Development of training programs for quality assurance, self-evaluation and external evaluation of the work of schools

Representatives of the working group for creating programs and material for educational advisors and external associates in the areas of external evaluation and self-evaluation of the work of , gathered at a meeting in Vrdnik to begin preparation of training programs in these areas. The goal of future trainings is to strengthen the capacity of participants to assist school administrations and teachers in planning and conducting self-evaluation and to support schools in understanding the links between self-evaluation and external evaluation. Given the number of external evaluators and advisors, the representatives of the working group, in cooperation with the experts of the Redis project, will select about 30 experienced evaluators and advisors who will be trained to further train colleagues and thus multiply new skills and knowledge.

The meeting of the working group was preceded by an analysis of the need for additional training in the field of external evaluation and self-evaluation of schools, conducted by Redis project experts in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development. The results of the research showed that, when it comes to external evaluators, there is a need for additional training in the following areas: programming, planning and reporting; teaching and learning; educational achievements of students; student support; ethos; and organization of school work, management of human and material resources. The analysis found that schools need significant support to understand the importance of self-evaluation and to involve all employees in the process.

Self-evaluation teams within schools expressed the need for additional training in the areas of: methodology and self-evaluation; use of self-evaluation results; planning professional development of employees; the role of different actors in self-evaluation; and the function and importance of self-evaluation. The results of the analysis show that self-evaluation teams expect support from external evaluators in the selection and development of instruments for conducting self-evaluation, self-evaluation of activities of teachers and professional associates, as well as in analysis and interpretation of self-evaluation results. Since online teaching proved to be an extremely important segment of education in the previous school year and, due to the uncertainty of the epidemiological situation, it will be part of the educational process in the next year as well, the analysis also includes that aspect. Needs for the development of competencies for monitoring online teaching have been identified, which will also be included in the trainings.

In the final part of the meeting of the working group, further steps were presented that should lead to the development of training programs for quality assurance of self-evaluation and external evaluation of school work, which will be implemented during the autumn.