SECTION III – LEVELS AND PROCESSES OF DECISION-MAKING
the employer for teachers in upper secondary education differs from that of primary and lower secondary education. In Malta (in some cases) and Iceland, the employer is the school, while in Norway the authority responsible for employing upper secondary teachers is the County Education Committee. The employer is taken to mean the authority that has responsibility for appointing teachers. However, even where the employer is not at school level, schools in the Netherlands, Slovenia, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) may nonetheless have full autonomy to recruit teachers (see Figure B13). This means that they are free to select their teachers themselves, although a higher authority has formal responsibility for appointments. Moreover, municipal authorities in Liechtenstein may make recommendations to the government when teaching staff are appointed, even though they are not the formal employer. Figure B15: Administrative levels responsible for employing teachers at primary and general (lower and upper) secondary education (ISCED 1-3), 2010/11
ISCED 3
Central/regional government Municipality/local education authority School
Source: Eurydice.
Explanatory note The term ‘employing authority’ refers to the authority with direct responsibility for appointing teachers, specifying their working conditions (in collaboration with other partners, if appropriate) and ensuring that these conditions are met. This includes ensuring the payment of teachers’ salaries, although funds for this purpose may not necessarily derive directly from the authority’s budget. This should be distinguished from the responsibility for managing resources within the school itself, which lies (to a greater or lesser extent) with the school head or the school management board. Responsibilities for engaging and remunerating substitute teachers are out of the scope of the figure. The central government is the top-level authority for education in most countries. In three cases, however, most education decision-making occurs at a regional level of government, namely that of the governments of the language Communities in Belgium, the Länder in Germany and the governments of the Autonomous Communities in Spain.
55