How Georgia may learn from changes in principal support and supervision internationally

Abstract

How Georgia may learn from changes in principal support and supervision internationally Introduction The role of a modern school principal, with the focus on becoming an instructional and learning leader for school society, rather than being only a building manager, is changed from the past in myriad countries. New practices and job requirements lead to the issues of principal preparedness for the role, challenges in providing effective support to principals and changes in the form of principal supervision. An increased role in this process is played by middle-tier agencies. Their closer involvement in the process of principal support and supervision requires them to redesign their traditional methods of supervision and to depart from prior practices of controlling principals to supporting and coaching them. The papers in this volume of JEA provide a good overview of how different countries are approaching and grappling with the abovementioned issues. Georgia is a country situated in the South Caucasus bordering the Black Sea, Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Its ancient history, starting since the fourth century BC, as well as its geographic location on the border of two continents, Europe and Asia, has resulted in both western and eastern cultures influencing the creation and development of Georgian civilization. Georgia was absorbed into the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. It existed for three years (1918-1921) as an independent democratic republic, followed by the Russian Socialist revolution when Georgia was forcibly incorporated into the USSR. After the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, the country regained its independence. Despite the fact that Georgia is a small country (69,700 km 2), it has varied landscapes and urban and rural areas with a population of diverse ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. A total of 2,085 public schools in the country differ in size and range from very small schools in rural, mountainous villages with 2-3 students of different ages to large schools accommodating 2,000 or more student in the cities. There are also schools with students from ethnic minorities, as well as from internally displaced families as a result of the Russian occupation of 20 percent of Georgian territories. Alongside political, economic and social reforms, intensive educational reforms have been taking place in Georgia since 2004 as the nation has broken away from the practices of highly centralized educational systems that existed in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Despite frequent changes in the Office of the Ministry of Education (now the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport) and decisions by leadership causing the processes to flow from centralization to decentralization, and vice versa, at different periods, many steps and reforms have been made forward in the creation of a new national curricula, upgrade of textbooks, teacher retraining, school governance and principal training, new use of technologies in the educational process and other small-or lar...

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