Supporting measures

In addition to special training for internal evaluators, there is a wide range of supporting measures at their disposal. They may relate to resource persons, financial support or forums for the exchange of experience. Some authorities encourage the use of criteria, indicators and guidelines employed in external evaluation. This is particularly true of countries in which the outcomes of internal evaluation feed into the external evaluation process (see also Chapter 1, section 3).

The Ministry of Education in France is providing school heads with indicators which are themselves based on the results of such evaluation. These are standard indicators in five fields (the school population, resources and means, results, operational aspects and the environment) supplemented with references (national averages, or

académie or département averages) enabling heads to compare their school with others. The Netherlands, Portugal and United Kingdom (Scotland) strongly encourage schools to use the common framework

developed and used by the inspectorate responsible for external evaluation. In Finland, schools can use the evaluation framework designed for national evaluation purposes in their internal evaluations. In Sweden, schools are encouraged to use the general evaluation guidelines adopted by NAE in its external evaluations. A new quality programme undergoing implementation in Sweden will come into effect from the autumn of 2004 onwards.The programme will make it possible for the NAE to prescribe the quality indicators and standards that have to be assessed and accounted for in local quality reports (see Chapter 2).

In the United Kingdom (England) the external evaluator (Ofsted) publishes guidance on how to use the cri- teria set out in the framework for inspection as the basis for school self-evaluation. Many LEAs have also devel- oped their own frameworks and packages for school self-evaluation.

Although not advocating a systematised approach to internal evaluation, Romania and Slovakia recommend use of the same criteria as those used by the state inspectorate.

Many countries have introduced opportunities for relying on resource persons beyond the immediate school community. These persons from different professional backgrounds (academic experts working in areas relevant to the evaluation of schools, private consultants, teacher trainers, municipal officers, etc.) are called upon by schools because of their expertise in the field of education or evaluation. In general, assist- ance of this kind is neither obligatory nor specifically recommended. It is a possibility available to schools, underpinned in some countries by specific legislation. In the majority of cases, schools bear the full finan- cial burden of these resource persons. This situation is not considered in the present section.

Some countries place human resources at the disposal of schools. In cases in which external players involved in internal evaluation work for the (central, regional or local) education authorities, their fees are paid by their employer, so the service costs the school nothing. They may be trainers or, in other words, persons working in institutions for the initial or in-service training of teachers or school heads.

This applies to Germany and Iceland. In Austria, external players involved in internal evaluation work for insti- tutions of initial or in-service training.

They may also be local authority officials.

This is the case in Germany, Finland, Sweden, the United Kingdom (Scotland) and Iceland. In the United

Kingdom (England and Wales), LEAs are expected to provide support and advice for schools causing concern.

More successful schools are offered more limited support. In Norway, some municipalities rely on educational advisers or consultants to offer support to their schools.

Sometimes the experts placed at the disposal of schools come from public-sector institutions which are working on quality in education and research into education.

This applies to the Zentrum für Schulentwicklung (Centre for School Development) in Austria, the

Pädagogischen Arbeitsstelle (Pedagogical Commission) in Liechtenstein and, in Slovenia, the National

Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia in the case of the Ogledalo pilot project concerned with user requirements.

Elsewhere, the resource persons are experts employed by the local authorities, or teachers from other schools.

In Finland and the United Kingdom (Scotland), the local authorities may pay for the remuneration of experts or consultants employed as resource persons for internal evaluation. In other countries such as Luxembourg, consultants work for a private body under contract with the central authority.

In the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden, schools may turn to the teachers or heads of other schools for assist- ance with their internal evaluation. In Norway, peer review is used in many schools as a method of internal eval- uation.

The involvement of the resource persons varies. One may distinguish between those employed by schools to undertake the entire internal evaluation process and those who offer advice or help schools as regards the methodology of the process (for example, in processing the information gathered or the preparation of questionnaires).The first scenario is distinct from inspection in that it is originated by schools, which may thus determine its frequency and the focus of evaluation and which are also alone in determining the use to be made of its findings. In the case of resource persons made available to schools by the education authorities, the second scenario is the more frequent.

In a few countries, experts or trainers intervene on an ad hoc basis and with little sustained impact in pilot projects financed by the public authorities, as has been the case in Italy and Luxembourg (in 1996, in the school plans). Even where pilot projects of this kind are conducted on a long-term basis, like the Ogledalo and Mre˘za uc˘ec˘ih se s˘ol schemes in Slovenia, they are only concerned with a very limited number of schools. Norway appears to be the sole exception to this rule.

In Norway, the NBE conducted a pilot project entitled ‘external participation in local evaluation processes’, in which groups of persons, including academics, were involved in various stages of the evaluation carried out by schools. Since 2002, it has been recommended that all schools should adopt approaches to internal evaluation that involve people both within and outside schools.

FIGURE 4.6: SUPPORTING MEASURES AVAILABLE TO INTERNAL EVALUATORS OF SCHOOLS, COMPULSORY EDUCATION, 2000/01 U K BE fr/ BE nl DK DE EL ES FR IE IT LU NL AT PT FI SE E/W/ SC IS LI NO BG CZ EE CY LV LT HU MT PL RO SI SK BE de NI A ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● B ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● C ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● D ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● E ● ● ● ● ● ● ● F ● (:) (:) ● (-) ● ● ● ● ● ● (-) ● G ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● H ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● I ● ● ● ● ● ● J ● ● ● K ● ● ● ● ● A = Training

B = Evaluation framework and models C = Resource person

D = Indicators on the education system (including pupil attainment) E = Research and other publications on evaluation

F = Guidelines and manuals G = Website

H = Criteria, indicators and procedures used in external evaluation I = Exchange of experience / sharing of good practice J = EFQM Excellence Model

K = Financial support (–): see notes in the annexe

Source: Eurydice.

Additional notes

Germany: (A) in some Länder.

Espagne: (A, B) Andalusia, Catalunya, Canary Islands, (I) Catalunya, (J) Castilla y León.

Sweden: To provide further support to schools and municipalities in their efforts to achieve national goals, a new national agency for School Improvement has been established. Through this agency, the State will support work on developing quality within nationally prioritised areas.

United Kingdom (E): The school governing body is supported by an external counsellor specially trained to evaluate the performance of the school head on an individual basis. This situation is not considered in the present study.

Iceland: Inclusion of Iceland in certain categories relates to the most commonly adopted practices.

Norway: Municipalities are responsible for all aspects of evaluation. The mandatory features of and supporting measures for internal evaluation vary accordingly. Indicators are offered in only some municipalities, whereas guidelines are developed by the Norwegian Board of Education.

Some countries make information published on the Internet available to schools in order to assist them with their internal evaluation:

In Austria, the Qualität in Schulen Internet Platform supplies schools with up-to-date information and tools for both evaluation and data analysis, and provides a forum for the exchange of experience, discussion and the presentation of results. In Finland, materials to support the self-evaluation of schools are also available on the NBE website. In Sweden, schools have at their disposal the SIRIS website containing a database on school evaluation and the quality of education. Each school makes its own evaluation available in the database.

Norway pays particular attention to pupils as internal evaluators. The Elevinspektørene (pupil inspectors)

website is intended to collect, process and analyse the opinions of pupils on educational issues. The NBE has developed a Ressursbanken, an Internet resource base with information, guidelines, and examples of good practice. In the Czech Republic, the School Inspectorate has developed a website containing useful data for internal evaluation purposes.

In other countries, schools are supplied with statistical indicators intended to monitor the education system, so that they can compare the performance of their pupils with that of other pupils and use the comparison for purposes of internal evaluation.

In France, secondary school heads are encouraged to use the indicateurs de pilotage des établissements

secondaires (IPES, or monitoring indicators) produced by the Ministry of Education, and three school heads in

four actually do so. In the United Kingdom (England), each school receives, in the autumn, a Performance and

Assessment Report (PANDA), giving an overview of the performance of the school in relation to national aver-

ages. Schools are also provided with benchmarks to enable them to compare their performance with that of other schools in similar contexts, as defined by free school meal statistics and the prior attainment of pupils. LEAs also provide schools with comprehensive performance data to enable the latter to compare their per- formance with that of other schools in the same area. In Scotland, the Scottish Executive Education Department provides all schools with statistics about pupils’ performance for use in self-evaluation. They include compar- ative data and data on performance measured against national targets. In addition, comparative information is provided on attendance at and absence from school, as well as school costs per pupil and school leaver desti- nations. In Malta, indicators have been recently established and are now coming into use.

SUMMARY

The priority qualifications for external evaluators in Europe are normally teacher training and professional experience in education. In almost half of the countries considered, they are obliged to complete a spe- cialist course in evaluation or pass a qualifying examination, or both.

Notwithstanding the fact that most evaluators assess both educational and administrative tasks, the regu- lations concerned appear to attach far less weight to the administrative expertise of evaluators. Where such expertise does assume some degree of importance, it is generally expected to have been acquired ‘on-the-job’ rather than as a result of formal training.

Evaluators with civil servant status are more likely to have to pass a qualifying examination than evaluators working under contract. Probationary periods are another feature associated exclusively with civil servant status. The conferment of this status by most countries may reflect a wish to create a permanent category of staff with a regular comprehensive approach to evaluation. The recruitment of independent experts remains a very uncommon practice in the European context.

As regards the involvement of external evaluators in the follow-up process, most of them are required to include recommendations for change in their reports. In some education systems, evaluators monitor the progress of schools in implementing changes although, if they fail to do so, the evaluators themselves are only rarely authorised to discipline them.

External evaluators may also assume an advisory role that surpasses the terms of reference of their eva- luation activity or the performance of individual schools. Given their in-depth knowledge and expertise in the field of education, these evaluators may be asked to advise their education authorities and thus contribute, albeit indirectly, to shaping educational policy itself.

Given the qualifications and support required by external evaluators and the fact that internal evaluation is compulsory in the majority of countries, regulations concerned with the competence of internal eva- luators do not seem very demanding. Courses in evaluation are frequently offered to teachers and schools heads who so wish. However, compulsory training for school heads, including courses in internal evalua- tion, appears to be an increasingly adopted formula.

Virtually all initiatives for support and guidance offered to internal evaluators in the form of human, finan- cial or material resources are proposals that may or may not be accepted by schools.

The most frequent supporting measures involve turning to resource and training personnel. This reflects a long-term investment. More technical forms of support such as reference to indicators on the education system or external evaluation criteria are also quite common.

If the commitment of a country to internal evaluation may be inferred from the variety of supporting measures offered its schools, it is reasonable to conclude that the countries furthest ahead in the process are Belgium (the Flemish Community), the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries. After them come Germany, Spain and Austria in which the development of internal evaluation is more recent.