Tools

This section proposes a selection of topics that are specific to staff working in the national education system.
Each topic is examined under four headings: understanding, implementing, training, and planning for the future.

• Under the heading "UNDERSTANDING", you will find a selection of documentary resources at the theoretical level;
• under the heading "IMPLEMENTING", there is a selection of practical tools to help managerial staff carry out their functions;
• under the heading "TRAINING", there are training design applications intended for trainers;

Decentralisation

This process directly affects the state education system. As one of the State's most important services, it is, in effect, a pilot institution for the implementation of the objectives and changes that are demanded by the nation, in a manner that is in keeping with its founding values. +info [in french]

 
Ethics

Through its mission to provide education and training, the state education system is supposed to ensure the continuity of traditional republican values and promote respect for human rights.
By definition, its managers are in the front line of such actions, which means they must set high standards in their personal behaviour as well as in their professional practices. Nevertheless, this is a highly sensitive and complex area, with a wide-ranging field of applications, involving all levels of the education system (geographical and administrative) and all aspects: personal as well as professional. +info [in french]

Assessment

Public expectations and demands from within the institution itself compel the state education system to improve the quality of the service provided. Furthermore, it is committed to assessing the quality of its national, regional and local services, with a view to their future development.
Today, the national education system's expertise in this field is widely acknowledged, and has led to a national and international demand for its services, from other institutions in France, and from countries keen to establish a high quality education system, or to improve or reform their existing systems. +info [in french]

Human resources management

The state education system is totally committed to the effective management of human resources. It has made changes to its human resources policy, leading it to abandon outdated practices and adopt more local and forward-looking approaches for the management of jobs and competences. +info [in french]

Training design

Training has become a key issue for the state education system. Due to its geographical location, changes in the training methods for each group of staff within the Ministry of Education and changes in the concepts and practices of training design, ESEN has been prompted to rethink its approaches to training and to try out and develop new methods of training design.
Individualised training programmes, on-site courses, distance education, block-release training and every other model of training design are developed and implemented, as dictated by circumstances, in pursuit of maximum effectiveness and efficiency. +info [in french]

Inspection and assessment of teaching staff

Well before systematic approaches for the appraisal of staff performance were put into operation throughout all sectors of civil service, the state education system was called upon to develop systems of inspection and assessment. These have become benchmarks and are a genuine field of expertise for those who work in this area.
These practices aim to guarantee the quality of teaching within the system, by ensuring that it conforms to recognised, perennial values.
The state education system's moves to create a system for the evaluation of administrative staff is the latest example in a long line of assessment-related activities in the pedagogical sector, which can be traced back to the very beginning of its existence. +info [in french]

Higher education

Higher education leaders need support in this time when the management of universities is getting more complex as France is undergoing major reforms : restructuring the national budget (LOLF), and implementing the LMD scale (bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees) in higher education.
Besides the modular training certificate course intended for secretary generals and for heads of administrative departments, other professionalizing actions, aiming at meeting specific needs are also proposed. +info [in french]

State secondary schools (EPLE)

At the very heart of the education system, these schools are a focus for the most sensitive of the issues that are inseparably linked with the state education system and where problems - which in another environment might be isolated or infrequent - come to a head.
Whether the subject is management, instructional leadership, staff performance assessment, staff retraining, recruitment policy, personal safety, environmental awareness or secularism, local state schools are confronted with all of the questions raised by the very principle of a national education system that seeks to carry out its functions in accordance with Republican values. +info [in french]

Management

The issue of management is perennial in a system where management roles are multifaceted.
Whether the focus is on the management of individual employees or teams (teaching or administrative), or on the management of individual departments or systems, this subject requires personal and professional skills, knowledge, techniques and tools that must be identified and implemented with reference to the fundamental objectives of the system. +info [in french]

Leadership

The needs for a permanent reference to a common culture and for the feeling of belonging to a common institution, while conforming to a specific local context (to ensure that the system conforms to the constraints and expectations of the people and institutions at a local level), have led to the development of a constantly-evolving leadership policy. +info [in french]

 
LOLF

+info [in french]

Responsibilities of managerial staff

Managerial staff are expected to exercise their responsibilities in numerous and varied fields: in their daily contacts with the users of the public education service, in their management of departments and human resources, by developing and improving the quality of public services, in the actions they take to provide information about local or national policies, etc. This requires setting high standards of behaviour, in addition to the professionalism that is demanded of managers at all levels of the system, since their actions and those of the staff under their supervision contribute directly to the quality of the public service. +info [in french]

European education systems

Factors such as the growing influence of Europe in the daily lives of the population, the opening up of markets, and the development and impact of increasingly complex, extensive and restrictive European regulations have prompted the French state education system to compare its practices with those of its neighbours and partners. The (pre-existing) cultural exchange programmes, exchanges of working practices, knowledge of the educational models and methods used in schools or universities abroad (acquired through in-service training programmes for staff, as well as through university education courses), and the availability of educational opportunities in higher education (via specific programmes such as Erasmus), along with the reforms in higher education that aim to harmonise levels of study and facilitate the mobility of knowledge, competences and people (Licence, Master, Doctorat [LMD] system) all help to put our education system into perspective with the practices current in other countries. They help us to identify and highlight its strengths and envisage ways to overcome its weaknesses; they also help to determine the steps that must be taken if we are to achieve the free movement of knowledge and people throughout the whole of the new European territory. +info [in french]