SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE “EDUCATION AUTHORITY OF LOWER SAXONY ”
AND MY ROLE IN THIS ORGANISATION
Volker Wrigge
The Education Authority of Lower Saxony is the subordinated department of the Ministry of Ed-ucation of Lower Saxony . It supervises all of Lower Saxony ’s schools, advises and supports them and provides them with staff. In addition, necessary funds are allocated within the budget and additional benefits are granted.
Its head office is located in Lüneburg. There are four regional departments in Braunschweig, Hannover , Lüneburg and Osnabrück plus nine branch offices shown in the map below.
I work in the regional department in Lüneburg (north-east district of Lower Saxony).
Supervision as duty and challenge
The Education Authority of Lower Saxony is responsible for the supervision of primary, second-ary and vocational schools plus the supervision of teacher training colleges.
Supervision implies:
- advice and support
- controlling und structuring
- if necessary: intervention
Further responsibilities are:
- school organization, legislation and budget
- allocation of staff and administration of personnel records
- funding of Pre-Schools
In the regional department of Lüneburg I´m a superintendent (schulfachlicher Dezernent) and the head of one division, this supervises grammar schools, comprehensive schools and teacher training colleges in the district. In my division there 15 collegues, five of whom are superintendents, too. We supervise 80 schools and 6 teacher training colleges. The schools have between 500 – 1500 students. I am also the second head of the regional department.
Main Idea
The Education Authority aims at securing:
- equal opportunities in education
- equal learning opportunities in every region of the federal state
- the quality of the educational achievements.
School quality management system
- superintendents
- advisers in teaching (didactic)
- coaches in teaching (methodology)
- advisers in developing school systems
- cooperations with further institutions related to quality management in schools
School Statistics in Lower Saxony
- about 3,000 primary and secondary schools
- about 270 vocational schools
- 50 teacher training colleges
- about 87,000 teaching staff
- about 890,000 pupils in primary and secondary schools
- about 280,000 students in vocational schools
Personnel in the Education Authority of Lower Saxony
- 750 staff members in total
- departments for school legislation, organisation and budget issues
- administrative staff for internal organisation
- subject advisors and educational psychologists
- advisory and support teachers in part and full-time posts
Website
On its website the Education Authority of Lower Saxony provides general information on all kind of school issues for whoever is interested. (www.landesschulbehoerde-niedersachsen.de)