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Education policymaking in Serbia through the eyes of teachers, counselors, and principals

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Abstract

Numerous educational reforms have been initiated in Serbia since 2000. The aim of this study was to examine education policymaking in Serbia in order to provide policymakers and stakeholders with recommendations on how to minimize pitfalls and increase success of future educational endeavors. In the study, we utilized the education policy cycle heuristic to analyze formation, implementation, and evaluation of three major education policies in Serbia: in-service training of teachers (INSET), school development planning (SDP), and inclusive education (IE). Examining three reforms simultaneously enabled us to identify major characteristics of Serbian policymaking, regardless of the reform content. We also relied on educational change literature, so that we could assess complex contexts of reforms. Finally, considering the importance of school staff during implementation, we examined education policymaking in Serbia through the eyes of over 1,800 teachers, counselors, and principals. The results point out to dissatisfaction of school staff with all aspects of the policymaking in Serbia and with the social and education context. Reforms appear to be undertaken in a similar pattern across different reforms. The findings imply that a thorough examination of both the policymaking in Serbia and communication, organization, and administration within the education system itself is in order.

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Notes

  1. In Serbia, counsellors are psychologists and pedagogues with full-time positions in school. The number of counsellors in school depends on the school size.

  2. First- and fifth-grade homeroom teachers were chosen as representatives of the two main cycles in elementary schools in Serbia—primary grades (1st to 4th grades), or ISCED 1, and lower secondary grades (5th to 8th grades), or ISCED 2. They were equally represented in the sample (49.4 % of the 1st-grade teachers and 50.6 % of the 5th-grade homeroom teachers).

  3. In addition to teachers, counsellors, and principals, a very small number of other members of the school development planning team (principal assistants and librarians) participated in our research pertaining to school development planning.

  4. The phase of policy adoption and budgeting was not included in questionnaires, because teachers, counsellors, and school principals usually have no insight into the activities related to this phase.

  5. In situations when no teacher out of the school’s teacher sample had a student with IEP or a student with learning and behavioral difficulties without official IEP, the questionnaire was randomly given to the teachers in the school’s teacher sample with no practical experience with inclusive education. Our final IE sample consisted of 209 teachers who had a student with learning and behavioral difficulties (with or without formal IEP) in last 3 years and of 225 teachers with no such experience in 3 years. In general, teachers with no experience with IE were milder in assessment of IE than teachers with such experience (data not shown).

  6. This question was, by mistake, not put forth to the INSET respondents.

  7. For this question for the IE reform, we showed only the responses of the teachers who had students with formal IEP in their classrooms in the last 3 years (N = 139).

  8. In case of IE, the statement was phrased in future tense because the reform was initiated recently.

  9. The strategy of education was being developed in Serbia concurrently with this research.

  10. For this item, we used a nine-point Likert scale and later collapsed responses into three categories (1–3 dissatisfied, 4–6 neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, and 7–9 satisfied).

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Acknowledgments

This paper is the result of the project “Perceptions of the educational changes in Serbia: Reflections on the past, visions of the future” financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education in Jagodina, University of Kragujevac, Milana Mijalkovića 14, 35000, Jagodina, Serbia

    Jelena Teodorović

  2. Institute for Educational Research, Dobrinjska 11/III, 11000, Belgrade, Serbia

    Dejan Stanković, Bojana Bodroža, Vladeta Milin & Ivana Đerić

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  1. Jelena Teodorović
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  2. Dejan Stanković
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  3. Bojana Bodroža
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  4. Vladeta Milin
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  5. Ivana Đerić
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Correspondence to Jelena Teodorović.

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Teodorović, J., Stanković, D., Bodroža, B. et al. Education policymaking in Serbia through the eyes of teachers, counselors, and principals. Educ Asse Eval Acc 28, 347–375 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-015-9221-x

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