Importance of School Based Internal Evaluation As A Quality Assurance Mechanism
By Swaleha Sindhi
02 January, 2015
Countercurrents.org
I. Introduction
School internal evaluation is a collaborative, reflective and inclusive process of internal school review. The School internal evaluation allows schools increased flexibility and authority in decisions about their management, including human, material and financial resources. The Government with the flagship programmes SSA[i] and RMSA[ii] focussed on quality and accountability in schools. The Government is committed to bring more decision making to schools and local communities. With the help of ‘Sankools’[iii] the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board has decentralized decision making and empowered District level authorities for making quality decisions. But with implementation of Schools internal evaluation process as mandatory, the Education Board can help to assess the benefits of a more decentralized approach to school management.
II. What is a school Internal Evaluation?
Most definitions of school Internal Evaluation find that it involves decentralizing authority to the school level (Brus et al, 2011; Caldwell, 2005). Since there are several models of school based management operating around the world, defining the features of a model before adoption is important. The World Bank recommends that the following factors be considered and defined when developing a model of school based management or the process of internal evaluation;
Ø Specify what is meant by school internal evaluation—the autonomy and accountability must be explicit.
Ø Consider the schools capacity to implement it.
Ø Identify the timeframe for achieving school internal evaluation.
Ø Establish the goals of process and outcome.
Ø Publish the detail of the planning steps.
Ø Base decisions on local evidence and select an evaluation method
The World Bank reports that most countries whose students perform well give schools substantial authority to shape local education provision, allocate and manage resources. An OECD report also provides evidence that school autonomy relates positively to the performance of school systems while greater responsibility in managing resources appears to be unrelated to student performance. (OECD, 2010)
During internal assessment, the principal, coordinators and teachers engage in reflective enquiry on the work of the school, this is done in consultation with the parents and students. School self-evaluation is all about school improvement and development. The internal evaluation as a system of quality assurance enables schools:
To take the initiatives to improve the quality of education for students.
To identify areas that require improvement and to decide on corrective actions be taken to bring about improvements in those areas.
To involve community members and parents about the strengths in the work of the school and its priorities for improvement and development
Thus, Internal Evaluation provides opportunities for schools to examine their own practice within their own context and to report on their strengths and areas for improvement to their own school community. It brings benefits to teachers as they share experiences and ideas and helps them to become even more effective in their classrooms. It brings benefits to students as they have a say in what works for them and what would help them to learn. It brings benefits to the school as all teachers focus on the same small number of strategies for improvement School self-evaluation improves students’ learning.
Experience in high achieving schools that practice self evaluation as a tool of quality assurance shows that when teachers reflect on their own practice regularly and focus on improving teaching and learning in classrooms, they can improve the learning achieved by students. School self-evaluation enriches the professional lives of teachers. Teachers who engage in schools internal evaluation process can positively reflect on how they teach and share new innovative ideas with other colleagues, this proves to be professionally rewarding and supportive. For many years schools in India have used the school development planning process to identify what is working well and what might need to be improved. School self-evaluation is a way in which this process of reflection, improvement and development can take place in a more systematic way.
School internal -evaluation gives schools the opportunity to take responsibility for providing quality education for their students. This responsibility should be shared by the whole school community. The school’s management, the principal, coordinators and teachers, and where appropriate, parents and students, should be involved in the school internal evaluation process. Members of the school community will play particular roles in the aspects of internal-evaluation that are appropriate to them. For example: the school principal will lead school self-evaluation. under the direction of the school management, the principal should ensure that responsibility for school self-evaluation is shared and becomes part of the everyday practice of all teachers in the school. The school staff meetings should enable all teaching staff to work together to decide on the focus of internal-evaluation and school improvement.
III. Role of Teachers in Schools Internal Evaluation
Teachers should play a central role in the self-evaluation process. Teachers in their day to day work in the classroom gather a range of evidence, they do engage in self reflection share experiences with other colleagues as a part of their day to day activities without even realising that they are participating in schools internal evaluation process. The schools internal evaluation process enables them to benefit further from professional dialogue as they review their practice. The school management has overall responsibility for the ensuring that appropriate education is provided for all students, within the schools context and reflecting the school’s ethos, mission and vision. The school management must ensure that suitable arrangements are in place to enable teaching staff to engage in the internal evaluation process and thus should evaluate the school’s preparation for the external evaluation to be conducted by inspectors from the department of education. Under the schools internal evaluation approach, teachers are given greater responsibility to design quality assessments that align with the learning outcomes as they are the most suitable people to assess their students and they have a better understanding of the context of the subject area. This provides opportunities for teachers to continuously monitor their students and to give constructive feedback to improve students’ learning abilities (Brown, 2001; AACU, 2011).
Based on the assessment outcomes, teachers can make a further decision whether to continue to a new topic give required help or send the students performing below standard to remedial class. It is expected from the teachers to appraise students based on their ability and readiness and teachers are encouraged to use various methods such as quizzes, question and answer sessions, short writing, dramas, and role-playing to assess students’ learning outcomes (Davison, 2007; Dietel, Herman & Knuth, 1991). Indirectly, teachers are expected to develop a series of effective teaching strategies to enhance the learning for students with different abilities (Mansor, 2012). This way, students are able to progress according to their ability, good students progressing faster and weaker students given more time to learn (Chapman, 2010). With the implementation of school-based internal evaluation system as mandatory the Education Boards will not only bring improvement in students’ achievements in learning by raising their confidence, but also bring an improvement in teachers’ teaching strategies. Thus, the State Education Boards can acknowledge the challenges that need immediate attention in the Board run schools including teachers’ readiness, skills and their extra workload. As such, all the State Education Boards are making efforts to provide teacher training programs to cater to these problems.
IV. Benefits of School Internal Evaluation
Ø Quality teaching - supporting staff professional development, quality teaching and staff leadership.
Ø Teaching and special programs - obtaining more staff, staff time and resources for teaching and special programs.
Ø Student welfare - mentoring, coaching, and enhancing student welfare.
Ø Management - enhancing school administration and management, school facilities and community relationships.
V. Conclusion
From the literature it is clear that significant cultural and organizational change is required to decentralize decision making and introduce school based management. The school leadership has opportunities to achieve better outcomes for their school under school based management with a vision of what they wanted to achieve and how. Several theories of organizational change are available providing evidence that a carefully planned approach to change management is more likely to bring about successful and sustained change. The McKinsey and Company work on improving school systems reports that successfully leading school systems towards better outcomes requires strong leadership and ongoing commitment. As the World Bank recommends (Bruns et al, 2011), a well-defined model of school based management needs to be established and a time frame and planned steps developed for the change process. The Board of Education must take necessary steps to implement school internal evaluation as mandatory to bring improvements taking on local decision making first, followed by those who need more time to learn about and develop the necessary skills. Local decision making could provide direction and support for broader dissemination across the system.
Swaleha Sindhi, Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Administration, The M.S.University of Baroda
Email:[email protected]
REFERENCES
· Barbara Bruns, Deon Filmer, and Harry Antony Patrinos. (2011). Making Schools Work. New evidence on accountability reforms. The World Bank, Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://www.worldbank.org.
· Brown, G. T. L. (2001). School based assessment methods: Development and implementation. Journal of Assessment Paradigms, 1(1), 30-32.
· Chan. Y. F., Sihdu, G. K., & Md. Yunus, M. R. (2006). The knowledge and best practices of secondary school ESL teachers in school-based assessment. University Teknology Mara. Retrieved June 20,2012,fromhttp://eprints.ptar.uitm.edu.my/3181/1/LP_CHAN_YUEN_FOOK_06_24.pdf
· Dietel, R. J., Herman, J. L., & Knuth, R. A. (1991). What does research say about assessment? North Central Regional Educational Laboratory.
· McKinsey and Company (2010). How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better. London. Retrieved from http://mckinseyonsociety.com/how-the-worlds-most-improved-school-systems-keep-getting-better
· Mitchell, R. (1992). Testing for learning: How new approaches to evaluation can improve American schools. New York: The Free Press
· www.ccsenet.org/ass Asian Social Science Vol. 9, No. 8; 2013
Notes
[i] Sarva Shikhsa Abhiyan to univerlise Elementary education in India.
[ii] Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan for universalisation of Secondary Education in India.
[iii] Sankool is formed by Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board to group schools for easy decentralization
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