The Situation of Class Heads¹

By Júlia Szekszárdi

Class heads in Hungarian schools have for decades been the “jack-of-all-trades” in education, and as the “front-runners” in contact with parents, these teachers are the first to directly sense any changes that influence their individual students’ lives and everyday life in their school. In turn, the changing role of class head also reflects many decisive problems in connection with school training and important transformations that have taken place in education over the past 20 years.

Class heads at the beginning of the 1980s complained of being over-burdened and cited the lack of suitable conditions to perform the infinite number of duties they were responsible for. They pointed out that they were unable to carry out their tasks with a clear conscience in the face of all the expectations they were obliged to fulfil. The role of teaching as “public servants” is still valid today since class heads are responsible for any educational task that happens to arise, even if this is not explicitly declared. There is, however, increasing doubt about the justification for this. The bonus provided to teachers who act as class heads is not a motivating factor in carrying out their tasks (the total amount determined in our survey ranging from 1,500 to 2,500 HUF – only increased by a gross value of 500 HUF in the past two decades), so those who do so consciously act out of a sense of responsibility for their students. Nevertheless, a growing number of advisors refer to unsatisfactory conditions when they demand financial compensation appropriate to the value of their work in addition to moral support.

Our data indicate that when the obligatory nature of activities conducted by class heads ceased to exist with the introduction of the National Core Curriculum (NAT), the traditional role of class heads generally became less important. This is true even if the majority of schools prefer to maintain this supervisory role along with official classes. Framework curricula once again codified the duty of class heads and made consultations a compulsory part of the lesson structure, including specified content in some cases. Even so, the scope of duties has remained unclear up to the present day and is left to be decided at the local level.

Changes in the function of school training that had come about as a result of transformation in society and in the world demand the existence of competencies that practicing teachers over the age of 30 are not (could not have been) prepared for, and that students have not been exposed to either. A changing world requires flexibility, and not only among those appointed to the position of class head. In this sense, the role of class heads now involves a more complex set of duties, even in comparison to that of 20 years ago, and demands an increasingly higher level of professionalism.

Class heads surveyed in 2002 counted “fire-extinguishing” (i.e. tracking problems and handling conflicts) as their most important task, followed by a host of general duties that are essentially intangible, and therefore difficult to account for (anything from devoting attention to individual students to organising school activities). On the other hand, concrete tasks that comprise the genuine content of their work (assisting students with their studies, visiting lessons, keeping parents informed) are ranked significantly lower in the order of importance.

The link between class heads and students in their class has become demonstrably weaker. Twenty years ago, school directors considered it a serious problem that some advisors displayed a “chauvinistic” bias toward their own students instead of treating them as part of the “school community”. The connection today is much looser. Teachers that we surveyed who were under 30 years of age generally considered it perfectly natural that class heads maintain a distance from the “students’ world”, their essential task being the execution of administrative duties.

Fluctuation among class heads was also common. Two thirds of the teachers we asked stated that a given primary school class is usually headed by 2-3 different individuals during their time in the school. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to imagine that students receive the personalised attention they need throughout the course of their school career, and yet such personal contact is the essential function of class supervision. This fluctuation may also explain why the already weakened relationship between class heads and their students had grown even weaker in comparison to the results of 4 years before. The average age of advisors who took part in the survey conducted in 2002 is four years higher than that of supervisors questioned in 1998. The difference between these statistics coincides with the amount of time that elapsed between the two surveys, which suggests that it was presumably the same teachers who had remained class heads over the four years, and that very few young educators had taken on supervisory tasks.

The general disposition of adolescent students is greatly influenced by peers in their environment, the prevalent atmosphere in their class, their place among other classmates, and their own personal experiences. In the past, class heads were regarded in the public eye as key figures in the task of community education. The semi-compulsory nature of activity in the pioneer movement involved numerous difficulties and much fabrication, mainly in primary schools, but after ideological and militant factions had faded from the pioneer scene during the 1980s, the movement provided a framework and the conditions to make organising activities together with children an easier and more substantial endeavour, both during lessons and outside of school. Since then, the amount of time spent together outside of lessons has decreased to a minimum. Class heads we asked spend an average of less than 2 hours a week with students in their own class in addition to consultations within the lesson framework. (50–57% of those surveyed at the beginning of the 1980s spent 2 hours a week outside class with their students, 20% spent 5–7 hours a week, and 8–10% devoted more than 12 extra hours a week to their students).

Students need free discussion and their desire for consultations with their class head cannot be explained by the fact that they are not required to study for these lessons. Fulfilment of this desire in practice, however, reflects a great deal of contradiction in terms of quality. Based on our experience, even the small amount of time available for consultation was not used to its full potential. The majority of achievement-oriented teachers had neither the time nor the energy to conduct free discussions in connection with teaching material or current issues, and so the 45-minute time slot scheduled for this purpose was often used to make up for lost lesson time or to catch up on administrative tasks.

In the course of examining the intensity of communication between class heads and their students, a comparison of data reveals that 20.5% of the students surveyed claimed their class head rarely or almost never talked to them about politics, and another 17.9% stated that sex or dating were never discussed. As to be expected, the most common theme of discussion between teachers and students are issues in connection with school: 55.4% of the students participating in the survey indicated that such issues were discussed with their class head on a regular basis, and a further 27.2% address these topics frequently.

According to data provided in 2002 by primary school educators, namely class heads responsible for keeping in contact with families, the most serious problems were caused by parents, who are said to be neglectful of their children – and who did not regard teachers as partners. Other problems mentioned include the temptations of the consumer society and the damaging influence of the media (see chart). Disciplinary problems and inappropriate behaviour were high on the list of difficulties in connection with students; and references were also made to disagreements among classmates, a lack of solidarity and tensions rooted in social inequality. In addition, there were significant problems related to organising free time activities and preparing of students for continued education.

These were the issues that class heads we surveyed expected parents, educational authorities and pedagogical institutions to assist them with. It is by no accident that problems in connection with parents are regarded as those most urgently requiring a solution. Class heads expect feedback from colleagues in the hope of more effective cooperation and also express a further need for supplementary materials, post-graduate training, better working conditions and up-to-date information in the interest of improving their current situation.