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United in Diversity Attainment targets in Flemish Education Governance
GCES Closing Conference Brussels 17 October 2016
Rien Rouw
• The Flemish Education System in general
• The role of attainment targets
• Complexity perspective
• Findings
• Policy implications
Contents
• Freedom of education: • Freedom for citizens to establish schools
• Freedom for parents to choose schools
• High degree of autonomy for schools • Hiring staff
• Deciding on curriculum
• Deciding on graduation / pass or fail
• Strong representative organisations of schoolboards
• Strong support organisations: pedagogical advisory services
• A long tradition of administrative representation
The Flemish Education system
The Education Policy Arena
Unions
Inspectorate
Political parties
Parents / Parent
organisations
Teachers
Schoolleaders
Umbrella organisations
Pupils
Social partners Education policy
Social entrepreneurs
Ministry of Education
Flemish Education
council
Publishers
National Assessment Programme
Special committees
School boards
Researchers
Pedagogical Advisory Services
• Attainment targets are educational goals to be met by pupils in terms of knowledge, insight, attitudes and skills, both transversal to the curriculum and subject-related.
• Applicable in primary and secondary education since the late 1990’s.
• Schools need to comply with the attainment targets in order to be funded.
• Inspectorate checks if schools implement attainment targets.
System of attainment targets
Implementation ladder of attainment targets
• Whole-of-system approach • One system, more than the sum of its parts
• Components and Interactions yield unpredictable results
• Fragmented nor hierarchical-linear governance works
• Collaborative governance • All stakeholders need to be involved
• Cooperation rather than competition
• System responsibility is shared among stakeholders
• Policy learning • Continuous learning and improving to handle unpredictability
• Continuous monitoring and evaluation to provide timely feedback
• Requires data literary and evaluation literacy
Complexity Perspective
Findings: ownership
On track
• Tradition of participatory governance
• Strong intermediary organisations for vertical mediation
• Some innovative participatory trajectories engaging a broad range of stakeholders
Challenge
• Administrative representation model
• Teachers and school leaders indirectly involved in design attainment targets
• ‘Lost in translation’: intermediating layers of interpretation and adaptation
• Position of key stakeholders in broad participatory trajectories not clear
Findings: implementation strategy
On track
• Pedagogical Advisory Services (PBDs) linking pin across the implementation ladder
• Nascent signs of collaboration between umbrella organisations
Challenge
• Lack of coherence in renewing attainment targets
• Lack of ‘coordination force’ in implementation
• Weak links between constituent elements of the system
Findings: capacity building
On track
• High rate of participation in professional development in general
• Training and support offered by Pedagogical Advisory Services
Challenge
• Fragmented participation in pd in general
• Variation in capacity across schools and teachers
• Many schools lack collective approach to capacity building
• No collaborative and sustainable capacity building initiative at system level
• Horizontal capacity building in its infancy
Findings: evaluation and feedback
On track
• Strong programme of national assessments
• Ministry provides schools and the broader public with data
• PBDs support policy making capacity at school level
• Inspectorate stimulates application of
Challenge
• Picture at system level not complete
• Variation in data literacy and evaluation capacity at school level
• Create a more structural platform for debate for a broad range of stakeholders
• In the policy design phase engage with key stakeholders beyond representative organisations
• Build a ‘guiding coalition’ and formulate a collaborative strategic agenda to align the making and implementation of attainment targets and learning plans
• Align capacity building initiatives to form a strong effort to strengthen capacity at school level and build a culture of evaluation and learning
Policy implications
Thank you for your attention!
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/5jlrb8ftvqs1-en
