The quality of performance of educational institutions and the professional development of school staff: From institution standards to staff needs

This paper looks at the extent to which the range of accredited programs of professional development for educators corresponds to educators' needs for professional development. The theoretical starting point for the study presented in the paper is the positioning of the professional development of educators within the complex construct and context of professional development, viewed as a lifelong process, also relying on the concept of educational needs arising from the discrepancies between the existing state and the desired (according to the standards) state. Data on the educational needs of potential users of accredited programs were obtained by analyzing the results of external evaluations of school performance, where lower levels of standard realization (levels one and two) were seen as indicators of discrepancies between the actual situation in a school and the desired level of school performance i.e. the level prescribed by standards. The identified discrepancies were treated as a space in which educational needs arise, the meeting of which might lead to an improvement in the performance of the schools that formed part of the sample. A qualitative study was carried out, with the aim of examining to what extent the accredited professional development programs on offer correspond to the educational needs of teaching staff. The programs offered were analyzed using the method of sequential analysis, with the following sequences selected: program name, program topic, general and specific program aims, and program target groups. The results of the analysis suggest that professional development programs only partially correspond to the needs identified through the analysis of external evaluation, both at the topic level and in terms of the needs of specific target groups. The paper concludes with a recommendation of possible directions for improving the system of teacher professional development in Serbia.