our new school” in the regions of Russia. Although the project was aimed at modernizing primarily the school infrastructure, implementing the Federal State Educational Standards, increasing the material wealth of schoolteachers, the executive authorities in many RF regions found it possible to extend the activities of the project to the level of preschool education. This was reflected in the results of the survey: the number of responses indicating an increase of values of important financial indicators of preschool education institutions (an average wage of the main staff, wage fund of a preschool education institution, normative of per capita funding had increased. The survey determined that the highest proportion of teachers receive the incentive payments ranging 26 to 50% of the salary (26.9%). In the second place there is a group of teachers receiving the incentive payments equal to 11-25% of the salary (25.4%).

In 2013 on average 30.9% of the total number of the pedagogical personnel of preschool education institutions were trained at advanced training courses. An absolute majority of heads traditionally prefer the training of their pedagogical personnel via the system of regional training institutions.

At 51.8% kindergartens on average, i.e. only at half of preschool education institutions, a system of teacher assessment by parents exists, while at 48.2% of them it is not applied.

In 2013 on average 34% of preschool education institutions had a Governing Council. It exists at 39% state preschool education institutions and at 11.8% of private preschool education institutions.

Prepared by Maya Savelyeva

* Решением Минюста РФ Левада-Центр включён в реестр некоммерческих организаций, выполняющих функции иностранного агента.