School quality assurance takes a whole school approach, treating the school as a learning community and an accountable unit (Figure 3.8).
Several countries have introduced and maintained fairly successful accountability mechanisms for school quality assurance. Scotland may have the most mature school inspection system in Europe. England and Wales, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore have similar systems.34 New Zealand’s Education Review
Office reports directly to the Prime Minister, while in England the inspection report to each school is made
34 See http://www.ofsted.gov.uk; htto://www.hmie.gov.uk/; http://
www.govt.nz; http://www.emb.gov.hk.
Teaching & Learning Management &
Organization PerformanceStudent
Student Support & School Ethos
Planning &
Administration Curriculum Support for StudentDevelopment Attitude andBehavior
Professional
Leadership Teaching
Links with Parents & External Organizations
Participation & All-round Development
Staff Management Staff Development School Culture Achievement
Student Learning Planning &
Resource Management
Self-Evaluation PerformanceEvaluation
Source: Adapted from Hong Kong Department of Education, Performance Indicators for Hong Kong Schools, 2002.
available on the Internet for public scrutiny. Both these countries’ performance in the TIMSS Grade 8 science test has improved over time. Both Uganda and Kenya have recently introduced quality assurance systems and the assessment on each school is provided back to the school for feedback (Box 3.8).
Theory and international comparisons aside, accountability in India’s education system is weakened by several factors. The growth of the educational administration has not kept pace with that of the school system, particularly
at the district and sub-district levels.35 In many Indian
states, education offices are skeletal and even sanctioned posts are unfilled, for lack of qualified persons or because court cases are pending. In Rajasthan, for example, a study in September 2004 found 63, 55, and 50 percent of the positions of district education officer, joint directors, and additional directors, respectively, were unfilled (Wu and Sankar, 2005). These are key administrative positions, on which the district depends on for leadership and guidance. Administrative staff are often recruited through deputation from other institutions, mostly from state councils for education research and training and from district institutes of teacher training. This practice undermines the functioning of the parent institution and makes it difficult for people on deputation to cultivate a sense of commitment to the job. As mentioned earlier in the section concerning teachers, administrative staff are often hindered by the large number of pending legal cases regarding transfers, promotions, and pensions, and by lack of computerization. Teachers’ service records and student enrollment statistics often are
manually updated and processed, leading to inefficiency and mistakes. Data are not available on a timely basis for
35 India’s civil service employment is only around 1.2 percent of the
population. This is a low figure by international standards; it compares with 1.5 percent in Pakistan, 2.2 percent in South Korea, 2.8 percent in China, 3.2 percent in Japan, 7 percent in the United Kingdom, and 7.1 percent in the USA (Howes and Murgai, 2004; Beschel, 2003).
district offices to monitor key performance indicators at the school, block, or district levels.
School inspectorates’ staff numbers and travel budgets are too limited to inspect enough schools. Clarke and Jha (2005) cited a 1996 Rajasthan government study of nine selected districts of that state; this found that only 15 percent of the district education officers (DEOs) were able to monitor 70–100 percent of the schools they were supposed to visit, and that the remaining officers could monitor only about 45 percent. Even if officers visited schools, they went alone instead of in teams with a good mix of expertise, and they focused mainly on compliance, or crisis management, rather than on providing technical and pedagogical advice. The school-to- officer ratio in Rajasthan is more than 100:1, compared to Hong Kong’s 15:1. In an extreme case in Orissa, it is more than 1,000:1 (Goyal, 2005). Finally, the gaps between most parents’ educational backgrounds and the academic level of secondary education makes community-based school inspection a weak (though still important) alternative. There is a need for professional supervision.
The Rajasthan secondary school survey of 2005 confirmed the infrequency of school inspection (Table 3.2). It also showed that district education officers and inspectors tend to focus on compliance with rules and regulations rather than capacity-building. Teachers tend to discuss problems with their own colleagues or principals, rather than with district education officers.
Rural Govt. Rural Private
Unaided Urban Govt. Private AidedUrban Urban Private Unaided Total Total number of surveyed teachers 57 14 22 6 39 138 How many times school inspector visited
class in last three months:
Never 75% 79% 68% 33% 62% 69% 1 time 16% 7% 27% 50% 26% 21% 2 times 7% 0% 0% 17% 3% 4% 3 times 0% 14% 0% 0% 5% 3% 5 times 2% 0% 5% 0% 5% 3% Who teacher consults in case of problems
Colleague 29% 14% 23% 17% 10% 20% Principal 68% 79% 77% 67% 85% 75% District Education Officer 0% 7% 0% 17% 0% 1% School Management Committee 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% None 4% 0% 0% 0% 5% 3%
Source: Authors’ analysis of Surveys of Secondary Schools in Rajasthan and Orissa, 2005.
In elementary education, the academic support provided by block resource centers (BRCs) and cluster resource centers (CRCs) partially makes up for the inadequacy and infrequency of school inspection. Community planning and oversight in SSA is handled through the rural village education committee, urban ward education committee,
school management committee, and parent-teacher association. In secondary education, there is no equivalent of the BRCs and CRCs and there are no structures for community planning and oversight. Private aided and unaided schools are left almost completely unsupervised for all intents and purposes.
Hong Kong introduced a school quality assurance system in 1997, after studying the UK and Australia.. In Hong Kong’s system, schools are asked to develop a three-year plan and are given block grants to realize their plans (excluding salaries). They are required to use evidence to analyze their own performance in management and organization, learning and teaching, student support and school ethos, and student performance, and to develop strategies for improvement. Schools do self-evaluation, to be validated by an external panel. External reviews cover Kindergarten to Grade 12 and special education in public and private schools. Every school is visited at least once within a six-year cycle by a panel comprising four education officers and one principal or teachers from another school, thereby embedding the professional development of administrators and teachers with school quality assurance. The quality assurance system collects data through (i) inspection of facilities, observation of learning activities inside and outside the classrooms; (ii) discussions with members of the school management council, school heads, chairpersons of subject panels, teachers, other staff, parents, students, and alumni; (iii) stakeholders’ questionnaires to collect information on how parents view the school, how students view their teachers, and how teachers and non-teaching staff view school management; (iv) scrutiny of students’ homework, assignments and projects; and (v) inspections of school documents, records, teacher performance assessment, correspondence with parents, and library borrowing. Schools have to account for improvements and declines in standardized test results, internal assessments, and public examination results. Annual reports of overall quality assurance are published and presented to the legislature. Over time, more schools have improved their performance in the categories rated.
Singapore studied models in the US and Europe before developing its own. Recognizing that excellence can only be engendered by self-directed improvement, Singapore gives autonomy to schools and holds them accountable for results. Schools are expected to set their own targets and conduct self-appraisal. Every five years, one to two officers from the School Appraisal Branch and one or two external reviewers (academic, principals, teachers, or professionals from the private sector) conduct an external validation of public and private schools. The process takes three weeks, of which the first is spent on reading reports and on identifying questions. A site visit takes three days and involves interviewing all teachers and staff in the school including parents and students to discuss issues. The rest of the time is spent on writing a very detailed report. Within six weeks, the appraisal team discusses its findings with the school. Schools are asked to fill out a confidential questionnaire to provide feedback on the external validation. The Ministry monitors the consistency of the findings between the schools and the external review to ensure the process is fair and accurate. The individual school reports are confidential.
Uganda has developed a very cost effective method for QA and public accountability. In 2003, it set up an Education Standards Authority with 20 inspectors with the aim of inspecting all schools in the country within a three-year cycle. The Authority sets aside six weeks each year to inspect one-third of the schools. University lecturers, principals, and teachers are seconded to inspect schools outside their own district. A team of two professionals visit a school for a day to observe classes, and interact with the principal, teachers, students, and the community. They prepare a report which is presented to the school for discussion on how to improve school management and quality. Reports at various levels of aggregation are made public and also provided to Uganda’s development partners.
Sources: Interviews with Mr. Andrew Poon, Principal Assistant Secretary for Education and Manpower, Hong Kong; Mr. Goh Tong Pak, Deputy Director/School Appraisal Branch, Singapore. For Uganda: Ward and others (2005).