Schools' self-evaluation for improvement

For the last 30 years, in the area of business and industry, we have seen a significant shift towards 'quality'. One must have certainly come across such quality systems known as BS 5750, ISO 9000, EN 2900. These are three standards... British, International and European.

Today's trendy management jargon frequently points to TQM, which stands for Total Quality Management. Businesses and industry all around the world are after 'quality'.

No wonder then that in the late Eighties and the early Nineties, educationists started concerning themselves about 'quality in education'. As a result, they have adopted the same jargon, and governments in several countries jumped on this same bandwagon and started creating a variety of structures as custodians of 'quality' in schools. A typical instance is the introduction of OFSTED (Office For Standards in Education) in England.

This new shift towards 'quality' in schools gathered further momentum, because of the increasing pressure among clients for more accountability in the running of the educational organisations in their country.

As educators, we cannot rely any more on a routine type of teaching/learning that, some contend, gave results in the past. In a world which is in continuous flux, we cannot stick to our 'status quo', but have to be ready for change and professionally manage this change continuously ourselves. No wonder that the teacher is being considered as a manager in his own rights too, at classroom level.

I think that the following definition of TQM is very relevant at this point: "Total Quality Management is a value-based, information-driven management through which the minds and talents of people at all levels are applied fully and creatively for the organisation's continuous improvement" (Geoffrey D. Doherty [ed.], Developing Quality Systems in Education, Routledge, London, 1994, p. 305).

This leaves no doubt whatsoever that 'quality is the key'. In my view, however, the most effective way of improving the quality of education for individual pupils is to expect schools to take responsibility for their own quality assurance by evaluating their performance and making the necessary changes. The dictum goes: "If you always do what you do, you'll only get what you've got."

"If schools are to embrace 'quality', then they must develop a culture and a climate which will facilitate this. A school culture and ethos will guide actions and influence attitudes and opinions of all who come into contact with it. By 'all who come into contact with it' we mean, the staff, the school council, the students and the parents, that is all stakeholders" (Doherty, p. 289).

A school that breeds a quality culture ensures that every learner succeeds at his own speed and abilities; commits itself to the equal worth and success of every learner and focuses its daily operations on students' outcomes. A culture that promotes quality is painstakingly created by those schools: where the staff is fully committed and feels deeply responsible for the achievement of this vision; where a climate of collaboration and participation by all stakeholders permeates all initiatives and each and everyone is determined to become an agent of change.

A quality culture finds fertile ground in that educational organisation which promotes an ethos of praise and mutual support. The basic ingredients that form this culture are therefore: commitment, competence, communication, understanding and self-evaluation. Quality after all is about, keeping to agreed aims and policies; meeting the needs of customers and continuously trying to improve.

A 'Quality Assurance System' in schools can only be effective within this climate of quality culture. Imbued by this culture, educational organisations will continuously ask themselves:

* How good/effective is our school?

* How do we know?

* What are we going to do now?

Quality improvement of our schools' outcomes will then be achieved through a thorough exercise in self-evaluation; development planning and staff development. These three are the main tools that the school as an educational organisation badly needs to use in order to improve.

A very wise political decision has been taken some years back, whereby state schools were asked to shoulder partial autonomy. They are still years behind to full autonomy, which non-state schools, for various reasons have been enjoying since their inception.

Educational literature clearly shows that School Site Management is a prerequisite for schools to be autonomous and therefore more effective. SSM is about the empowerment of the key stakeholders in decision making; it offers potential for enhanced organisational effectiveness and improved students' outcomes; is based on the principle that the school is a centre of continuous educational reflection, inquiry and evaluation; is the only effective foundation for a quality culture. This means that every individual school should be given the power; the responsibility and the resources to set its own goals; determine its own priorities and its students' needs; create school policies; plan and implement its own action programmes and evaluate their effectiveness.

Within this vision of school autonomy, the Education Division, way back in 1997 started training heads of schools in School Development Planning, providing a crash course run by HM Inspectors at the Scottish Office in Edinburgh. This was a completely new venture, which in my view was a major turn around in the way schools had to be managed, because it aimed at school improvement through planning.

For some time schools introduced School Development Planning on an experimental basis. Now it has been inserted as an important part of the National Minimum Curriculum: "The development plan of each school must clearly show that the school has a clear educational vision, clear educational goals and a concrete and realistic strategy regarding these educational goals must be reached." (para 85).

In his contribution in a Department of Operations publication, Knowing Our School (May 2004), Education Minister Dr Louis Galea states: "Today, we no longer speak of providing education for all, but of providing quality education for all. In this process of quality education provision, the issue of school development planning is one of the pillars."

I firmly believe that there is a dire need to take stock of the situation. Action research among schools, both state and non-state, is now due in order to have a real picture of the development planning being undertaken in our educational organisations and to take the necessary actions to support those schools who are not achieving in this regard and to disseminate good practice being achieved in others.

I also find that B.Ed. students badly need to come to our schools after graduation, already familiar with this notion of SDP so as to be equipped to participate fully in this healthy exercise that has now become part of our school life.

A School Development Plan is meant to provide a structured way to answer to the three basic questions pointed out earlier; to review the school's aims and objectives; to take stock of its current performance; to set priorities; to consider what needs development and what needs maintenance and to evaluate how well targets are being met. "Together, we need to stimulate and strengthen a culture of collaborative development planning in schools, with a view to promoting school improvement and effectiveness" (Knowing Our School, p. vii).

School Development Planning is therefore about the school's self-evaluation for improvement. After all, what lays at the foundation of school improvement is 'evaluation'. "We evaluate in order to assess past action and learn from it, ready for new planning and action to improve" (Joan Dean, Managing the Secondary Schools 1993, Routledge, London, p. 222).

A word substitute for 'evaluation' is 'appraisal'. "Staff appraisal is a means of promoting, through certain procedures, the organisation's ability to accomplish its mission of maintaining or improving what it provides and also seeks to maintain or enhance staff satisfaction and development" (L. Kydd, M. Crawford & C. Riches [eds.], Professional Development for Educational Management, Open University Press, Buckingham, Philadelphia, p. 148); "...without some kind of evaluation it is difficult to see what basis might exist for any real development either of the curriculum or of the teachers themselves. For a prerequisite of improvement must be some evaluation of previous performance" (A.V. Kelly, Knowledge and Curriculum Planning, London, Harper & Row, 1987).

Although some kind of staff appraisal has been undertaken by a small number of schools, this was only sporadic and solely depending on the initiative of the heads of the school concerned. Such appraisals where mainly in the form of class visits; teachers' self appraisal and also administration appraisal by the staff through anonymous questionnaires by some daring heads of school. These were steps in the right direction but were not widespread among our schools.

A system of staff appraisal, known as the Performance Management Programme (PMP) was introduced for heads of schools only in 1999. As from last January, it has now become part of every state school self-evaluation programme. The PMP is an organisational tool leading towards three main outcomes:

1. That each teacher personally contributes towards the attainment of a number of school objectives as decided in the SDP.

2. Introducing the new concept of the teacher indicating the areas of personal development to enable the attainment of teacher targets.

3. Introducing the new concept of a teacher self-evaluation at the end of the scholastic year together with verification by the teacher's supervisor.

"This performance appraisal system aims to develop a culture by linking the targets, tasks or activities of each teacher to the overall objectives of the School Development Plan. It promotes communication, non-blame-related problem solving, employee empowerment and the development of a performance culture" (Performance Management for Teaching Professionals - Guidelines, Department of Policy & Planning, Management & Personnel Office - OPM.,p. 3).

With the introduction of the SDP and the launching of the PMP, our schools have been initiated in a continuous process of internal quality assurance. After an agreement reached between the Ministry of Education, the Education Division and the MUT in 2003, the Division intends to embark on a new concept in our schools' self-evaluation process. It is in the process of creating the necessary structures that aim to provide external validation for all schools, of their own self- evaluation initiatives. This is being referred to as external audit.

The basic principles behind this exercise are that: the external audit has to be a quality validation and it is a process by which it checks that teaching/learning is planned, organised and delivered. It is also meant to check the models against which the quality teaching/learning are measured.

Heads of secondary schools/junior lyceums and Higher Secondary were invited to attend a three-day seminar last March as basic training and also for sharing of ideas regarding the introduction of the external audit in our schools. The seminar was appropriately entitled "Creating a quality culture".

This external audit is meant to be a tool of support to the schools' own self-evaluation processes and will include experts chosen from the Education Division and the Head of School or his delegate. Heads of schools have been assured that the role of this new structure will not in any way be a photocopy of the English model of the annual publishing of the infamous school tables in the media, to the detriment of the weaker schools.

For this new initiative to start on a healthy footing, the choice of members on board these external audit teams has to be professionally based. Besides, I believe that each school should have a say in this choice, so as to provide credibility the team's operations.

The Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Charles Mizzi, suggests: "It is now the right time to move on towards the next milestones. A first milestone is the development of the Performance Management Programme for each teacher, whereby every member of the school staff will indicate her/his personal contribution towards the implementation of the School Development Plan. This project is currently in the pilot stage. In the coming years, it ought to mature in the same way that the SDP project has matured over the past ones. The time is also ripe to complement the internal evaluation of schools by external evaluation through school audits. May the implementation of these two projects be as effective as the introduction of School Development Planning has been" (Knowing Our School, p. x).

To ensure the effectiveness of their implementation both new projects need fertile ground and the creation of the right climate among their recipients. This is the key to avoid harmful resistance and empower all concerned by an enthusiastic ownership instead. The way ahead for our schools is there for all to see:

School improvement can solely be achieved through self-evaluation..

Mr Chetcuti is a retired head of school. He spent his last 16 years of his career as educator, in the role of administrator in various state schools, first as assistant head and then as head of school. Prior to his retirement he was head of school at Lorenzo Gafà Boys' Secondary School, Vittoriosa, and at G. Despott Boys' Junior Lyceum, Verdala, Cospicua. He was a member of the Committee on the Code of Behaviour and Discipline for Schools, appointed by the Minister of Education to publish the Good Behaviour and Discipline Policy for Schools in February 2002. He also formed part of the School Development Guidelines committee which the Department of Operations of the Education Division had formed and published Knowing Our Schools in May 2004.