Vilnius city mayor Remigius Šimašius, vice mayor Valdas Benkunskas, Director of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports Algminas Pakalniškis met with the new Minister of Education and Science Jurgita Petrauskiene.
At the meeting, various topical issues of educational institutions were discussed: attestation of school heads, pre-school education, non-formal education basket for students, issues of the transformation of high schools.
The mayor of Vilnius drew the minister's attention to the fact that since 2015 Vilnius city municipality made the selection of school principals more effective: external experts were included in the selection, evaluation interviews appeared, which helped to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the principals' work.
"We welcome the decision of the ministry to include the evaluation of the emotional environment in the criteria for the attestation of managers, we hope that they will not stop and replace the evaluation of the perfect arrangement of paperwork with the evaluation of the performance of the manager, which determines the quality of the school," says Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šimašius.
Valdas Benkunskas, the vice-mayor in charge of education issues in the municipality, presented to the minister the question of taking over Šaltinėlis school from the ministry. "The number of students in Vilnius is growing, and for the second year already we will solve the problem of how to accept all first-graders. in Antakalni "Šaltinėlis" school operates, which uses only about a fifth of its capacity (the school has about 140 students, and its capacity is more than 600 places). If the ministry handed over the school to the municipality, we would ensure its more efficient operation and this would help to solve the admission of students in Antakalny", said the vice mayor.
At the meeting, concern was expressed about the situation of the informal education basket for students - although it is already mid-January, the municipality has not yet received information from the ministry regarding the financing of this year's basket, although almost 17 thousand Vilnius parents used the opportunity to compensate part of the price of the clubs operating in Vilnius last year. The minister informed that the funds for non-formal education of schoolchildren should reach the municipalities soon, but they will be smaller than in 2016.
The possibility of conducting pre-school education of Vilnius children at home ("homeschooling") was discussed with the minister. In the summer of last year, the municipality had prepared a procedure so that parents who want to prepare their child for school at home could receive the necessary consultations and help from the school, but the previous management of the ministry and specialists did not support such an option.
Minister J. Petrauskienė presented university transformation plans at the meeting. According to this plan, up to 5 state universities should remain in Lithuania.
