DRAFT – NOT TO BE CITED WITHOUT PERMISSION

March 2011

‘Inspecting in a new age’? : Europeanization and Inspection

Sotiria Grek and Martin Lawn

Introduction

This working paper examines European associations and their work during the period 2000-2010, a time which, in European terms, has been marked by the influence of the Lisbon treaty and the accession of a number of new countries into the EU. In particular, we are looking at the field of education with a focus on inspection systems in Europe and an attempt to trace the evolution of inter- and trans-European collaborations of inspectors in the Lisbon era. The working paper focuses on the history of SICI, the Standing International Conference of Inspectorates, a European association which has developed in scope over the last ten years: we will look at its aims and functions in its early period (2000-2004) and today; the contemporary challenges; and conclude with a discussion about the role of associations in post Lisbon Europe. A particular focus for the WP will be to show how SICI reveals the tension between data and judgement in systems which are using regulatory data more and more, and the way in which ‘hard’ data and expert judgement, is now increasingly being dissolved, with hard data opening up to ‘soft’ measures (like the measurement of creativity and innovation), while expert judgement becoming more standardised as it needs to be brought in line with similar judgements in other contexts – in other words, it needs to be comparable in order to flow.

European inspectorates are also faced with other new challenges that, in some ways, not only question their traditional authority in delivering school assessment but sometimes threaten them by rendering them obsolete; on the one hand, they are faced with increasing school autonomy in relation to schools’ own evaluation of learning and teaching, with schools (at least in some contexts) sometimes questioning the extent to which the inspection process offers anything more than a disruption to the life of the school. On the other, due to the proliferation of data and the increasing broadening of learning lifelong and lifewide, their traditional, almost ‘old-worldly’ status as classroom connoisseurs is also questioned; rather than derive clout from their historical position, today they increasingly need to appear fresh, cutting edge, and outward-looking. Therefore, this paper is about how previously powerful, largely disconnected policy communities, now need to come together to redefine and modernise what they do –and above all, protect their internal, local standing by seeking for support and ideas externally. We do not claim that these developments apply to the same degree to all inspectorates in Europe; however, we do argue that if the thesis about the Europeanisation of inspection is correct (and we are explaining why we think it is later), then to some degree most inspectorates in Europe are moving towards this same direction.

Finally, it has to be noted that reflecting on one’s standpoint when examining inspection in Europe seems more vital than in any other analysis of the European education space, due to the long-term differences between institutional traditions –therefore, this paper is written by research teams located in contexts that could be described as being at the more ‘progressive’ end of the inspection spectrum, with self-evaluation heralding the shift away from external evaluation as the sole means of assessing teaching, towards the validation (done by inspectors) of the internal evaluation of learning ( conducted by teachers).

A. SICI. A brief history and main functions: the formative years 2000-2004

The Standing International Conference of Inspectorates (SICI) serves as a forum for exchanging experience in relation to inspection systems and wider education issues across Europe. Initially founded as the ‘Conference of School Inspectorates in Europe’ by the OECD at the instigation of Netherlands in 1985, quality assurance and evaluation have been of prime interest to the organisation right from the beginning:

Open borders in the European Union mean greater mobility among both teachers and pupils. Thus, school inspection needs to include quality assurance at home while, at the same time, opening up to other systems abroad. (SICI Newsletter, 1989)

Increasing internationalisation and mobility across Europe meant that the Conference could only continue to operate if members would meet a certain number of requirements. Therefore, in 1995, it was re-named into SICI and founded as a legally based association in Breda, Netherlands. In the articles of its foundation, the Conference stated the following aims: sharing experience; updating developments regarding education systems; finding ways to improve working methods; and establishing a basis for cooperation between the various school authorities. The two main governing bodies of SICI are the General Assembly, which meets every two years, and the Executive Committee, which meets twice a year, and is chaired by the president of SICI.

In 1997, Douglas A. Osler, Her Majesty’s Senior Chief Inspector (HMI) and leader of the Scottish Inspectorate, was elected President of SICI; during his time, SICI grew through the organisation of workshops, the development of a descriptive study on the supervision and inspection of schools in Europe, the compiling of a critical analysis of school inspection in Europe and the instigation of mutual projects which were based on joint visits or joint inspections. Osler, in his speech at the International SICI Congress in Utrecht in 2000, spoke about ‘The future of school inspectorates in the 21st century’, stressing for the first time the need to focus on continuous improvement. According to him, ‘it is not sufficient in terms of school inspection just to write a report – it is also necessary to supplement each and every evaluation with a proposal for improvement’ (SICI Newsletter).

From 1995 SICI was involved in a number of interesting studies and exchanges of expertise in inspectorates across Europe. However, it is since around 2000 that the association appears far more active, with the organisation of workshops and meetings of inspectors from a number of countries and the increased collaboration with international organisations, who are invited in meetings, such as the OECD and the European Commission. Interestingly, in a SICI meeting for the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Netherlands Inspectorate in 2001, Edward Tersmette, a representative of the Education Policy unit of the DG Education and Culture, suggested that a new era had just began with the arrival of the Open Method of Coordination and the launch of indicators and benchmarking for education policy in Europe. He called it ‘a silent revolution’ and argued that it would be a ‘new frontier for European integration’ comparing it with the completion of the internal market, the introduction of the Euro and the enlargement of the Union (Tersmette, 2001). Tersmette emphasised the new significance given to Education by the Lisbon Treaty (‘so what the Lisbon agenda does, is that it places typical education and training issues firmly back in the hands of education and training authorities themselves, who do not want to play second fiddle to their colleagues in the Employment Council. They are taking back what is theirs and in doing so they are advancing European integration’ 2001; no page numbers) and suggests that the work of associations such as SICI is crucially in this process as, he suggests, there is a need ‘not only to close performance gaps between countries, but rather to close communication gaps’. Further, he contends that

I believe that when we start debating and comparing quality issues in education, the process counts perhaps more than the results. It is about agreeing on terminology, on concepts, finding common ground, speaking common language (Tersmette 2001; no page numbers).

By 2002 SICI was already an organisation of 20 member countries from across Europe, with also associate members who were allowed to participate in SICI for 2 years without paying the required fee (currently 3000 euros). Some of its main functions was (and is) the organisation of workshops, which ‘have formed the backbone’ (SICI 2003; 6) of SICI, as they ‘provide opportunities to discuss and analyse key aspects of education and inspection…also [they] provide opportunities to develop the valuable personal contacts that can be built into partnerships’ (SICI 2003; 6).

One of the main developments during the first years after the establishment of SICI was the production of what was called the Blue Book or the ‘Inspectorates of Education in Europe’ book, compiled by the Flemish DVO (Dienest Voor Onderwijsontwikkeling/ Department for Educational Development) with the aim to provide with a quick overview of European inspectorates. The effort began in 1998 and the descriptive mapping covered 14 countries, the then members of SICI. Some of the themes developed in the Book are the organisation of the inspectorate; its areas of responsibility; the process of inspection, as well as its methods (frameworks, indicators and criteria for data gathering); relation between inspectorate evaluation and self-evaluation of schools; and instruments and methods –the way inspectors collect information and the approaches they use when carrying out their work. Although printed to start with, the Blue book was soon developed into a web database

which could be searched (and still is) both country-based but also cross-country thematically.

Further, newsletters are produced up to four times a year by the Secretariat, covering a wide range of inspection-related topics. All members –and other inspectors, on occasion- are invited to contribute short papers or articles for these newsletters, as well as inform members about the work of the Executive Committee and the General Assembly.

In line with all similar associations, SICI developed a website which ‘has greatly enhanced the speed and effectiveness of communication’ (SICI 2003;9); it contains contact information about members’ inspectorates, including hyper links to their official websites and acts as an archive for SICI documents, working papers and newsletters. Again, similar with other association of its kind, the problems with designing an effective, interactive website that is regularly updated and attracts interest, appear to exist; throughout the last decade the need to improve the SICI website is a recurrent theme of discussions, with more problems appearing more recently when a very large sum of funds was lost when a contractor did not deliver what was expected –a new contractor has been employed and the new website is now under construction.

B. Links and Projectsinternational organisationsAs we saw with the Termette contribution above, as well as with the regular funding of SICI activities, a clear indication was given by Commission officials that SICI was fulfilling a vital role towards the Lisbon process, an idea that would assist the further development of the organisation throughout the last decade with Commission staff either being present or continuously being informed about the activities of the association. The OECD, CIDREE (Consortium of Institutions for Development and Research in Education) and the European Schoolnet have been other organisations actively involved with SICI work. CIDREE for example, in the context of 9/11, paid for all the costs for the organisation of a social inclusion workshop in Belgiun in 2002; Northern Ireland and Scotland were very keen on the event and CIDREE decided to base the workshop on a case study from a Scottish school.

SICI has developed mainly links with the OECD and the European Commission, which has funded SICI activities in many occasions. Indeed, SICI looks at its contribution to these ‘stakeholders’ as vital, both for the inspectors themselves as well as for the international organisations working with them:

Our members can improve their professional knowledge and skills through links with PISA…We have much professional knowledge and skills that we can contribute to European-wide initiatives (2001; 24)

Finally, SICI collaborated in a few projects with the European Schoolnet, through its former chairman Ferry de Rijke who was also a member of Schoolnet (more on this later).Examples of project work

‘Evaluation of mathematics teaching in secondary schools’ project 1999-2002The final report of this project was submitted in 2002. The project was initiated as a joint exercise between England and the Netherlands and was later broadened to include several other countries. It involved observations of maths teaching and its evaluation in the participating countries with data being collated in December 2000 and a project meeting to decide on how to make this data comparable in Belfast in the same month. In the end, a four point grading scale was constructed and all the indicators were judged by the inspectors involved –the experience was seen as very positive. As for the purposes of the project, the inspectors worked for a week in host countries and ‘found it very useful to have discussions with foreign counterparts; a good deal had been learnt about the methodology of lesson observation’ (SICI 2001;8). The project leader, Wim Kleijne suggested that the success of the project could open up the opportunity for a much bigger inspection of teaching project, taking account challenges such as the difficulties of finding a common approach to inspection to the different curricula from country to country, as well as ‘the value of seeking common indicators, but the danger of presenting the outcomes in a “league table”’ (SICI 2001;8). Finally, it was seen that one of the most significant contributions of the project was training the whole group of inspectors on a common methodology, as well as the professional development gained from joint working.

Joint inspection project on the quality of teaching: ‘the (immaterialised) idea’In 1999 close discussions between CERI-OECD and SICI started; their purpose was to explore the possibility of an international comparative project on the production of indicators of the assessment of teaching at primary school level. The idea as such was shared but the problem was how to realise it; as a result more and more contacts between CERI and SICI were established with CERI staff attending SICI meetings and SICI members participating in CERI meetings (for example in Tokyo in 2000) and also attending CERI conferences (such as the ‘Schooling for Tomorrow’ in Rotterdam in 2000). The realisation of the project did not depend so much on its coordination (there was enthusiasm from both the OECD and SICI to proceed) but mostly on its financing; SICI member countries could not be asked to pay for such a expensive undertaking, although the Dutch ministry did suggest that they would pay for 30% of the project, if another country agreed to do the same, too. Therefore, the idea was discussed with Anders Hingel and the Commission (in 2000), who decided to support the ESSE project (see below) instead. The study thus never happened –nonetheless, we think that it is particularly interesting to discuss it as it is a very telling case first, of the kinds of standardisation of judgement that were sought; and second in relation to the vibrancy of the activity that it produced between SICI and the OECD CERI. It was envisaged that the project would be based on an already established collaboration on the topic between England, Flanders and Lower Saxony. Its main

purpose would be to validate the reliability of inspector judgements, as well as point to areas of improvement and give evidence based on contextual factors; its aim was to devise a set of internationally comparable indicators for the inspection of teaching. The instrument to be devised was a structured form of direct observation of teaching behaviour and classroom management by inspectors and would consist by 24 categories. It was envisaged that the main deliverables of the study would be a set of indicators for teaching published at the OECD ‘Education at a glance’ and a technical report; the latter would be a joint publication between SICI and the OECD, which would provide with a more specific description of the indicators for ‘quality of teaching’ and would describe how the structured observation and assessment of these indicators is done. This work was not new; several SICI members, such as England, Scotland, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Flanders, Portugal and the Czech republic had already had frameworks for inspection in use, and also some INES members, such as New Zealand, Hong Kong, some Australian states and some US states had also had similar processes in place. The project was characterised as probably sharper than PISA, as ‘PISA results do not explain teaching, they are unable to explain different teaching methods’ (2001; 16). The project was received with enthusiasm from the SICI members:

There are great benefits in undertaking the joint inspection work. We learn from one another through discussion. We learn even more about the principles and processes of inspection by working alongside one another in schools on real inspections…As inspectors we have a key contribution to make and this will be much valued by educational policy makers (SICI 2001;23)

Nevertheless, some concerns were also clear:

The political drive will be for sharp comparisons that rank educational provision in the different countries. This will be helpful in highlighting strengths and witnesses, but may be threatening to individual inspectorates (SICI 2001;23).

In relation to this project and the ‘feasibility of international comparable classroom observations’,

With respect to methodology there is first of all the challenge of exploiting the unique advantages of inspectors, as ‘educational connoisseurs’, and combining these with the requirements of empirical educational research which demand structure and standardisation. The ‘marriage’ of the two approaches generally lead to observation methods that allow for the use of relatively global observation techniques which still contain sufficient structure to be amenable to assessing inter-rater reliability (2001; 30)

Finally, given the lack of funding to move the project forward, the trio of key figures working with SICI, Jaap Scheerens, Wim van de Gift and Johan van Bruggen decided that they should proceed one step at a time –and the step at this stage was to let the

three afore-mentioned bilateral projects continue and develop: these were a bilateral project between the Dutch Inspectorate and Ofsted; another one between the Dutch and the Flemish inspectorate; and a third one between the Dutch and Lower Saxony. In particular, in the project between OFSTED and the Dutch Inspectorate some of the central questions asked were:

Do English and Dutch inspectors agree on the judgement ‘satisfactory’ or ‘unsatisfactory’ when judging the same lesson? Are English inspectors more severe or more lenient as Dutch or Flemish inspections are? Do lessons which get high grades on the English observation instrument get also high grades on the Dutch observation instrument or with the Flemish observation procedure? (2003; 45)

To return to the trio’s ‘plan’,

The idea is: let the NL inspectorate be the linking pin and try to optimize the coordination in terms of sampling, interpretation of indicators etc….let an advisory committee with a few experts from Network C and A and/or staff from the OECD/INES-secretariat advise about methodological and analytical issues with a view on a later broader project with more participants…let one or two other inspectorates host one or two SICI workshops where the three projects and provisional results are discussed and where also preparatory discussions are organised about further development of the idea…let a broader workshop (late in 2003) with inspectors and with people from OECD-circles evaluate the progress in the bilateral projects and the idea about a broader SICI-project (2003; 43).

Despite the fact that this project never came to fruition (and it would be interesting to find out more about why the ESSE (see below) project was prioritised by the Commission rather than this one) , this is a very insightful view of the ways that large comparative assessment projects are being ‘made’ to happen. We have seen first, the key role of the Dutch inspectorate in moving the agenda forward, having convinced its ministry to pay for some of the overheads and trying to convince other member countries, too; second, the substantial role of other organisations to either push the idea forward (like the OECD) or stop it, perhaps because of different policy priorities or tensions that the project results might have produced (like the Commission); third, the fundamental impact of the incremental progress through the organisation of bilateral collaborations with one inspectorate serving as the ‘linking pin’ in the process; and finally, the role of workshops and meetings in persuading others about the viability and benefits of the project in order to secure their participation and the funding of ‘the idea’.

The Effective school self-evaluation project and the Scottish influenceThe ‘Effective School Self-Evaluation’ project (ESSE) has been one of the most significant projects SICI has undertaken. Funded by the European Commission

(Socrates 6.1), the ESSE project ran for two years (2001-2003) and had the following aims:

Identify key indicators for evaluating the effectiveness of school self-evaluation;

Develop a methodology for inspecting school self-evaluation; Identify the weaknesses of school self-evaluation across countries and regions; Produce an analysis of how self-evaluation and external evaluation can most

effectively be combined; and Produce case studies of effective self-evaluation in practice.

Thirteen European countries and regions1 took part in the project which comprised mainly of a questionnaire survey, as well as documentation and personal contacts. The combined use of these sources led to the development of a draft case study for each participating region which was later sent to the respondents in order to check for accuracy of the information supplied. The questionnaire dealt with a series of issues such as the statutory position of self-evaluation in the different countries/ regions; benchmarking; indicators, standards, criteria and conceptual frameworks to evaluate the quality of school self-evaluation; stakeholders in the school self-evaluation process; the role of the inspectorate; external inspection of the quality and effectiveness of the schools self-evaluation process; and other similar areas (European Commision-SICI, 2001)

Chris Webb, from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education (HMIE) in Scotland was the manager of the project. During the SICI ESSE workshop in Copenhagen in 2005, which, according to Erik Nexelmann, the Head of Division in the Danish Ministry of Education, was a ‘milestone in the ESSE project’ (SICI Report, 2005, online), Webb stated that the project took its starting point in the European Union’s strategic target for 2010 to be the most competitive, dynamic and knowledge-based economy in the world. According to Webb, this target required a modernisation of the education systems in Europe; it called for inspections across Europe to play a role in encouraging transparency, quality evaluation and self-evaluation. Webb also stressed that ‘school self-evaluation does not exist in a vacuum, but in a context where external support and benchmarks are important’ (SICI Report, 2005, online). The external support, for Webb, can be found in the form of statistical data for comparison, sets of quality standards and training in self-evaluation methods. Webb listed the features of schools with ‘high capacity’ as those which promote leadership, reflective and systematic self-evaluation and systematic tracking and evaluation of pupils’ progress. Finally, the ESSE project manager stressed the need for balance between self-evaluation and external evaluation, ‘to prevent schools …resulting to self-delusion’ (SICI Report, 2005, online).

1 These were England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, the Czech republic, Portugal, France, the French-speaking community of Belgium, Hesse, Saxony and Denmark –Denmark, although it does not have an inspection system, has a log tradition of quality assurance processes. Therefore, the focus in Denmark was on the role of the Danish national advisors.

The final report from the project outlines the ‘ESSE framework’ (SICI, online) which provides the rationale behind self-evaluation and sets out the quality indicators which range from level 4 (very good) to level 1 (unsatisfactory). These indicators are applied in what they are described as the following ‘key areas’:

Key Area 1 - Vision and strategyQI 1.1 Aims and valuesQI 1.2 Strategy and policy for self-evaluation and improvement Key Area 2 - Evaluation and improvement of key inputsQI 2.1 Staff/ human resources Key Area 3 - Evaluation and improvement of key processesQI 3.1 Policies, guidelines and standardsQI 3.2 Planning and implementation of self-evaluation activitiesQI 3.3 Planning and implementation of action for improvementKey Area 4 – Evaluation and Impact on outcomes QI 4.1 Evaluation and improvement of key outcomesQI 4.2 Impact of self-evaluation on improving key outcomes The report provides guidelines for conducting evaluation visits using the above framework of quality indicators, explores the balance between internal and external evaluation and contains country reports which set out the strengths in self-evaluation in the countries/ regions that participated in the project. Finally, the report features case studies of effective school self-evaluation.

The Scottish contribution to the ESSE project has been crucial. This is not only to be seen in the similarities of the recommendations of the final project report with quality indicators set in the ‘How good is our school’ reports, but crucially through the personal contacts and travelling of ideas and people from Scotland to the other participating countries. According to a Scottish policy actor describing in general the position of Scotland within the European education space and specifically in relation to the concept of self-evaluation:

Well, we feedback to people. We find a lot of the time we are … this sounds slightly odd, but we’re actually giving more than we’re necessarily taking out. Partly because of the sort of area of work in which we are ... particularly with the accession nations that we’re actually, in a sense, ahead of the game in Scotland… we have, for instance, presented on what we do in Scotland. And that’s caused considerable interest and they’ve come back to us and asked for more. … Well on the entire self-evaluation system in Scotland. … So how, you know, how inspection fits with evaluation. Some of these countries have inspectorates, some don’t. So they’re always interested in that relationship. They’re interested in what the expectations of schools are.

Interviewees were keen to express the unique contribution of Scotland to other European nations, often in juxtaposition to their English counterparts. Indeed, one could evidence an almost anxiety to distinguish Scottish policies from those in England:

I actually spoke recently at an event over at just outside Rome. It was the Italian group…. And the subject was very much self-evaluation and I gave a presentation and talked about the Scottish context .... And our English counterpart gave a presentation and talked about the PANDA system. And this incredible sort of complex …… machine and they were able to tell by the age of 11 ½ how youngsters will perform when they are x, y and z.

Finally, apart from the informal contacts and exchanges, there was evidence of more formalised, contractual ‘consultancy’ work, through which Scotland has been spreading the ‘self-evaluation’ word around in Europe:

That was much more people, individual countries within that group being aware that Scotland was doing something they found quite interesting and productive and constructive. And they came to us and were interested. And therefore we’ve had this dialogue …There is a lot of … a lot of European links. And, for instance, and the visits to Scotland and the relationship will be of a number of different kinds. Some will be straightforward. A contract between us and, say, Malta and the Czech Republic to provide various services which involves staff development training.

SICI and Eastern Europe: early links

SICI has also been very active in Eastern Europe, having developed a strategy to ‘support development’ after the publication of the OECD country reviews of the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania and Romania. In 2001, at the SICI General Assembly it was decided that the focus of such support should be on the effective evaluation of the quality of the schools, ‘focussing on key aspects of principles and practice of quality assurance and inspection’ (2001; 9). It is interesting to note that in the years to come the organisation of workshops, as well as bilateral and multilateral collaboration between inspections with members of old, traditional inspectors visiting and ‘teaching’ new, Eastern inspectorates became very common and one of the major challenges of the expansion of SICI. In any case, SICI can be identified here as a key player in the Europeanisation of the so-called accession countries, as the European Commission committed itself to paying for the organisation of such exchanges, since ‘SICI has built up expertise in running workshops. SICI could do this well and SICI would make a valuable contribution to educational development in an expanding Europe’ (2001; 9). The UK countries seemed already quite engaged in such activity, as England had already had bilateral agreements to work with Croatia, Estonia and Romania, and Scotland had already been working with Romania, too. Finally, France had a bilateral agreement with Kosovo.

C. SICI : scenarios, enlargement and challenges Before closing this section, it would be interesting to examine the ways that SICI envisaged and planned its future development. In 2004, in the SICI Newsletter, a number of potential threats to the inspectors as professionals were starting to emerge. Some of them were identified as the following:

(a) increased school autonomy which on the one hand challenges fixed national standards and on the other, requires individual attention and clarity of the standards applied; (b) the tradition to evaluate teaching and schools as institutions as against the newer trends which wanted inspectors to focus on the evaluation of learning; (c)the fact that technology has entered the classroom in so radical ways that very often processes that could be easily observed and assessed now take place in cyber space and are thus invisible to inspectors; (d) the need to be able to assess the learning that takes place outside the classroom and the school curriculum; (e) the direct link between educational performance and economic competitiveness which demands ‘independent and reliable analysis’; (f) and finally the trend towards self-evaluation which suggests that inspections would not be ‘full’ anymore, but proportionate, and hence more limited (2004).

As a response to these challenges two possible scenarios for the future of SICI were developed; according to the text, these scenarios were not ‘mutually exclusive…they overlap with one another’:

Scenario 1: SICI will improve its performance as a service organisation for its members

The main characteristics of SICI in this scenario is that SICI continues and improves what it was already doing; this is a network of inspectorates in Europe that ‘provides added value from a European perspective for the national organisations that constitute its membership’ (2004; 13). The main objectives under this scenario are the following:

To promote professional development of inspectors and inspectorates To facilitate information exchanges between inspectors and inspectorates To provide access to information sources relevant to inspectors and

inspectorates To facilitate cooperation between its members

The ways that SICI would go about delivering these objectives are the tools that it was already using, namely publications like the Blue Book, a website and a newsletter, workshops as well as a new ‘advanced digital platform for information, communication and cooperation’.

Scenario 2: SICI will be a European education organisation specialising in the evaluation of education practices.

In this second scenario, it is envisaged that SICI operates as in scenario 1 but also has a much more strengthened role in terms of its visibility in education debates in Europe. In particular, ‘SICI in this scenario is an expert organisation recognised as such by agencies outside the immediate membership, It provides added value by offering expertise on the evaluation of education practices and comparative data and analyses of key aspects of education in Europe’ (2004; 13). SICI’s main objectives in this scenario are:

To give international access to the expertise of national inspectorates To raise the quality of the education debate in Europe To enhance the status of national inspectorates To strengthen the position and expertise of national inspectorates by

international cooperation (2004; 14)

The SICI expansion of work in the second scenario was intended to take place through particular kinds of tools and ideas:

Instruments to evaluate education departments Contributing to European projects that assess education developments Reports on trends in European schools based on national data and analyses Participation in European education debates Workshops and seminars on education topics, not just for Inspectors but also

for European education policy makers: the European Commission, national governments, education organisations etc (2004; 14).

SICI considered this larger role for itself because of the challenges described above, developments in European education governance (through the Lisbon process), and ‘the unique “selling points” of inspectorates and the competition from other evaluators and analysts’ (2004;16). The formative years of SICI evolved alongside important developments at the European level, like the Open Method of Coordination and the increased significance of education in it, as well as the emergence of new, powerful actors, like the OECD through the impact of PISA; this led to the realisation by inspectorates that the era of unquestioned power and authority at the national level belonged to the past. Instead,

inspectorates are today only one among many institutions and organisations that produce evaluative material on schools, teaching and learning. The place, role and status of inspectorates can longer be taken for granted. The quality of their products and services will increasingly be compared with other sources and could be challenged by other evaluators….Like all public services, external evaluation of schools will increasingly be challenged to show its value for education and for society at large. Failing this challenge will endanger the future of inspectorates, as they will be failing to deliver the information and analyses that our societies need (2004; 18).

D. SICI today: enlargement, challenges and impact The present picture of SICI resembles more an enlarged, expanded version of the first scenario, rather than the larger role proposed in the second scenario. SICI operates still mainly as a network of inspectorates across Europe, which however has become much bigger in size than before and now includes 34 members. However, the dominant mode of most of its activities, which are still mainly workshops, seminars, conferences, the revision of the Blue Book and an improved (and expensive) website, seems to have changed, as a lot of its work and focus is a form of the older, more established inspectorates ‘teaching’ the younger members (which are mainly Eastern European of accession countries) in order to improve the quality of the inspection

processes and outcomes. According to Bruggen, there are two ‘generations’ of inspectorates in Europe:

To this first generation belong the inspectorates of England (Ofsted), Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Netherlands, Flanders, Wales, Portugal, Ireland, the Czech Republic. The second generation started from 2003 on; they often look at the ‘older’ inspectorates in order to learn from their experiences. To this second generation belong: Sweden, Norway, Slovakia, most parts of Spain, the 19 German Laender with their systems of full inspection –but all a little bit different, Estonia, the German-speaking Swiss cantons, France (2010;39)

Indeed, in many cases the newer inspectorates appear more organised in terms of benchmarking teaching and learning against which observations and judgements are being drawn. Bruggen brings the German Laender as an example of such ‘indicators and practice descriptors’ (2010; 59) and continues:

My impression is that older inspectorates like the inspectorates of England, the Netherlands and other ones are less detailed in these lists and leave more (professional) room for the ‘clinical eye’ and the professional judgement of their inspectors (2010; 59).

Arguably, this process to a great degree had already began with the ESSE project, which although having started as a project to measure the effectiveness of self-evaluation in the participant inspectorates, it soon turned out to become a flagship initiative through which, as we saw above, the Scottish inspectorate would travel around Europe inducting other inspectors on the merits of promoting internal school evaluation.

This would also herald a new era for the swing of the pendulum of influence within SICI from the English OFSTED to a far more influential role for the Scottish HMIE, who post-ESSE would start a far more intense international activity, often introducing themselves as follows:

First thing I would like to say is that Scotland is not England –all that you know about Ofsted, forget. (Donaldson speech, Joint seminar SICI-French inspectorates, December 2008).

According to one of our interviewees, the Scottish HMIE are key players in SICI, as

they have a lot of contacts.. we have a lot of bilateral cooperation and the Scottish inspectorate is very strong in the bilaterals. I think it was last November, they organized a training week where inspectorate in Europe can go for one week and they are training all aspects of inspection. They give information about how they are working. Also very good cooperation with the Czech republic because they have trained a lot of inspectors there.

An example of this teaching role that SICI has adopted over recent years and the influence of some inspectorates in the direction of this work is the establishment of the SICI Academy, SIA (SICI Inspection Academy), which works mainly on externally-funded projects, and was created as the SICI president Graham Donaldson

said ‘like the Americans say, we should try not to waste a good crisis’. The SICI Academy is run by another Scottish former HMIE, Isobel McGregor and works on the basis that inspectors need to be innovative and flexible and not do what they have always done. The emphasis is very much on connectivity through the database and the website, with however a lot of the focus also on face to face meetings and the social aspects that have always been there for SICI members: almost all SICI newsletters are always rich in images of the participating inspectors socialising in dinners, boat trips etc. The focus of inspection work is still centred around the ‘unique access to the reality of the classroom’, while at the same time needing to constantly face and respond to the challenge of standardisation:

that’s why we, the European inspectors, are the only people going into the classroom , going to see how qualitative lessons are given. All the others don’t do it, they just have data. Also it is not so easy for us to ‘learn’ schools to manage the data because we use data, communicate with schools, and they have to learn statistics. Not every teacher can read the tables we make. We are investing in how schools learn data.

Fundamentally, when society hires an inspector, it hires the ability to make judgements and to establish relationships (SICI 2010; 15)

Despite the earlier fears for expansion that would render meaningful debate more problematic, SICI has expanded considerably, and has also new members ‘in the pipeline’, such as Trentino in North Italy, Catalonia, Port of Spain, Serbia and Albania – this is an unprecedented growth and proof perhaps of new problems and challenges for inspectors in Europe. According to a SICI member,

we had only 13 members, then 16 and now…we have grown from 16 to 29 members and probably this year to 33/34. It’s growing tremendously – its huge. It’s all work of volunteers. I have my full time job and I am just a volunteer to be in the secretariat and to be SecGen and we have somebody who works for SICI p/t or quarter time. So 29/ 30 members is a lot of work.

What are the current changes that have brought such a large expansion about?

There is a lot of political changes in Europe, and there is also a lot of discussion about the work of external evaluation because a lot of inspectorates are under pressure. They have to prove that they have an added value on the quality of education .. that’s a really new question. One of the items is that there is an economic crisis, the cut down of money, a looking for shortcuts, and yes, on the inspectorate. And more and more we have a liberalistic idea on outcomes, on risk based analyses, and figures are more important today. Everywhere in Europe there is a change of direction in inspection. Most of the first countries which were members of SICI, they all had a system of full inspection, they were going to a school and everything was inspected, all the subjects, indicators of leadership, communication, everything. But I think it was our Minister who said ‘hey, you have visited twice the schools , twice a full inspection, why is it necessary in your third round to have a full inspection. Again you

have to have a differentiated inspection, and that’s what’s all over Europe.

Over the years, SICI has become more experienced and complex in its organizational form. It is an association which which is capable of consulting, learning and reviewing its purposes and work planning. Its earlier attempts at large scale projects seems to have been replaced by a system of delivery of training workshops, bilateral projects and consultancy operations. It is not ‘just’ an association then, it is a proactive force, with its own goals, within a European union which has grown in scale and in scope. It is not the same thing to be an inspector now as it was ten years ago.

Because they always want to learn from each other. Bilateral working was about ICT, a lot of bilateral working . There was a lot of projects, we went to several countries to have common observations ‘how do you define quality’’ what about indicators of leadership ‘ – we had the start of that but it was more sensitive, leadership in school. ICT was more neutral.

Associations, like networks, are unstable though. They need key actors to create stability and forward movement, and finding and supporting these key actors is crucial to SICI’s development and its aims for its European members.

…formerly they had a big role in SICI, now what you see– what I think about SICI – sometimes it(is) depending on people. Your organization is as strong as the people representing the country. When an Inspectorate or the responsible [person of the Inspectorate], thinks that SICI is an important organization, they are going to send strong people there – I think that’s what we see now in the EC, we have Sweden, we have Scotland [Graham], we have the Netherlands [they have an international department there], the Czech republic is everywhere and has always been very engaged with SICI since the start, France [its thinking about it and they always want to change but its a very specific system]. Just like Spain.…but you don’t have contacts just inside your country you also have contacts abroad ..and that’s what we don’t differ so much, because we have the same concerns…and that’s not only in Europe because we have the situations all over the world, because our inspectorate we also have projects in Latin America and Africa

I think actually the multi lateral and bilateral arrangements are growing more and more because every member is responsible for a group of members and in December I said contact your group, send the agenda out, ask if they have other points to discuss. So that’s how we are able to contact in small groups and also asks some more engagement from member countries.

It is SICI’s development arm, the Academy, which enables the inspectorates to work closely with each other and support the new Inspectorates in its (reflexive) model of inspection. A recent edition of the Academy’s Newsletter refers to the following events in late 2010

Romania links with Scotland, Lithuania, Portugal and SpainScotland and Norway in discussions on education policy and evaluationNetherlands inspectors in the People’s Republic of ChinaScotland Inspectorate (HMIE) offers International Training EventBuilding an inspection system in Serbia Training inspectors in RomaniaAs it organizes, it is capable of achieving more of its goals, as a reflection of its own aims and the situation it is facing across Europe, that is, the relation between data systems and qualitative judgment.

DiscussionSICI represents national inspectorates which appear to be satisfied with its organization and operation, faced with the challenges of growth and of change, over the last ten years, and they regard it as a functioning and supportive association.However, SICI is operating within a problematic European context, reflecting the policy changes in its national constituents. For example, inspectorates are working in often neo-liberal or quasi-market contexts in which the use of private agencies and companies, and private consultancies, is much more common than before, and SICI members are not in the position of sole supplier of data and expertise to their governments at all levels. They are in competition for work, and so are producing judgements in competitive environments. They themselves are being judged and evaluated (which might explain in part their own movement to inspect themselves) and so, are increasingly defending and substantiating their judgements as valid.SICI members are facing new directions or pressures in their work. They used to write directly for governments, and yet in local choice markets, they are working for parents, and they are under pressure from schools to deliver helpful judgements into their local markets. Are governments still dependent on their reports on quality, and still regard them as benchmarks?Market based societies seem to be dependent on fast data and quick judgement. (Nearly) automated data systems have appeared to offer quick reliable service and lower cost, yet inspectorates have provided first hand accounts from inside classrooms and schools. They promise explanation and not just information and fast data –however, they come at a cost. Societies which still demand some national steering or governmental responsibility also seem to want quality to be developed and stimulated: they still want schools to create society through their efforts. In this case, inspectors balance their two functions again – examining and supporting. As yet, we do not know how inspectors deal with these contexts, and what working as an inspector today actually means.

References

SICI (2001) Report of the General Assembly –Draft, Utrecht.SICI (2002) SICI Executive Committee Meeting Minutes , Paris, 21st and 22nd January 2002.

SICI (2002b) Strategic Plan 2002-2004, SICI Secretariat: Ofsted, updated in 2003 by SICI Secretariat: Northern IrelandSICI (2004) Newsletter, no.30SICI (2010) SIA Newsletter, Issue 1. SICI (2010b) SIA Newsletter, Issue 2. SICI Conference and General Assembly Newletter (2010)SICI newsletter, number 30, December 2004SICI Strategic Plan 2002-2004, prepared by SICI Secretariat, OFSTED, London 2002 and updated by the SICI Secretariat, Northern Ireland, 2003. SICI. 1989. Newsletter. http://www.sici-inspectorates.org/ww/en/pub/sici/publication/ newsletter_archive.htm (accessed 24 June, 2008).SICI. 2000. Newsletter. http://www.sici-inspectorates.org/ww/en/pub/sici/publication/ newsletter_archive.htm (accessed June 23, 2008).SICI. 2005. SICI Workshop on effective school self-evaluation (ESSE) – Report of the SICI Workshop held in Copenhagen, January 20–21. http://www.sici-inspectorates.org/ww/en/pub/sici/publication/workshop_reports_since_2006.htm (accessed 27 June 2008).Tersmette, E. (2001) ‘Benchmarking of Quality of Education: A European Perspective’, International Meeting on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Netherlands Inspectorate of Education, Inspecting in a new age, 19 October 2001, Utrecht.Van Bruggen, J. (2010) Inspectorates of Education in Europe; some comparative remarks about their tasks and work, SICI.