School autonomisation for successful leadership: case study of Lithuania

Abstract

The article presents a research on autonomy granted to schools in three areas of activity: management of organizational processes, personnel management, and management of material and financial resources. The aim of the research is to establish the opinion of school principals and teachers on the levels of decision-making in each analysed area of school activity, to reveal the conformity of the respondents= opinion with legal regulations, and to identify the need for school leadership within the limits of granted and desired autonomy. The research followed a mixed research strategy. Questionnaire survey was chosen as a quantitative research method. The research involved 1,947 teachers and 197 school principals from 76 Lithuanian general education schools. The qualitative research method focused on the analysis of legal acts which regulate the Lithuanian education system. The research results revealed that in all analysed areas of school activity there are differences between the level of autonomy prescribed by legislation and preferred by the respondents. The respondents want more decision-making powers to be granted to their school principals, which requires the latter not only to have a high level of professionalism in solving various school activity issues, but also to exhibit their personal and organizational leadership.