It is a great pleasure to invite you to this year’s conference - the nineteenth annual meeting - to be held in Szeged, called the city of sunlight in Hungary, September 16th-18th 2010.
Education has an increasing and crucial role in forming a more sustainable, equitable and prosperous society. The speed of change around the world, especially the dramatic acceleration of knowledge, demands continuous new learning. The meaning of learning itself has changed. Leadership has a key role in responding to these changes, particularly in schools, by enhancing people’s competence and efficacy and helping them to share their knowledge with each other. Transforming personal and group competence and efficacy into organizational learning, culture and performance is the leaders’ challenge.
Over the past three years the discussion at ENIRDELM conferences has focused on fundamental education leadership issues such as: the leaders’ moral responsibility for sustainable development and the world (Uppsala - 2007), exploring the link between learning leading and leading learning (Bergen - 2008) and a new type of professionalism required in a turbulent and complex world (Antwerp - 2009).
The ENIRDELM Board agreed upon the theme of the relation between leadership and students’ performance and, more broadly, the quality of schooling. This theme provides continuity and further in-depth exploration of the impact of leadership on learning in its broadest sense:
We will focus on the connection between learning and school leadership, including the impact of leadership on both qualitative and measurable learning outcomes. Questions to be addressed are:
a. Who are the school leaders? How are they selected? Is there a ‘best way’ to select leaders? How attractive is the career of leader and how does this affect recruitment and selection? Who can become a good leader - is it a good teacher or someone who has proven themselves successful in another sector or both?
b. What competences should leaders have? How should educational management and leadership profession respond to the EU specification of key competences necessary for an effective school leader? How do perceptions of the school and of learning influence perceptions of effective leadership?
c. What form of Leadership Development Programme best assists actual leaders and leaders-to-be to perform effectively and successfully?
a. Can we assume that leaders have a significant impact on the process and the outcomes of learning in the school? Is there an evidence-base?
b. Are learning organisations and leadership adapting to today’s rapidly changing world? What role, if any, do leaders play in this?
c. How do internal and external issues and support systems influence the work of leadership? How do qualification systems transform the process of learning and the work of leaders?
We seek answers, relating to specific systems and institutions, to these and other questions with a particular focus on educational leadership practice.
ENIRDELM is collaborative network, a place for open discussion, for sharing new approaches to educational leadership and quality. The self-help spirit of ENIRDELM has always made the outcomes of the annual conference dependent on the contributions of its members and participants. We therefore hope that the issues raised will awaken your interest, and encourage you to join to the conference and contribute your knowledge and experiences about these topics. Researchers, principals, consultants, trainers and policy makers will together present, discuss and share ideas for improving leadership, schools and educational research. The board would especially like to welcome new participants as well as to invite former ENIRDELM members who have not been able to participate in recent years.
Although this conference information will be e-mailed to all the participants on last year’s delegate list, these details can rapidly become out of date. We would like to win new members over ENIRDELM and hope that former members who lost contacts with the network will find the way back to us Please be active and by forwarding the link to the conference home page to anyone you know who may be interested in the work and spirit of ENIRDELM, or the theme of this year’s conference. Help us to reach as wide an audience as possible. All participants, old and new, will receive a very warm welcome in South-East of Hungary, in the country’s sunniest city. We look forward to seeing you and your colleagues in Szeged in September 2010 where you will enjoy the warmth of traditional Hungarian hospitality and the sunny weather!
With very warm regards,
Tibor Barath
Chairperson of ENIRDELM
