History

The idea to establish a European Forum on Educational Administration (EFEA) originates from the annual meeting of the British Educational Management and Administration Society (BEMAS) held in September 1976, to which representatives from Germany, France, the Netherlands and Sweden were invited. The concept developed was that of a network of people committed to sharing experience, development and research in the management and administration of institutions for primary, secondary and higher education, general and vocational training, organized locally, regionally and nationally.

In the autumn of 1977, at the Sorbonne in Paris, the inaugural meeting of the European Forum Steering Committee was held. In the years that followed, at meetings in Stockholm (1978) and Frankfurt (1979), the idea took shape of creating an European Intervisitation Programme (EIP) that would take place in August 1980 in Kassel/Mainz. This was inspired by similar meetings (the first of which was held in 1966) organized for Anglophone countries by the Commonwealth Council for Education Administration and the Universities Council for Educational Administration (a grouping of the North-American universities).

The EFEA's intervisitation programme became a twoyearly event and, in time, a central activity of the Forum, defining its development in stimulating "reflective practitioners" to evaluate the effects of cultural and political change to the quality of schools in European countries.

The Forum developed thanks to the support of such people as George Baron, Clive Hopes and David Parkes from the United Kingdom, Charles Toussaint from France, Hermann Avenarius and Heinz Engel from Germany, Theo Liket from the Netherlands, Eskil Stegö and Sten Alehammar from Sweden and many more from the six founding national associations (Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom).

The statutes of the European Forum were legally incorporated in France in 1994. The working languages are French and English.

Following the dramatic developments of the early 1990s the Forum has expanded to Ireland; to the south with strong national associations in Portugal, Spain and Cyprus; and to the east to Slovenia, Hungary, Belarussia, Russia and elsewhere.