Reforming Education Governance Through Local Capacity-building

Moving towards more school autonomy in Austria

“…To generate sustainable change in complex systems in general, intervention at more levels at the same time is required. This implies a 'whole-of-system' approach, with different components of a system closely attuned to each other and roles and responsibilities well aligned (Burns, Köster and Fuster, 2016 [6]).…”

“…A whole-of-system approach calls for collaborative leadership -a guiding coalition of key players from different positions in the system to guide and communicate the reform (Burns, Köster and Fuster, 2016 [6]). Specifically for supervision and inspection, this means that they cannot be treated as isolated components, but should be taken as part of the accountability and evaluation arrangement as a whole.…”

“…The various components of assessment and evaluation should form a coherent whole to generate synergies, avoid duplication and promote consistency (OECD, 2013 [14]). Strategic thinking is needed to create such a whole, starting with formulating a clear rationale for evaluation and assessment and a compelling narrative about how they contribute to the improvement of education (OECD, 2013 [14]; Burns, Köster and Fuster, 2016 [6]).…”

“…Several case studies in the context of the Governing Complex Education Systems project showed the value of aligning external and internal evaluation processes especially for establishing a culture of evaluation in schools (Burns, Köster and Fuster, 2016 [6]). In the Dutch case, the Inspectorate assessed if schools are at risk of becoming very weak based on performance indicators.…”

“…This might mean that the inspection worked mainly as a summative process; the process of learning and improving only started after the judgement had been pronounced. "Putting greater emphasis on transparency and complementing performance indicators with ongoing knowledge exchange, including perspectives from stakeholders and the school community, appears a promising avenue to lessen the disconnect between external and internal evaluation processes" (Burns, Köster and Fuster, 2016, p. 112 [6]).…”