Teachers' involvement in school policy-making and the effectiveness of schools' in-service training policy: results of a Dutch study

Abstract

Schools in the Netherlands are encouraged by the national Government to develop their own in-service training policy. Teachers' involvement in school policy-making and the effectiveness of in-service training policy are assumed to be related. In the present study, this assumption was examined. For this purpose, 1079 teachers from 98 schools for secondary agricultural education filled in a questionnaire. The study shows that teachers working in schools for secondary agricultural education are involved in school policy-making to a low extent. It also appears that these schools have not (yet) been able to develop effective in-service training policies. Additional analyses revealed that teachers' involvement in school policy-making and the effectiveness of in-service training policy are correlated: in-service training policy is relatively most effective in schools in which teachers are most involved in school policy-making. One may conclude that schools for secondary agricultural education are not yet successful in developing effective in-service training policy because of their limited policy-making capacity.