The role of educational Supervision in the management of public policies

Abstract

At the time being, we are living a paradoxical process. On the one hand, we can clearly seethe remarkable progress on educational policies of many countries with the aim of deregulating,increasing and decentralizing autonomy of local educational units. And, on theother hand, the function of control of the State is being reinforced. In this scenario, severalalternatives in the field of Supervision organization are suggested. We can identifynew tendencies that try to explain and give answer to three key questions: politicizationversus professionalization of the group; the gap between administrative and pedagogicalissues; and the seeming contradiction between control and consulting services.This paper discusses the study of such tendencies highlighting the ones oriented toreinforce the institutional nature of this service. It also points out the challenge thatchanges in public policies represent and the role of Supervision to move from simpleadministration of educational systems to the conduction process for improving quality inall school units.