Setting expectations for good education: how Dutch school inspections drive improvement

Abstract

With decentralisation becoming increasingly widespread across Europe, evaluation and accountability are becoming key issues in ensuring quality provision for all (Altrichter & Maag Merki, 2010; Eurydice, 2004). In Europe, the dominant arrangement for educational accountability is school inspections. The purpose of this research is to identify and analyse the ways in which school inspections in The Netherlands impact on the work of schools. The results of 2 years of survey data of principals and teachers in primary and secondary schools show that inspection primarily drives change indirectly, through encouraging certain developmental processes, rather than through more direct and coercive methods, such as schools reacting to inspection feedback. Specifically, results indicate that school inspections which set clear expectations on what constitutes “good education” for schools and their stakeholders are strong determinants of improvement actions; principals and schools feel pressure to respond to these prompts and improve their education.

Keywords:

• school inspections
• accountability
• school improvement

Additional information

Funding

The research reported here was supported by the European Union under the Lifelong Learning Programme [511490-LLP-1-2010-NL-KA1-KA1-KA1SCR].

Notes on contributors

Melanie Ehren

Melanie Ehren’s research addresses effects and unintended consequences of accountability systems and school inspections on school improvement and teaching and learning in schools. Recent professional activities include: OECD expert team reviewing the Evaluation and Assessment in Education in Luxembourg, writing an expert opinion on “Educational performance standards and external” testing for the Austrian National Education Report of 2012, contracted by UNICEF to review the inspection system in Zanzibar. Her paper on “The Relationship between School Inspections, School Characteristics and School Improvement”, co-authored by Adrie Visscher, was placed on the 2010 highest cited article list of the British Journal of Educational Studies. She currently coordinates a 3-year research project on the impact of school inspections on school improvement in six European countries (financed by the European Committee Life Long learning) and coordinates the Special Interest Group on “Educational Evaluation, Accountability and School Improvement” of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) with Professor Maag Merki.

Jane Perryman

Jane Perryman’s research interests are accountability and performativity in secondary education, inspection regimes, discourses of school effectiveness and school improvement, how Foucauldian theory can be applied to school settings, school leadership and management, and how schools react to policy initiatives. She was involved in a recent ESRC Project on Policy Enactments in Schools and is currently coordinating the doctoral research training programme at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Nichola Shackleton

Nichola Shackleton is currently a PhD student at the Institute of Education. She received her BSc in Psychology from Bangor University in 2009, and her MRes in Education and Social Research from the Institute of Education in 2011. Her research interests include health inequalities, childhood health outcomes, child development, and latent variable modelling.