Abstract:

The quality parameters of the professional development programmes for school principals proves to be a current issue in the present-day situation of the competitive market of further education. In this context, the authors consider the parameter of the competency potential of training programmes. The focus of attention is on the efforts to equip the school principals with the competencies that are required for carrying out attestation of schoolteachers, the latter being a part of responsibility of school administrators. The situation is becoming ever more crucial with the upcoming introduction of the Russian federal model of attestation of schoolteachers, which may hypothetically cause – though, possibly, temporary – certain extra social and professional tension in the professional community. Respectively, school principals need to be informed of the principles of this new attestation system, and they are to be prepared to make managerial decisions that would be relevant to the new social and professional contexts.

The primary research question was as follows: what should be the competency potential of professional development programmes for school administrators that would pave the background for socially and professionally successful attestation of schoolteachers according to the principles of the new Russian federal attestation system?

For the research purposes, the authors resorted to the content analysis of the professional development programmes for school administrators, the theoretical discourse analysis of the competency potential of training, and the content analysis of the Russian federal legal acts on the compulsory teacher attestation. In addition, a four-fold questionnaire-based survey was conducted in the Russian regions with the objective to reveal the anticipated SWOTs of the upcoming unified teacher attestation.

The key results of the research associate, first, with the presentation of the authors’ concept the competency potential of the training programmes for school administrators; second, with the publication of the outcomes of the social and professional issues that the new attestation of school teacher in Russia provokes; third, with the recommended content of the professional development programmes for school principals.

Keywords:

Professional development, competency potential, school education, school teacher attestation, professional competencies, Russian education.