ECNAIS Your own Flag/logo Berlin, GERMANY | 19th November 2010 The independent School in Europe today – and the role the national organizations are playing Margrét Pála Ólafsdóttir, the Association of Independent Schools in Icelland THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS OF INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS CONSEIL EUROPEEN D’ASSOCIATIONS NATIONALES D’ECOLES INDEPENDANTES ECNAIS Your own Flag/logo Freedom / possibility to start schools / to run schools Icelandic law on primary/elementary schools authorize others than the municipalities to open and run an independent schools – but before the Minister of Education issues the school´s license, the operator must foreshow an acceptable curriculum, a qualified principal and teachers and an adequate accommodation. The municipality must accept the new school and it decides the maximum number of students that will get the contribution of 75% of the average cost for all students in the country. This 75% contribution is bound by law and the rest the schools must get through student´s fee. One municipality in Iceland pays 100% pr. every student, independently of the operator; i.e. they pay the same with every student, both in independent schools and in their own schools. With no funding for the start and a leftist trend in the country after the economic crises, life is pretty harsh … Only 1,8% of all Icelandic children from 6-16 years old do attend the independent schools, 98,2% are in the big municipalities´ schools - almost complete monopolization  2) Governance and inspection. Professional and democratic leadership, Transparency, Accountability State Control / Auditing. The 10 independent schools in Iceland all work within the framework of laws and regulations and only one of them has made a special agreement with the municipality with specified rights and duties, i.e. more than the law-frame states. They have more autonomy than the public schools but follow the rules of professional principal and an elected school-board. Some of the schools are non-profit organizations and others are operated by a private limited companies. The legal form influences the operating systems but they all must have audited balance sheets and income statements. The state and the municipalities do dot have direct influences but we are experiencing more and more pressure of filing more and more of reports and plans. 3) Pedagogical freedom for the single schools - and the discussion of how and to which extend the independent schools are socially responsibility in the society. Independent schools do follow the national curriculum and they have to meet the same standards as the public schools. For the youngest students, 13,4% of the school-hours, are free of choice. At the age of 16, the number has grown up to 27%. The strategy of the Association of Independent Schools in Iceland is to emphasize the pedagogical autonomy and to stress the point that all the 10 schools in the country have been the messengers of a new ideology and a new methods. The public schools are centralizes by the municipalities´ school offices and can thereby never adapt as radical innovations as we can. In fact, My believe is that the entrepreneurial work and the pretests of new ideas can be our social responsibility. 4) Other topics you think are of greatest relevance and importance for the next 5 years. In Iceland, we are first and foremost fighting for our existence, rationalizing our work and busy convincing the society that our schools are not a “private luxury for the upper class parents” – on the contrary, we have been getting 73% of the capital that the public schools gets from the society and we are not filling the gap with school fees. That is the result from the work of Institute of Economics in the University of Iceland. Secondly, the organizations for children (especially the youngest) are more or less the “women's issue”. The women work for the states agencies and the municipalities but men tend to work more independently (40% women and 80% men). Because of that, our struggle for increase of independent schools also a struggle towards more equality. | ICELAND | | www.ecnais.org | Ny Kongensgade 10, DK 1472 Copenhagen K, DENMARK | secretariat@ecnais.org | ECNAIS is na international association for collaboration between national associations of independent schools in European countries. It was founded in 1988 and is registered as a company limited by guarantee not having a share capital under the English Companies Act. ECNAIS