Assessment of Digitalization in Primary and Secondary Schools by SELFIE Survey as a part of School Leaders Training

Modern times pose new challenges for the effective transformation of the educational system so that education meets the requirements and needs of a rapidly changing world and so that the graduate has the competencies necessary for success in the digital age. The need for a targeted, well-thought-out and systematically managed digital transformation of education in schools as a means to achieve this educational goal comes to the fore. Meaningful school digitalization should aim at the transformation of the school as a community of actors and also school as an educational space and support the improvement of quality in education. These ambitious goals require a deep awareness of the main goal of modern education in relation to students and society, setting the vision of the digital school and the subsequent preparation and consistent implementation of an action plan for its digital transformation. The preparation of an action plan requires an understanding of the features of a digital school and an evaluation of the current state of school digitalization. In order to support the digital transformation of primary and secondary schools in Slovakia, an innovative education Transformation of Education and Schools for the Digital Age for school management and digital coordinators as leaders of school digitalization was implemented within the national project IT Academy - Education for the 21st Century. The content of the training also included support for the use of a valid SELFIE tool for evaluating the current state of digitalization in various areas, from the perspective of leaders, teachers and students. The results were the starting point for schools to prepare their proper action plans for a period of 4 years. Long-term support for leaders who manage school transformation is proving to be key to guiding the transformation process at the national level.