Introduction
This unit seeks to explain why evaluation is a necessary tool
in monitoring school effectiveness. Many school heads do not
utilise evaluation as much as they should do. They merely examine
students for examination purposes but ignore, for example, the
reports of school inspectors. They see examinations as evaluation
and consider the exam results as the end of the process. Evaluation
involves reviewing the whole school process to find out why
certain things have happened or what should be done to improve
poor performance. School heads need to be aware that they are
accountable not just to the government but to pupils and parents,
as well as the community which is served by the school.
Individual study time: 2 hours
Learning outcomes
By the end of this unit you should be able to:
• list reasons for establishing standards of accountability
• identify the main functions of evaluation
• outline the place of evaluation in effective school
management.
Accountability
The broad aim of formal education is to produce human beings
who are able to appreciate the benefits of education and contribute
to the development of the community in different spheres of
life, be it political, moral, social, economic or technological.
Most governments see education as an important investment
and therefore devote huge sums of the taxpayers' money each
year to the provision of education at all levels. The government
spends money on infrastructure, such as school buildings,
on the payment of teachers and other personnel, and on the
provision of materials. There is therefore a serious need
for each government to ensure that the money provided for
education is wisely spent.
The government also needs to know that the aims of education
are being achieved. It needs to know, through constant evaluation,
where there are areas of shortcomings which need to be corrected
so that the goals of education can be achieved. In addition,
as schools draw their pupils from the community they are accountable
to the community in many ways, including, for example, the
kind of curriculum which is being operated, the quality of
examination results, and the safety of the children.
We will look further at the various functions in due course
but first let us develop our understanding of evaluation as
a management tool, building on ideas introduced in Unit 1.
Effective school management and administration
In Unit 1, monitoring and evaluating were identified as important
school management functions, necessary for ensuring effective
and efficient schools.
Activity 2.1
(1) What do you understand by an efficient and effective school?
(2) What steps should the school head take to ensure efficiency
and effectiveness?
Comments
This section recalls some of the points made about effective
schools in Unit 1 and introduces other issues relating to
efficient management and administration. As you read through
check whether these notes provide a full list of everything
which may contribute to efficient management.
School organisation
A school is established to give and receive learning. A school
that is able to discharge effectively its daily routines is
providing value for money. For this to happen, the school
should be well planned so that learning can take place in
a conducive atmosphere. A pro-active management style is required
where planning occurs well in advance of events occurring.
An efficient school should have good communication channels
for effective administration. The chart in Fig 2 is a model.
Fig 2 School organisation
This simple model shows the hierarchy in the school authority
which must be maintained for discipline. A school without
discipline cannot be efficient or effective. To each of the
offices there are specific duties attached and failure of
one officer will affect the effective administration of the
school.
School curriculum
The head should see that the school calendar is collected
from the State Ministry of Education and ensure that all school
activities coincide with the school calender. He or she must
see that textbooks, stationery, furniture, games equipment
and library books are ready before school resumes. Syllabuses
of all the classes must be available and, with the assistance
of the assistant head, teachers will be helped to prepare
schemes of work.
The head and assistant head should ensure that lesson notes
are made daily and that teachers teach according to the lesson
notes. Assignments, tests and examinations should be marked
and recorded promptly and corrections done where necessary.
Teachers should do corrections with their pupils so that they
can understand their mistakes. This will help to improve effectiveness
in teaching. Making pupils swap their exercise books for marking
without their being checked by the teacher is a practice which
should only be used occasionally.
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA)
The head should ensure that PTA meetings are held at least
once a term. It is essential that there is a cordial relationship
between parents and teachers for the effective administration
of the school. If parents are properly approached they can
help in easing some of the financial problems in a school.
In many countries PTAs have assisted schools with transportation,
building of classrooms, and some have levied themselves to
augment the children's feeding.
Staff meetings
Staff meetings (of the whole staff, departments and special
committees) should be held regularly to review the running
of the school. Heads should adopt a democratic system by listening
to teachers and understanding their personal and professional
concerns.
School records
The head should ensure that complete and accurate records,
covering pupil and staff records, stock ledgers and registers,
and other records which provide a full picture of the life
of the school, are kept. It is also necessary for the head
to have such records as Time and Movement Books so that absenteeism
and irregular movements of staff and school resources can
be checked.
School accounts
The head should keep proper accounts of income and expenditure
and bills and receipts must be accompanied by vouchers. These
are required in the auditing of the school accounts as well
as promoting the principles and practice of accountability
and evaluation in the school. The local government accounting
staff will inspect the account books of the school to ensure
that votes given to the school are properly spent.
Inspection records
The head must keep a record of all inspection reports and
discuss these with the staff so that recommendations with
regard to how the system can be improved and developed may
be implemented.
Activity 2.2
(1) Make a list of some essential features you should look for
in an inspection report.
(2) Describe how you presently use inspection records to contribute
towards improvements in your school and the mechanisms for implementing
change.
Comments
You will probably have included a range of features in your
list including observations of lessons which focus on the
effectiveness of the teaching and learning process. The important
point, which we wish to highlight here, is that inspection
records, together with the data contained in various school
records and reports, should provide information for the school
head which he or she may use as a means of institutionalising
changes in schools. If this is done then evaluation and monitoring
become major tools for effective management.
Let us now look at the functions of evaluation more closely.
Functions of evaluation
It is through evaluation that we learn to what extent the
goals of education are being achieved. It enables us to review
the progress of education and to devise new measures for its
improvement and development. Four main functions of evaluation
can be described.
Diagnosis
You can use evaluation to discover or locate weaknesses in
your pupils as to what they do not know. Diagnostic testing
will enable you to decide whether some of your pupils need
remedial courses or not. Pre-tests given at the beginning
of a class are good for determining what the pupils already
know and what they do not know. For instance, at the start
of an English lesson, you may ask for the meanings of some
words to find out if your pupils have come across those words.
You may then have to explain the meanings of such words even
before the passage is read. This is to facilitate the reading
exercise. This is a form of diagnostic evaluation - you have
got some information by which you have judged the knowledge
of the pupils and finally you have taken action to remedy
the situation.
Prediction
Sometimes we give tests to identify the aptitudes and abilities
of the pupils. This sort of test is varied so that different
types of abilities are catered for. From this test you can
predict pupils who are creative, technically or arts oriented
and as a teacher you give them exercises that will help develop
each individual's interests. The National Examination given
in Nigeria to select gifted children is a good example of
this.
Selection
Through evaluation we learn where additional and better resources
- human, material and financial - are required. Thus evaluation
is used to identify suitable persons for particular courses,
jobs, entitlements, etc.
Grading
Evaluation whereby pupils are ranked and graded in order of
performance is commonly used in schools. Grading between schools
in terms of exam results and other performance criteria provide
parents and the public with a measure for choosing which school
to send their children to.
Evaluation and target setting
In target setting, you need to have a specific objective (or
target) you want to accomplish, a plan as to how you will
achieve that target and then evaluation procedures to indicate
whether it has been achieved.
For example, you may have many underqualified teachers in your
school, who can adversely affect the quality of education. You
may decide you need to enable them to obtain training, through
upgrading. You will need to set a time limit for this upgrading
programme and also decide what method of upgrading will be immediately
useful. After setting the time target for the upgrading, you
will need to plan your approach. As teachers on the job, their
upgrading programme has to be an in-service course. You then
need to decide how many of them should go for Sandwich Programmes
held during the holidays and how many of them could be upgraded
using a Distance Learning Programme, such as has been provided
in Nigeria by the National Teachers' Institute (the NTI). The
final step in the process is to decide on criteria for evaluating
whether the objective has been achieved - and to ensure that
the results of any evaluation are utilised to plan the next
development.
Activity 2.3
Can you provide examples of ways in which the neglect of evaluation
reports has hindered the development of effective teaching and
learning in your school?
Comments
You may be able to cite examples of evaluations of projects
undertaken with particular goals, for example improving the
quantity and quality of food in your school, repairing damaged
furniture, improving discipline, etc. When actions are not taken
as recommended in evaluation reports then there in unlikely
to be any improvement and the quality of teaching might be affected.
You might like to reflect on why evaluation reports are so often
ignored, before turning to the next short activity.
Activity 2.4
(1) What problems have you encountered within your school in
trying to implement changes recommended by school inspectors?
(2) What problems have you encountered in getting the Local
Government Authority (or District Education Office) to improve
your school as a result of recommendations made by school inspectors?
Comments
Problems in improving the school might be due to some of the
following factors:
• failure to communicate and share recommendations with
those who need to know
• failure on the part of the Ministry's officials to
act
• financial and resource constraints
• inexperience in how to set about using the recommendations
to implement changes
• lack of organisation in the school to enable the implementation
of the recommendations
• mistrust of the value and accuracy of the evaluation
reports.
The last point is important. Often the quality of information
available through evaluation exercises is rather questionable
and subsequent units will explore this issue further.
Summary
In this unit you have studied the reasons why monitoring and
evaluation are essential characteristics of effective school
management. The major functions of evaluation have been identified.
These fall into two main categories: evaluation to assess
the extent to which goals are being achieved in order to improve
performance; and evaluation for accountability purposes, in
order to justify performance to others. Evaluation is about
asking questions and gathering information, and attention
has been drawn to both the quantity and quality of information
which the school head needs in order to help improve school
effectiveness.
Self-evaluation exercise
Imagine you are an inspector of schools. Write an inspection
report on your evaluation of a particular school in your locality,
perhaps your own!
You could select one of the following points for particular
attention: learning conditions, discipline, channels of communication,
school administration, supervision by the school heads, record-keeping,
involvement of PTA or staff meetings.
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