Abstract
The paper deals with the current issue of school management - the principals' and the school autonomy. Czech schools and their principals belong to ones with the largest autonomy not only in curricular domain, but also in terms of resource allocation (financial or human).
Austrian education system has always belonged to a group of strongly centrally managed school systems. From September 2017 there are significant changes in organisation of schools, their autonomy is strengthened, decision making rights of school principals are reinforced as well as their responsibility for school conception and human resources.
The "Packet for school autonomy" (Schulautonomiepaket), which brings changes in important areas: the schools will be grouped into so called "clusters", will be authorised to choose their teachers, will have more rights to specify the contents of education and will be entitled to choose the training of their employees and development. For school principals, this complex change brings the need to newly define their positions with regard to changes of their competences and rights.
The aim of the paper is to present the impact of the changes on chosen schools (private, public) and personal perspectives of their principals. The paper is based on the analysis of current legislative and conceptual documents.
The opinions of school principals were drawn through in-depth interviews carried out during the authors' scholarships in Vienna and Innsbruck.