Bucharest, 14 September 2023. More than 70 business and education experts answered the invitation from AVE (The Association for Values in Education) to take part in the selection of school headmasters who, by means of the projects carried out, transform the schools and the communities they are part of.
For seven years, AVE has been discovering headmasters of high, middle and primary schools and kindergartens in Romania who make a difference and awarding them at The Headmasters of the Year Awards Gala. This year, business leaders representing the biggest employers in Romania, representatives of NGOs specialised in education, students, school headmasters who are winners of previous editions, journalists, but also Ministry of Education representatives, accepted to get involved in the judging process, the allotted time exceeding 750 hours.
“At AVE, we are aware of the strategic and crucial role a school headmaster has in the community as a whole. The Headmasters of the Year Awards Gala has precisely this goal, to recognise and value, in the limelight, the efforts made by people with actual leadership capabilities who, through vision and dedication, inspire generations of students to love school, and their colleagues to see that it is possible, to try, even with few resources, and to give their best. This is also why the judging phase is a complex process, but also a significant moment over the course of selecting the winning school headmasters”, said Radu Manolescu, Managing Partner K.M. Trust Group and AVE România co-founder and president.
The selection and judging for The Headmasters of the Year Awards Gala are carried out over several stages and entail a complex and thorough approach. The judging commissions assigned to each award category (Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Equal opportunities and Headmaster of the Year) comprise at least seven members, thus allowing the assessment of applications drawn up by headmasters to be covered through complementary expertise perspectives.
Various eligibility criteria are analysed for each category. As such, for Innovation, the focus lies on leaders wo think differently, find innovative solutions, tackle totally differently a chronic issue of the school they coordinate. For the Entrepreneurship category, the awards go to headmasters whose initiatives demonstrate entrepreneurial effectiveness in cases where resources are insufficient and, in the case of Equal opportunities, to headmasters who manage to brin closer to school vulnerable students from their communities. The grand prize will be granted to the school headmaster who surprises through exceptional leadership qualities, vision and remarkable results that make a difference for the children.
The Headmasters of the Year Awards Gala is a unique event in Romania, which brings to public attention the success stories of educational leaders from schools in Romania. This year, more than 200 headmasters from nearly all the nation’s counties applied for one of the four awards, for the Innovation, Equal opportunities, Entrepreneurship, as well as the grand award, the 2023 Headmaster of the Year.
As we wish to see further support for the winning school headmasters in the transformation process, each of them will receive a prize amounting to 3,500 Euro, as well as spot in The Programme for the Transformation of Schools in Romania, launched this autumn by AVE. The seventh edition of The Headmasters of the Year Awards Gala will take place on October 9, at the Romanian Athene.