Supervisory board.

Supervision

By law, a school governing body has an internal supervisor who advises the school governing body and checks how the schools are managed. The internal supervisor is usually the supervisory board. The leaders of a school or schools may not act as supervisors for the same school governing body. The law requires a separation of these roles.

Tasks of the supervisory board

The supervisory board has several legal tasks:

• agreement of budget, annual report, strategic multi-year plan
• checking if the board follows the law and code of good governance
• checking if education funds are properly requested and spent
• appointing an accountant
• reporting on their own work in an annual report
• consulting with the school participation council

Supervise, do not manage

The public role of education asks internal supervisors to clearly watch out for the social interest, which can be more important than the interest of the institution. This does not mean the supervisory board can overrule the school governing body or block every decision. The board’s task remains supervision.

School participation council

The members of the supervisory board meet at least twice a year with the school participation council at school. If there is a joint participation council at the school, the members of the supervisory board meet with it.

The participation council also has the right to make a binding recommendation for a member of the supervisory board. Read more on the page about the meeting with the supervisory board.