School Inspection as

School Inspection as Assessment, Supervision, Categorisation, Guidance, Enforcement, Encouragement, Exploitation, Politicking, and/or Persecution In this blogpost, Mike Douse illustrates that, across the world, schools are inspected in various ways, for a variety of reasons; argues that self-evaluation with benign external moderation is the eventual goal; and maintains that, whatever process is applied, no conscientious teacher or responsible school leader should ever be pressurised, pilloried or penalised. Schools are inspected in order to achieve multifarious objectives, political as well as educational. The UNESCO learning portal (UNESCO, 2023) explains that “although different traditions use different terms, these processes generally have two interwoven objectives: public accountability and school development. The particular balance is dependent on the political context and education system of individual countries”. The brief distinguishes between “three main groups of functions: giving a public account concerning the quality of education; providing a guarantee of compliance with standards and regulations; and providing a service for quality management and improvement” (ibid). The UNESCO portal notes also that a ‘hard’ governance approach includes “target-setting, performance management, benchmarks and indicators, and data use to foster competition and improvement” while ‘soft’ governance refers to “processes of education, creating networks and partnerships of actors that rely on self-evaluations, giving good examples and learning from best practices” (ibid). Its other well-informed insights include the realisations that: “Criticism of inspectors is not uncommon… Schools in difficult and challenging circumstances need different types of feedback from schools with high socio-economic status pupils… performance league tables have negative effects on well-being” (ibid). School inspection systems have, according to Simeonova (2020), undergone a transformation in response to changing social and economic scenarios and “two major approaches can easily be identified that also define the two ends of the continuum. On one end is a high-stake sanctions-oriented inspection while on the other end is the low-stake advisory inspection”. School inspection situations in Bulgaria, Ireland, Greece and Spain are explored to explain why “the relationship of trust and respect between inspectors and the inspected is stronger in some cases and how developing inspection systems can benefit from analysing the established systems” (ibid). According to the Council of British International Schools (Woolf, 2023) “there are three broad approaches to evaluating schools around the world: school self-evaluation, external evaluation, and comparison of schools using performance measures. The Council focuses on “professional conversations about continuing school development rather than handing down judgments. (They) shun one-word judgments and instead provide detailed reports that list areas of strengths and areas for improvement” (ibid). Clearly, there is more than one dimension (such as ‘hard-soft’ or ‘external-internal’) and attempting to simplify the distribution pattern serves only to complicate the analysis. A World of Approaches A review of how top-performing nations (e.g. Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Korea) hold schools accountable (Rothman, 2018) indicates also that USA states have moved away from “the narrow focus on reading and mathematics test scores… (and) a single school rating by providing a “dashboard” of indicators of school quality; and created different remedies for schools depending on their performance (but) one option that few US states have taken is a different type of accountability common in top-performing countries: inspection systems”. As Rothman reminds us, “inspection systems are not new; the Netherlands created a school inspectorate in 1801 and the British established one in 1839 when Queen Victoria named two inspectors to examine schools as a condition of receiving funds from the government… the idea has spread throughout the British Commonwealth and across Europe. The Standing International Conference on Inspectorates… now includes 36 nations and regions”. [The widely respected Her/His Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) survived the establishment of the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) in 1992.] There is a temptation to place schools in categories – as Everlyn Waugh puts it in Decline and Fall – “We class schools into four grades: Leading School, First-rate School, Good School, and School. Frankly, School is pretty bad...". The recent Jobs for the Future report (WEF, 2023), while recognising that inspection systems can take “an expansive look at teaching and learning… they are designed to foster improvement, not just identify failure; and they can engage educators in understanding what high-quality instruction looks like… (they can also be) costly, they pose challenges for ensuring that judgments about schools are reliable and valid, and they place a burden on schools, by requiring them to provide extensive documentation on their practices”. The Beginning of Wisdom… … is (according to Socrates) to know thyself. Internal or self-evaluation involves each school identifying its own strengths and weaknesses, possibly obtaining external quality assurance and or constructive advice, and developing plans for quality improvement. Sometimes this process is mainly a source of information for the inspector; sometimes (albeit seldom) it may be a creative and enjoyable exercise involving teachers, parents, the local community and – why not? – the learners themselves. Using case studies in four European countries, school leaders’ and teachers’ views on School Self Evaluation (SSE), its role in school improvement and the capacity of schools to engage with the process were analysed (McNamara, 2021). Findings suggest that, although there is a consensus concerning SSE’s potential utility, “across some countries, there were also concerns relating to implementing the process and the potential misuse of SSE outcomes... … (there is a need for) clearly defined legislation… to dispel school leaders’ apprehensions regarding the balance between SSE for accountability or school improvement” (ibid). First-Hand Experience Some thirty year ago, the present author was involved in a major donor-funded drive to reform the existing supervisory regimen in favour of a benign school and teacher advisory system, in a particular (and not to be named) Sub-Saharan African country. This action uncovered (and over time helped remedy) large numbers of ‘ghost teachers’ (a quarter of those on the payroll were dead or had never existed), widespread corruption and instances of sexual exploitation of teachers by supervisors. While that is, thankfully, an exception, in many developing countries the school inspection function cannot be performed as the inspectors have insufficient travel funds. Rose Matete (2021) investigated the impact of school inspection on teaching and learning in primary school education in Tanzania, establishing that “inspectors’ working conditions were poor as they lacked fuel to facilitate their school visits and lacked a means of transport”. This phenomenon has been widespread across much of Africa and, sometimes, as there is no accommodation allowance, the inspectors must board with the school principal and their family, and that too is invidious. Matete makes the point that inspectors “did not regularly visit the classroom for lesson observations… (but) focused on the professional documents”. There were exceptions: the present author witnessed an inspector taking over a class and teaching them (with much confidence but limited proficiency) for over an hour. Apparently, this is his usual practice on visiting schools. His classes appeared – to this present author, based on limited direct evidence – bemused and rather scared. Children (and indeed their teachers) should enjoy education: in only one [Bhutan] of the thirty or so countries whose school inspection arrangements are known directly to the present author was ‘enjoyment of the lesson’ an explicit criterion. More positively, fresh approaches have been piloted and, in some instances, although not always, proven, far from the developed West. Bangladesh’s Shikhbe Protiti Shishu (Each Child Learns) initiative was a five-year education plan’s flagship activity aimed at basing pedagogy directly upon each child being able to demonstrate that which has been learned, with inspectors tasked to establish how well that had occurred and to advise teachers on remedial action when the learning had been limited. Development partners were highly sceptical, feeling safer with projects involving building schools, developing curricula, and recruiting and training teachers. As Shikhbe Protiti Shishu was not a conventional, internationally-tested approach, donors were unready to recognise as valid this in-country generated initiative. Accordingly, it never became a targeted and funded education plan activity, and the inspectors continued to examine the records of what the teachers had taught rather than how well the children had learned (Chowdhury et al, 2019). The English Experience Prestigious and expensive public (i.e. private) schools included, education in England embodies market competition, socio-economic class, and examination performance league tables: families have been known to move house or even embrace a particular religion so that their offspring may gain entry to particular institutions. Soon after the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) was established to monitor the schools and guide the parents, the present author, in his ‘contribution to the school inspection debate’ (Douse, 1996), questioned whether it was a 'failing office' ("too early to say"), mocked the one-word summary judgements ('outstanding' – 'satisfactory'), and proposed a more humane and effective approach based upon sensitively moderated self-appraisal. Now, a quarter of a century later, such criticisms have become widespread. Following the tragic death of a head teacher “resulting directly from the pressure put upon her by the outcome of an inspection report that would rate her primary school as ‘inadequate’, the lowest rating” (SPHA, 2023), head teachers described Ofsted as a "Damoclean sword hanging over dedicated professionals for months and years on end" (ibid), stated that “the current model for school inspections was ‘faulty’, called for an end to ‘one-word judgements’, and advocated the "complete overhaul” of the inspection system. Following a three-month consultation, Ofsted is now providing “all inspectors with guidance on developing and formalising the enhanced professional dialogue essential for successful inspections (and letting) providers know that they can contact Ofsted with any unresolved issues on the working day after the end of the inspection”. Moreover, from April 2024, “when providers receive their draft report, they will be able to highlight minor points of clarity or factual accuracy or raise a formal complaint to seek a review of the inspection findings and judgements awarded”. It is highly unlikely that such modifications will satisfy Ofsted’s critics who seek at least holus-bolus transformation or, in the case of teachers’ unions and opposition political parties, utter abolition. First Do No Harm With respect to the example of England, four years after Ofsted’s establishment, the present author felt that it was too soon to deliver judgement. Three decades on, the situation is manifestly definite: Ofsted has been a deficient and deadly disaster – a calamitously failing Office – unquestionably ‘Inadequate’. Nor was the politically-satisfying proffering of erroneous advice to parents with deep pockets and sharp elbows ever a worthy objective. Whatever inspection system is preferred, none should be humiliated nor fearful. More generally, countries and education systems across the world will continue to deliver their preferred form of school inspection, appropriate to their perceived priorities and aspirations. Ultimately, it is suggested, each school community should be enabled annually to evaluate – collectively, cheerfully and creatively – its own achievements against its own explicit objectives. Perhaps an external ‘critical friend’ should be available (maybe along the lines of an HMI) on call to signify that the SSE has occurred and to agree on a one-page public statement covering progress to date and anticipated improvements. No pain. No shame. Much participation and positivity. REFERENCES Brown, M., Gardezi, S., Castillo Blanco, L.D., Kechri Z. (2021) School self-evaluation an international or country specific imperative for school improvement? International Journal of Educational Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedro.2021.100063. Available at: ttps://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/School-self-evaluation-an-international-or-country-Brown-Gardezi/05969ee132db1431b058255707d2ffe448f332b7 Chowdhury, M. A. and Douse, M. (2019) Legacies and Lessons from two decades of Bangladesh Primary Education Programmes, Journal of Education and Human Development, June 2019, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 114-128. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335379485_Legacies_and_Lessons_from_two_decades_of_Bangladesh_Primary_Education_Programmes Douse, M. (1996) OFSTED and Onward – a contribution to the School Inspection debate, published by CfBT Education Services, Reading, UK in January 1996 and circulated to Members of Parliament, university education departments and the media: a limited number of hard copies is available from the Education Development Trust at: https://www.edt.org/contact/ McNamara, G., Brown, M., Gardezi, S., O’Hara, J., O’Brien, S., & Skerritt, C. (2021). Embedding Self-Evaluation in School Routines. SAGE Open, 11(4). Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21582440211052552 Matete, R. (2021) The Impact of Primary School Inspection on Teaching and Learning in Tanzania, Pedagogy, July 2021. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360699802_Evidence_based_impact_of_school_inspection_on_teaching_and_learning_in_primary_school_education_in_Tanzania OFSTED (2023) Ofsted to implement changes to Post-Inspection Process, 24 November 2023; downloaded from the Ofsted website: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/Ofsted-to-implement-changes-to-post-inspection-process Rothman, B. (2018) Inspection Systems: How Top-Performing Nations Hold Schools Accountable, National Center on Education and the Economy, Washington, USA, May 2018. Available at : https://ncee.org/quick-read/how-top-performing-nations-hold-schools-accountable/ Simeonova, R., Parvanova, Y., et al (2020) A Continuum of approaches to School Inspections: Cases from Europe, May 2020. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341333639_A_CONTINUUM_OF_APPROACHES_TO_SCHOOL_INSPECTIONS_CASES_FROM_EUROPE SPHA (2O23) Ruth Perry: Calls made for Ofsted overhaul after head teacher's death, Suffolk Primary Head Teachers Association 21 March 2023; downloaded from BBC news website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-65026076 UNESCO (2023) Systems for accountability, supervision, and control, UNESCO portal as updated on 22 March 2023. Available at: https://learningportal.iiep.unesco.org/en/issue-briefs/improve-learning/systems-for-accountability-supervision-and-control WEF (2023) The Future of Jobs Report, 2023; World Economic Forum. Available at: https://www.weforum.org/publications/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/ Woolf, C. (2023) Ofsted reform: Lessons from international schools, Times Educational Supplement, London. 4th December 2023. Available at : https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/specialist-sector/Ofsted-reform-international-school-inspections The Author Mike Douse has been involved in international education since 1964, having worked in and for over sixty countries, including, most recently, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Bangladesh, India and South Africa. Based in Wales, his assignments have been predominantly related to the European Union’s educational development support programme but have also involved World Bank, UNICEF and ILO missions. Mike has been an education professor in Ghana; sometime Headmaster of Kings School, Cardiff; foundation principal of a flagship science secondary school in Nigeria; and was the first Director of Australia’s Disadvantaged Schools Programme. In addition to professional documents related to specific education programmes, his published work includes (with Professor Philip Uys) One World One School and, as well as many articles and conference presentations on issues educational, Mike has published three collections of his poems. MJDouse@gmail.com