Group Report of Study Visit: Quality assurance mechanisms in education and vocational training (Group Number 143)

March 21 to March 26 2010, the Hague, the

Rapporteur: Paul Martinez

Model of vertical and horizontal accountability in the Netherlands

Introduction

1. We are a diverse group of education and training professionals drawn from 12 different countries, including England, Germany, Lithuania, , , , Slovakia, , Poland, , Belgium and Bulgaria.

2. The roles we have in our respective countries are very different. They range from experts and officials employed by central government to head teachers and heads of vocational training organizations and from heads of department to inspectors and to quality managers.

3. Our visit was organized by Dr Aad Hendriks to whom we are grateful for a well organized and stimulating programme. There was something for everyone in the varied and generally relevant meetings and discussions.

4. We also acknowledge and would like to express our thanks to the many Dutch colleagues who made us feel so welcome and who gave up their time to introduce us to different aspects of their work.

5. We are also grateful to Aad for having organised a full programme of complementary cultural activities and to the European Platform, without whose assistance the study visit would not have been possible.

Examples of good practice

6. This report is structured around a discussion of the good practice we identified both in the Netherlands and from discussions within the group. Table 1, below, summarises the good practice.

Table 1 Summary table of good practices observed Title of the Country Name of the Contact Intended Specific features of project institution person users or good practice beneficiaries of the good practice Dutch The Sponsored by Mr Ton The education Principals agree Principals’ Netherlands AVS Duif system; national standards, Academy (Organisation school define competences, for school principals organise professional heads in development and primary and feedback and secondary maintain a register of education) principals Secondary The AVS Mr Ton Head teachers Collective voice for Heads Netherlands, Duif head teachers to Association England, enable them to and most represent views to participant government and other countries stakeholders, lobby government, deliver membership services Risk based The Inspectorate Mrs Secondary Inspection process inspection Netherlands of Secondary Liesbeth school system based on risk Education Klaver assessment using publicly available data and transparent and public standards. Public The Inspectorate Mrs Secondary Annual public performance Netherlands of Secondary Liesbeth school scorecard of key scorecard ; England Education; Klaver; Dr system, performance Skills Paul vocational indicators Funding Martinez training Agency system (England) Wikiwijs The Kennisnet Mr Frans Primary and On line resources for Netherlands Schouwen secondary teachers, based on a -berg schools technical, publication and legal framework Teacher led IT The Kennisnet Mr Frans Primary and Networks to support networks Netherlands Schouwen secondary implementation and -berg schools development supported by Kennisnet Mutual The St Maartens- Mr Thijs Secondary Collaborative system Visitations Netherlands college Veraart schools of mutual quality evaluation visits developed by a consortium of schools Teacher The ICLON Willem Bachelor Reform of teacher Training Netherlands www.iclon.lei van der students training to make it Programme denuniv.nl Wolk, Jan having more practical and van completed more relevant; greater Tartwijk two years of focus on classroom the BA management; closer programme collaboration with - recent schools; feedback graduates from schools forms - people an element of the switching to assessment of the education, trainee teacher having previous work- experience Professional Hungary Szinergia Ms Vocational Course delivered in development School Katalin teachers three blocks of two for vocational Molnar days to stimulate and teachers encourage teachers to adopt new an more engaging teaching methods Vocational Italy Monica di Vocational Month long project to Project to Martino teachers develop a radio reengage podcast. Project was disaffected aimed at a group of teenagers disruptive and disengaged 15 year olds who had twice been rejected by the public school system. Project theme was drug and alcohol abuse. FQM used in Spain (and Ministry of Ana Vocational, Currently being vocational, other Education. Vivancos primary and adapted from EFQM primary and contries) Region of secondary model. Already secondary Madrid. schools applied in most schools. vocational training centres. Not compulsory. External Spain (and Ministry of Ana Primary and In 6th year of Primary evaluation of other Education. Vivancos Secondary and 3rd year of students’ key countries) Region of schools. Secondary. Since competences Madrid. implemented, levels (Maths and have improved. Spanish) External Slovakia NUCEM Primary In 9th year of Primary testing schools school, compulsory. (Maths and Slovak language)

Common themes and approaches

7. The overarching theme which brought everyone together was the desire in different national contexts to both assure and improve the quality of education and training.

8. Within this general theme, there were a number of more specific points of similarity including:

• self evaluation • external evaluation • development of more engaging teaching • fostering of more autonomous and active learning • continuing rapid change, usually led by central or regional government • improving the quality of informal and active learning through evaluation and guidelines • integrating ICT in education and training systems and ensuring that it is part of the quality framework.

9. Self evaluation differed in different national contexts but was generally conducted within a framework of guidance. It was seen as beneficial to the school or training organization and as creating the foundation for quality improvement. In the main, self evaluations are not published to the outside world and are seen as being ‘owned’ by the school.

10. External evaluation generally accompanied the internal evaluation and was generally seen regarded as having four functions:

• validation of the self evaluation • contributing to satisfying the demands of external accountability • provision of additional information about, and insights into, quality • provision of benchmarking information.

11. External evaluation takes many forms. Most often, among the countries represented on the study visit, it included inspection, the setting of national standards and the collection of performance data on a national or regional basis.

12. Occasionally, as in the case of England and the Netherlands, the performance data was published in the form of a scorecard. In most countries the outcomes of the external evaluations were not published.

13. Inspection systems varied substantially across the countries represented on the study visit. Models included regulatory inspection conducted by agencies independent of government (England, the Netherlands); inspection for accountability purposes conducted by government; inspection for advisory purposes (Romania, Wallonia for vocational training); and regulatory inspection conducted by teams independent of government which submit the results to the government as a base for target agreements (Bavaria, Germany).

14. Poor evaluations could lead to sanctions in the form of a requirement to prepare and implement improvement plans, more intensive follow-up-inspections, limits on recruitment of new or additional students and ultimately (but rarely) the withdrawal of funding and/or closure.

15. Improvements in teaching were identified by several participants. At the risk of over simplification, the general trend seemed is to move teaching methods towards more active, varied and engaging teaching methods where the teacher acts as a coach, tutor, facilitator and guide, and away from an exclusively didactic approach.

16. The counterpart to this desire to develop teaching methods was a general desire to encourage more active and autonomous learning on the part of students, partly for its own sake (‘’better and deeper learning’’), partly to engage students who were bored with, or unresponsive to, more traditional approaches and partly because this was seen better to equip students for a changing employment market and rapidly evolving society.

17. A common theme was continuing rapid changes in education and training policies in general and in quality systems in particular. A number of participants were implementing systems and processes which had only been in existence for two or three years and most participants anticipated further changes, driven partly by changes of government and partly by the high priority attached to quality issues by governments.

18. Several countries are working to develop better guidelines for informal and practical learning such as project work and learning outside the classroom to ensure that such learning is both high quality and can be brought within quality assurance and improvement systems.

19. Finally, there is a general desire across participant countries to make more use of ICT in both the curriculum and in administration, to make ICT a more central and ‘routine’ element of both and to ensure that ICT functions are evaluated and improved as part of quality systems. Challenges being addressed by participating countries

20. There were a number of challenges which were being addressed by participating countries, partly by the themes set out in the previous section. In no particular order of priority, these included:

• developing mature, well integrated, less bureaucratic and continuous quality systems • developing a shared approach to quality improvement across the school, college or training organisation • teacher recruitment • discipline problems among students and occasionally parents • increasing competition for students • keeping pace with rapid technological and social changes • student drop out and disengagement • making effective provision for students from deprived social backgrounds and from minority or immigrant groups.

21. Almost all participants were implementing new quality systems or preparing to implement a new system. There was some concern that governments, in their concern to improve outcomes and reinforce accountability, were introducing some instability into their systems, which could increase burdens on teachers but without improving the experiences of students.

22. Many participants reported that quality systems were often imposed from the top down rather than being seen as a ‘shared system’. Top down implementation was seen to be a problem because it appears to lead to increased paperwork and bureaucracy without contributing to improving quality. It can have a negative effect of increasing cynicism and surface compliance but without engaging teachers and managers.

23. A problem identified in the Netherlands and echoed in the group is the difficulty in recruiting teachers. In several countries the situation was already difficult and was likely to get worse because of the imminent retirement of the generation of teachers born shortly after the end of the second world war. Italy and Hungary were the most notable exceptions, where the supply of new teachers exceeded the capacity of the schools system to give them employment.

24. In most countries, there seemed to be a deterioration of respect for teachers and education associated with an increase in problems of classroom discipline and, in the worst cases, assaults on teachers by students and even by the parents of students. In the Madrid region in Spain, the government was about to introduce a law to increase the penalties for such assaults.

25. Most countries were experiencing demographic change with a decline in the numbers of young people, which was expected to last for the next decade. This tended to lead to increasing competition between schools for students. In some countries, England for example, the fostering of a market for education and training was an element of government policy. In this context, the ability to demonstrate high quality could become a key feature of a school’s marketing strategy.

26. A common theme was rapid change in the social and technological change. In the words of Ton Duif (Dutch Primary Head Teachers Association), education systems often had 19th Century buildings, 20th Century teachers and 21st Century students. Rapid external change tended to exacerbate problems of teacher recruitment and professional updating, lessen the engagement of young people in what they saw as old fashioned or unfamiliar learning and raise doubts as to the ability of education to provide skills and knowledge for the future.

27. Many participants reported problems of increasing student drop out and non completion of courses and often this was associated with students from poor backgrounds, recent immigrants or students from minority ethnic backgrounds. A possible exception is the UK, where recent research has suggested that the education system is least successful for white, working class, young males. This group achieves less well than any other social group. Effective and innovative solutions

Primary Heads Association

28. One solution to some of the problems identified was the work of the Dutch primary head teachers association (AVS). Information was provided by M. Ton Duif, president of AVS and also president of European School Heads Association (ESHA).

29. We were impressed by the role of the AVS, the Dutch Principals’ Academy and the concept of vertical and horizontal accountability in the Netherlands.

30. The role of AVS is comparable to that of professional association. The strong lever in the hands of AVS seems to be direct access to the minister of education. The key factors which guarantee high quality of evaluation are mutual trust and transparency. AVS (Dutch Association of School Principals) • 5700 leading members in Primary and Secondary Education • Direct access to the minister of education and Parliament • Leading in Primary Education • What we do: ‐ collective interest of members ‐ individual interest of members ‐ coaching, advice, support ‐ School for Leadership ‐ projects ‐ educational traveling with and for members ‐ home stay program ‐ conventions and seminars ‐ benefits for schools and members ‐ Lobby in political educational affairs ‐ access to the press • ‐ Projects as “Kind op de Gang” on inclusion

31. The Dutch school principals in AVS see as their priorities the following :

a. coaching and advice b. making projects c. international study visits d. conventions and seminars e. political lobbying.

32. The AVS has established an academy for principals. The purpose of the academy is to :

o set quality standards o shape the profile of head teacher competences o organise courses for principals o maintain a register of head teachers o Principals registered in NSA are obliged to follow continuous individual professional development.

33. The key definition of quality, agreed between the Ministry, the inspectorate and schools is: deliver what you promise. This depends in turn on a crucial distinction between vertical accountability to ministers and to the inspectorate and horizontal accountability to students, parents, the community and for many schools in the Netherlands, the church.

ICT

34. Kennisnet has the Mission to support schools and education facilities with independent services regarding the effective and safe use of ICT, thus improving the quality of teaching and learning. The rationale for using ICT in education and training include: • social rationale • vocational rationale • pedagogical rationale.

35. One of the main problems identified by Dutch teachers is the lack of on line or digital teaching materials. The solution developed by Kennisnet is an online catalogue “Wikiwijs” teaching materials based on an open platform. This platform is the fruit of intensive consultation and development involving teachers and the agreement of legal, technical and copyright frameworks. Development and implementation is supported by a large number of networks, managed by teachers and supported by Kennisnet.

36. We like the idea of this supporting system. We think that ICT can improve the quality of tuition. A center for ICT education in the different European countries could increase the use of ICT in education. In Germany, for example, there are several platforms for teaching materials but only school-specific platforms which exist unsystematically. You need several passwords to use them.

Mutual ‘visitations’

37. We were impressed by a model of mutual ‘visitations’ (MV) as a tool for improvement of school management. The example we met was undertaken within a small association of Catholic secondary schools: Semper Movens. MV exists as a highly organized and formal part of the horizontal accountability model, with an independent chair and secretary. The results of the MV are presented to the head teacher in a formal report.

38. The model of MV is useful because it facilitates an exchange of opinions and good practice between schools as part of a continuous process. MV increases motivation of the teacher staff and students (parents) when they feel themselves involved in the process of school management (through their participation in MV) they will became more active in the implementation of school policy.

39. The programme for a typical visitation is set out below.

40. We felt that there might be an opportunity to find good practices, through this bottom-up approach to improve educational policy (including quality and quality assurance mechanisms) on regional and national level.

Inspection

41. The Dutch inspectorate of schools shared information with us including the common inspection framework which sets out the questions to be investigated through an inspection, details of the risk assessment process which identifies how quickly and frequently a school will be inspected and showed us an example of the performance scorecard which is published annually for each school.

42. In general, we were impressed by the transparency and openness of the risk assessment system and the way that the system concentrated inspection resources on the institutions which were most at risk. We noted, however, that such a system and also the public scorecard relied on good data systems which are costly to implement and which can take years to develop.

43. An illustration of the form of the annual scorecard is set out below.

Benchmarking services 44. We were interested in the private sector benchmarking system to which around a third of Dutch secondary schools have paid subscriptions. The surveys are mainly available to students, parents and teachers. The survey questionnaires seemed to be of high quality and we felt that schools must see a value in the service otherwise they would not pay the fees. The data could provide robust evidence for the horizontal accountability system.

45. Some of the analyses were at level involving only a handful of students or teachers and it was not clear whether Dutch school customers were helped to have an understanding of the sensitivity of data at such levels, nor whether schools had to sign up to any sort of protocols or agreement as to the use of such detailed information.

46. Many participants had some sort of similar benchmarking services available in their country, but some of these were paper based which seemed to limit their attractiveness.

Teacher training

47. ICLON is a teacher training organisation which is part of Leiden University. Willem van der Wolk introduced their teacher training programme and Jan van Tartwijk presented the instruments and tools of the Quality assurance and measurements at ICLON.

48. In all the countries represented there is a form of a teacher training. In most cases, young teachers learn how to be good professionals in schools which employ and the teacher training programs in universities are separate by subjects.

49. Since 2004, the teacher training programme has changed substantially in its content and in a much stronger focus on and integration of teaching practice, and closer relationships with the schools where the teaching practice is undertaken.

50. The teacher training programme is focused on 6 professional roles which are: • classroom manager • pedagogue • professional • member of a school organization • teaching methods • subject specialist.

51. All countries have similar problems with discipline at school and pupils who leave school before graduating, so it seems to be important to improve the classroom manager skills for all teachers. During the discussions after the presentations participants mentioned that in their countries (Slovakia, Romania) in the teacher training programme, the teaching methods are the most important aspects and the other roles are not developed enough. Participants agree that close collaboration with schools and teaching practice are very important for improving the teaching abilities and skills of trainee teachers.

Amsterdams Lyceum

52. We were also impressed by the example of the Amsterdams Lyceum. This school with 1024 students aged 11 to 17, had good performance score card results and a very strong curriculum in arts and music, a wealth of extracurricular activities, strong education in languages ( compulsory = Dutch, English, French, German; non compulsory = Spanish, Italian), reinforced by extra courses for students who want, and by international exchanges.

53. The main recipe for success appeared to include a strong educational vision, strong leadership, the recruitment of top level students coming from supportive home environments and the recruitment of staff who would buy into the ethos of the school.

Updating for vocational teachers

54. We noted the example of a short updating programme for vocational teachers developed by Katalina Molnar for a private vocational school in Hungary. The programme was delivered in three modules, each lasting two days.

55. The programme helped to address the overemphasis on didactic and theoretical methods in Hungarian teacher training and to enable the teachers to work with the new vocational curriculum which had been introduced two years before.

56. The course was well received and will be repeated. The school’s owners believe that better teaching will be more effective, will make the school more attractive and will engage students better.

European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM)

57. Several countries made reference to EFQM. IN Spain’s Madrid region, the EFQM approach is being adapted for both primary and secondary schools. It’s use is voluntary. External Evaluation

58. In the Madrid region of Spain and in several participating countries, external tests have been introduced for key subjects. In the Madrid region, key subjects are Spanish and Maths. Early results suggest that standards have risen as a result.

59. There was a similar improvement in results in England when external testing was introduced for English, Maths and Science. In the longer term, in England, the rate of improvement slowed and almost ceased in some subjects.

60. Slovakia has introduced external tests in primary schools. Each student and school is getting an individual percentile in the testing to monitor the corresponding position in the population for the particular test. All secondary schools accept the results in their entrance process.

Project learning for disaffected students

61. An example of good practice form within the group which addressed issues of disaffected students came from the outskirts of . This concerned a class of teenage boys in full time vocational training. The class was highly disruptive since all the boys had twice been rejected by the public school system.

62. The approach was based on ‘informal learning’ in the form of a month long project. The first stage involved all 3 class teachers, try to find out the talent of each student. They also negotiated with the students to select a specific theme: the substances, use, abuse and prevention. The work was created within a UDA, teaching unit of learning, interdisciplinary work. The project involved brainstorming, research, writing papers, and a visit to a community drug rehabilitation centre.

63. It was agreed that the final product would be a radio podcast of thirty minutes of open debate, based on the experience and reflection of the young people but also including inputs from experts. The project involved reflection and ideas beyond substances misuse to include critical thinking, active and effective listening, relationships with parents, social protest, the role of school and adult identity. The content was accompanied by songs chosen by boys and absolutely on the topic.

64. The project was attractive to young people who discuss, question themselves, and expose their thoughts in a cool, free, instant, intelligent and direct way. “Radioterzabi”(name of project) became laboratory, an example, a means of prevention and training.

Assessment of transferability 65. We reviewed the good practices in an evaluation session and agreed that most of them could be transferred to our different national contexts although the difficulty of the transfer would be increased substantially if it would cost a lot of money or if it involved change at the national or regional level. Table 2 below summarises the transferability of the good and/or innovative practice.

Table 2 Transferability of innovation or good practice Innovation or good practice Impossible Difficult Easy to Comments to transfer to transfer transfer Establishment of an association of Yes Several countries already Secondary head teachers have such organisations. Those that did not, could see the attractiveness of such organizations. Model of horizontal and vertical Yes This is an attractive model accountability which helps to define the two different purposes of accountability and put them in relation to each other. It may be difficult to implement in countries which currently operate with an exclusively top down form of accountability. Principals academy Yes Some countries like France felt that it would be impossible to transfer this because the function could only be vested in the state. Kennisnet Yes The main difficulty would be cost. It will be easier to transfer individual elements of this initiative. Risk based inspection Yes The main difficulty would be in developing the robust data on which risk assessment could rely. Performance Scorecard Yes The main difficulty would be in developing the robust data on which risk assessment could rely. Private survey companies and Yes As a market based solution, benchmarking clubs this would be relatively easy to transfer, depending on cost and market demand Mutual visitations Yes Easy to transfer Teacher training reforms Yes Model of Amsterdams Lyceum ? ? We were very attracted to some aspects of the practice of the school but were unsure whether it could be transferred even with difficulty to the majority of educational settings in our countries. Updating courses for vocational Yes Eminently transferable. teachers Radioterzabi learning project Yes This sort of innovative project could be implemented almost anywhere. Introduction of approaches Yes Yes This is relatively easy to developed by the European transfer as a quality Foundation for Quality improvement tool for Management (EFQM) individual institutions. It would be more difficult to transfer on a systematic basis. External tests Yes Can be transferred with some difficulty if there is sufficient political will and resources.

Possibilities of future networks

66. Several participants are exploring the possibility of school based exchanges.

Summary

67. To summarise, we found that we are facing broadly similar issues across Europe in respect of quality improvement and assurance. We found that our study visit gave us the opportunity to exchange ideas, challenge some of our assumptions and learn form each other and from our Dutch colleagues. We also concluded that almost all of the effective and good practice which we identified could be transferred to our home country. 68. The participants are listed in the table 3 below.

Name Country of origin Nicole Schosser DE Claudia Elsner DE Jurgita Maslauskaite LT Monica di Martino IT Vivancos Machimbarrena ES Francis Beltran FR Daniela Lestinska SK Marian Drumea RO Dariusz Zyto PO Marius Marcel Chisu RO Katalin Molnar HU Marie-Claire Thibert BE Rumyana Lalova BG Paul Martinez UK rapporteur Aad Hendriks NL organiser

Study visit participants with Dutch colleagues.