9.3. CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR TEACHERS WORKING IN EARLY CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL EDUCATION
•1 Organizational aspects
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for teachers is prescribed by centralized acts for both the ECEC sector and the school education.
For the ECEC sector the Law for Child Protection prescribes that the employees in this sector are obliged to get involved in CPD and that the forms of the CPD are prescribed by the Minister and are not regulated in terms of compulsory hours spent in training. The Bylaw for CPD of the employees in kindergartens regulates the forms and methods of training as well as the nature of the trainings. There are two kinds of trainings: generic (administrative work, communication, financial aspects etc) and specialized trainings which are more connected to raising the quality of the educational process (theories of early childhood development, standards of early learning and development, creating stimulating environment for early learning, cooperation and partnership with parents, prevention of violence, neglect and abuse etc). All trainings can be implemented on three levels: basic training, advanced training and training of trainers.
In the school sector CPD is a professional duty and mandatory aspect of the work of the teachers listed in their work duties. The Law for Teachers and Professional support staff outlines the Continuous Professional Development obligations for the teachers in terms of hours spent in trainings. The minimum is set at 60 hours of training spread in three school years (Article 27). Out of those at least 40 are in programs accredited by Bureau for Development of Education (Article 27) and the rest are in other programs (projects approved by the Ministry, internal trainings, inter-schools teams for learning, individual forms). Each year the Bureau for Development of Education (BDE) in cooperation with the State Education Inspectorate (SEI) propose a program for teacher training and the Minister approves it by the end of January of each year. The accreditation of the programs is done in line with the Law for Bureau for Development of Education which is in charge of analysis, planning and evaluation of the programs for CPD. Each teacher also spends 20 hours of priority trainings over a period of three years which are outlined by a program passed by the Minister and financed by the BDE's budget (Article 27 from the Law for Teachers and Professional support staff). Within these limits each teacher prepares an individual training plan for the school year based on the self-evaluation of the professional competences, integral evaluation results and reports by the principal, advisors from BDE, SEI and State Examination Center (Article 28). The individual plan is approved by the Principal and the school's professional development team (Article 28). For the CPD of each teacher a professional dossier is kept (Article 30).
•2 Incentives, supporting measures and funding for participation in continuing professional development (CPD) activities
In both the ECEC and the school education CPD is part of the professional duties of the teachers and the core staff and are counted as part of the working time.
In the ECEC sector CPD is linked to renewal of the licenses (every 5th year of service). For the renewal of the license teachers and professional support staff need to show a record of at least 20 hours of CPD within the timeframe and the other core staff (support staff) need to have at least 10 hours of CPD.
In the school sector the priority trainings are financed from the BDE budget (Article 27 from the Law for Teachers and Professional support staff) and for the other trainings the schools have autonomy to allocate funds. Certain trainings are paid for by donors within their respective projects. The Bylaw for Career Development of the teachers within the standards for each career stage contains a component for CPD. Therefore CPD is tied to the career development of the teachers as well.