Turinys / Contents

COVER

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Cover page, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2014, SPVK/EPMQ

CONTENTS

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Contents, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2014, SPVK/EPMQ

SCIENCE EVALUATION: SOME FEATURES

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Scientific work evaluation is becoming an urgent and even a sharp question, raising various discussions as never before. Science, in some sense, has strong immunity, but in recent years, it has been rapidly weakened both internally and externally. Of course, we have to believe, that universities will understand that it is firstly on them to save and strengthen both quality of activities and prestige and develop real but not demonstrated science. Europe “has been having a headache” for a long time thinking how to withstand ever - strengthening competition with such regions as North America (especially USA), South-east Asia and so on. It is obvious, that plenty of science work ranking and evaluation systems exist. On the other hand, it is doubtful if any of them is suitable for the whole science direction, science work and university type variety or for other evaluation purposes. In spite of various contradictions, evaluation systems have to be improved, elements, having negative influence have to be sought to eliminate. The Conference ‘Technologies Transforming Research Assessment’ took place in Vilnius on March 19, 2014. The attention of the conference was paid to the new and effective technologies of an assessment of scientific publications. One of such technologies ‘Epistemio’. It was stated that it is an effective instrument to manage institutional lists of publications (http://www.epistemio.com). The Snowball Metrics initiative was also introduced. Elsevier`s new generation of SciVal was presented. The evaluation of scientific publications requires to keep transparency and reliability of the process. On the other hand, universities have to create optimal conditions to all the scientist for scientific activity, to develop encouragement mechanisms. Thus, science quality, science policy formation and other related questions are very urgent in Lithuania. There is no clear and distinct science policy formation mechanism. The expansion of science seeking only pragmatic aims leads only to a deadlock. Science, first of all, is cognition, creation of knowledge. Therefore, it is necessary to keep and develop science for the sake of cognition but not just for money.

MANAGEMENT OF IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PURPOSE OF CHILDREN’S SOCIALISATION CENTRES

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Children’s socialisation centres that have been operating since 2008 execute a double mission, i.e. they provide comprehensive education and ensure supervision as well as re-socialisation of delinquent juveniles. High-quality implementation of the integrated mission of children’s socialisation centres is mostly determined by strategic management of these institutions. Results of the survey of administration representatives and other staff of children’s socialisation centres carried out from November 2012 through February 2013 revealed that all groups’ employees of children’s socialisation centres positively assessed strategic management of their institutions and also acknowledged the demand for its perfection. Statistically significant differences in assessment of strategic management of children’s socialisation centres and the need for its improvement in separate groups of respondents have been found out. The most visible differences concerning assessment of strategic management of children’s socialisation centres have been estimated among representatives of administrative staff and class tutors that took part in the survey. Respondents’ opinions mostly differed concerning the need to improve the incentive system for staff, the changes in the objective policy concerning staff selection and constant care of the administration about social and psychological safety of employees. It has been found out that respondents’ socio-demographic variables (sex, age, duration of employment, work experience in other institutions) make low statistically significant impact on assessment of the need for strategic management of children’s socialisation centres and its improvement. When assessing strategic management of children’s socialisation centres, administrative staff are mostly sure that they promote and implement changes in culture of children’s socialisation centres, give priority to high-quality implementation of the purpose of children’s socialisation centres, ensure accessibility to information necessary for employees, maintain matter-of-fact relationships and constant dialogue with staff, regard their opinions when making decisions; however, they agree that these areas of strategic management of children’s socialisation centres should be perfected. It is proved by participated administrative staff who are focused on constant improvement of management processes, even though they are not completely convinced that they constantly develop their managerial competences which are a very important precondition for qualitative changes in management processes. It has been found out that class tutors at children’s socialisation centres, even though positively assessing strategic management of their institutions, are more critical about such areas of strategic management, in comparison to another group of respondents: human resources management, complex planning of performance of children’s socialisation centre and involvement of employees into planning processes, distribution of functions and responsibilities of staff, assessment of quality of activities of employees and the making of important decisions concerning its improvement, etc. First of all, class tutors relate the changes in quality of strategic management of children’s socialisation centres with the area of human resources management. Some one fifth of class tutors that took part in the survey agree that administration of their institutions have a clear strategy of development of the children’s socialisation centre and treat high-quality implementation of the purpose of children’s socialisation centres as the major aim. Pedagogues of children’s socialisation centres who took part in the research positively assess strategic management of their institutions; nevertheless, they are more sure about effectiveness of some of strategic management areas than their colleagues do, and more tend to suppose that there is no need to improve such areas of institutional management as creation of positive psychological climate, stimulation of collaboration among employees, strategic planning of performance of the centre, involvement of employees into such processes, orientation towards the priority aim, i.e. quality of performance of the children’s socialisation centre, stimulation of changes in culture of children’s socialisation centres, assessment of quality of activities of employees, etc. It is likely that pedagogues do not treat quality of various activities, processes, management of children’s socialisation centres as a finite process. Expression of assessment of strategic management of children’s socialisation centres and the demand for its expression demonstrates that managerial potential is not maximally used to implement qualitative changes in the purpose of children’s socialisation centres.

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS PEDAGOGICAL INTERNSHIP: ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES, IMPROVEMENT

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Teacher preparation remains an urgent and significant part of education system. Changing socioeconomic, political, technological concrete country conditions require constant changes in teacher preparation system. As never before, such a demand is even more strengthened by an occurring link between education and labour market. Teachers is an undoubted integrating part of education policy and internship. The carried out scientific surveys show, that in Europe as well as in other countries teachers and schools encounter with similar pedagogue preparation problems: there are discussions on the selection of candidates to teacher’s profession, professional and subject teacher preparation, competence, preparation length, teachers’ professional self-consciousness, prestige, teacher educators’ partnerships and so on. The research was carried out between January and February 2014, i. e., at the beginning of the second study semester. The research is based on the attitude, that students’ opinion and evaluation researches are important, because they allow establishing urgent problems and clarifying the known ones. Referring to the respondent proposal analysis, one can suggest problem solution ways and evaluate possible consequences. Opinion researches is an effective means seeking to initiate the changes, in this case, to improve pedagogical internship organisation. Pedagogical internship, undoubtedly, remains a very significant element of pedagogical study structure and process. Competence, practical experience acquisition, personal improvement and all-round knowledge of educational institution are considered the most important advantages of the internship. This is not only a certain future teacher’s self-examination in a real educational environment, but also a proper way to improve. On the other hand, internship organisation is not appropriate enough. A few very important things are obvious: a short pedagogical internship time, coherence with the studies at university, and not sufficiently purposefully defined internship activities (content aspect). Mentors’ work should be improved; however, this is not treated as a very important drawback. Also, two improvement spheres have been exposed: internship content/programme improvement (to concretise, optimise, and more clearly regulate the activities) and strengthening interaction effectiveness between university and basic practical schools. Pedagogical internship effectiveness (from the point of view of pedagogical ability consolidation, improvement) remains undoubted. On the other hand, certain requirements should be raised for the institution, in which students would like and could perform pedagogical internship. Educational institution’s democracy and openness, technological supply, ecological friendliness/suitability are considered the most essential requirements. The existing pedagogical internship model in Lithuania has to be improved in two main directions – process (internship length increasing, guaranteeing the acquaintance with the variety of pedagogical institutions, interaction with the internship leaders and mentors improvement) and content (activity optimisation, innovativeness, variety increase) improvement.

PROGRAM AND METHODICAL ASPECTS OF FORMATION OF STUDENTS’ COMPETENCES IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATIONAL MARKETING

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Marketing introduction in the field of education is capable to make a beneficial impact both on experts of education, and on consumers of their production. Marketing application for education is represented as an actual scientifically reasonable way of ensuring successful activity of an educational institution. Having established interrelation between labour market and needs of the personality, the educational institution is able to create a complex of competitive services demanded by the market of educational services. The development of the market of educational services foregrounds the problem of the definition of aspects of formation of educational marketing and carrying out market researches in the field of education. For producers of services, including educational, the degree of commitment to marketing as a market philosophy is embodied in the degree, transition step supply-side orientation of the company to market, marketing orientation. The necessity to increase the effectiveness of management in the sphere of education, search of innovative methods led to the use of marketing as a way of integrated management of production and sale of educational services which are understood as a complex of the services focused on realization of main objectives of education that allows to give the definition of educational marketing as the process of production and realization of educational services in the system of education, the demand based on consumers’ needs and satisfaction of this demand. The realization of marketing technologies assumes focusing on such factors as the demand in educational services, the latest achievements in science and technology, the use of effective methods, technologies and tutorials, individualization of training, the mobility of training allowing to change character quickly, the contents and terms of training and quantity of students. In this article some aspects of realization of the policy in the field of educational marketing are considered. The model of formation of marketing culture of future specialists of preschool institutions on the example of a special course "Marketing in preschool education" which approbation was carried out in 2012-2014 in educational establishment "Baranovichi State University" (The Republic of Belarus) is offered.

SCHOOL LIKE AN ANTHILL

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Trakai Vokė Secondary School in Vilnius is 16 kilometers away from the city center. It is located in a beautiful corner of nature by the old valley of the Vokė River and is declared a school for everyone. Stasė Bučiuvienė, a member of the editorial board of the magazine, talks to the director of this school, physics teacher Gene Talačkienė, biology teacher Agne Avižienienė, physics teacher Irina Dobrovolskaitė, social pedagogue Diana Šaulinskiene. The school currently has 370 students, including 35 graduates. The school employs a cohesive team of teachers who are able to release self-confident, aspiring people into independent life. Director Renė Talačkienė has been successfully managing the renovated school for ten years.

END

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End page, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2014, SPVK/EPMQ