quality concerns in education

Quality Education: Concept, Indicators of Quality, Setting Standards for Performance: The Present Status of Quality Education in India: Status and Prospect Delor’s Commission Report                                                                             on Quality

Definition of Quality Education

"A good quality education is one that provides all learners with capabilities they require to become economically productive, develop sustainable livelihoods, contribute to peaceful and democratic societies and enhance individual well-being. The learning outcomes that are required vary according to context but at the end of the basic education cycle must include threshold levels of literacy and numeracy, basic scientific knowledge and life skills including awareness and prevention of disease. Capacity development to improve the quality of teachers and other education stakeholders is crucial throughout this process."

Quality Concern in Education

The aims of education reflect the current needs and aspirations of a society as well as its lasting values, and the immediate concerns of a community as well as broad human ideals. Locating the term quality in educational discourse is now a universal concern today. ‘Quality is somewhat problematic: like beauty, it lies in the eyes – or rather the mind of the beholder’ (Cliff. et al. (1987). Quality has been extensively defined by Dewney et al. (1994) as, ‘meeting, exceeding and delighting customer’s needs and expectations with the recognition that these needs and desires will change over time.’

The belief that quality goes with privilege is clearly irreconcilable with vision of participatory democracy that India upholds and practises in the political sphere. Its practice in the sphere of education demands that the education available to all children in different regions and sections of society has a comparable quality.

The quality dimension needs to be examined from the point of view of the experiences designed for the child in terms of knowledge and skills. Assumption about the nature of knowledge and the child’s own nature shapes the school ethos and the approaches used by those who prepare the syllabi and textbooks and by teachers as well. The representation of knowledge in text books and other materials need to be viewed from the larger perspective of the challenges facing humanity and the nation today. No subject in the school curriculum can stay aloof from these larger concerns, and therefore the selection of knowledge proposed to be included in each subject area requires careful examination in terms of socio-economic and cultural conditions and goals.

Quality in education includes a concern for quality of life in all its dimensions.

For the parents and students, quality education means, “improving the quality of education invariably means raising the levels of academic performance usually measured in the test scores in the various subjects which form part of school curriculum. With reference to education quality is a relative term and hard to define and even more difficult to measure. That is why educationists, scholars, educational policy makers and administrators do not come to same conclusion while discussing what makes good quality education or a qualitative education. However, parental aspirations for education are belied by endemic poverty and unequal social relations, and by lack of adequate provision of schooling of equitable quality.

Merely providing adequate infrastructure, teaching-learning material, adequate teaching and non-teaching staff, providing conducive atmosphere in the school for learning are not sufficient requirements towards the quality education. Along with this, components of the curriculum, viz. syllabus, pedagogy, examination, affiliation and accreditation standards are also important factors which need to be addressed while dealing with quality issues in education.

DIMENSIONS OF QUALITY EDUCATION

Education leads to empowerment: a process of strengthening individuals, organizations and communities so they get more control over their own situations and environments. Quality education is a crucial factor in combating poverty and inequality in society. In quality education, VVOB distinguishes six dimensions that all interventions of the organization need to meet.     

Equity

The VVOB definition refers to "all learners". This term refers to non-discrimination and equity. Equity in education means that personal and social circumstances such as gender, ethnic origin or family background are not obstacles to achieving educational potential and that all individuals reach at least a basic minimum level of skills. VVOB in particular focuses on gender equity.               

Contextualization and Relevance

Quality education cannot be based on a blueprint that is applicable in all situations. Solutions and adaptations of education systems must be based on the real needs of a country and/or community.

Child-friendly Teaching and Learning

Quality education puts the child in the centre and helps it to reach his or her full potential. Quality Education requires children’s active participation.

Sustainability

Educational change processes often need time to be realized by enhancing the capacities of local education authorities.

Balanced Approach

Quality education aims at developing a balanced set of capabilities of children they require to become economically productive, develop sustainable livelihoods, contribute to peaceful and democratic societies and enhance individual well-being.

Learning Outcomes

After completing a certain level of education, children must have developed a minimum standard of skills. Quality education requires a results-oriented approach

QUALITY INDICATOR

The quality indicators of school education should be translated from the aims of education, and that these indicators should be useful tools for measuring and monitoring school performance and value-added improvement in student performance in major domains of education. Broadly speaking, they should be used for the following purposes

Ø  Self-evaluation and development - to enable schools to assess their own performance over time, and take appropriate steps for improvement;

Ø  Information - to provide schools, teachers, parents, students and the community with the general profile of schools for reference and

Ø  Comparison - to enable comparison among schools of similar background or within the same quality circle.

Ø  The adequacy of the sample indicators in the consultation document, and the applicability of such indicators to all types of schools on a territory-wide basis

Ø  The difficulty of formulating a set of commonly acceptable, measurable and reliable indicators to assess the value-added performance of schools and individual students

Ø  The lack of resources or expertise for schools to develop indicators on their own and the suitability of using the internal school assessment scaled by the Academic Aptitude Test (AAT) as the basis to assess the academic achievement of students.

A well-developed framework of quality indicators should consist of the following:

Ø  School context and profile

Ø  Process indicators and

Ø  Output indicators

School context and profile

School context and profile should provide factual school data and vital statistics to reflect school characteristics (e.g. school facilities);

Teacher characteristics (e.g. number and professional qualifications of teachers)

Student characteristics (e.g. gender mix).

This will provide information on the background and progress of the schools.

  Process indicators

Process indicators should serve as a handy checklist to reflect whether and to what extent schools have provided the right teaching and learning environment for the development of quality education. They should help monitor overall school performance in the following aspects:

Ø  School culture and ethos

Ø  Effectiveness of a principal's leadership

Ø  Efforts of principals, teachers, students, parents, etc. in formulating and implementing school plans, and creating a shared vision and mission

Ø  School-based management

Ø  Development of formal procedures for setting school goals and evaluating progress towards these goals

Ø  Development of documents to outline school profiles, development plans, budgets and means of evaluating progress

Ø  Availability of written constitutions for the school management committees

Ø  Participation of teachers, parents and alumni in school management, development, planning, evaluation and decision-making

Ø  Development of formal procedures and resources for staff appraisal and staff development according to teachers' needs

Ø  Teaching and learning process

Ø  Provision of a balanced curriculum

Ø  Availability of school-based curriculum development and review

Ø  The use of different teaching and learning methods

Ø  Provision of incentives and other measures to monitor and evaluate student learning

Ø  Application of information technology to the teaching and learning process

Ø  Personal growth and development of students

Ø  Guidance and counselling

Ø  Moral and civic education

Ø  Availability of student organizations

Ø  Community service and liaison with external bodies e.g. partnership and networking with other schools, educational, business, community and government agencies in the development of quality school education.

Ø  Individual schools are expected to develop and fine-tune the process indicators according to their needs.

Output  indicators

Output indicators should measure the value-added improvement of students in both academic and non-academic domains at different learning stages, as a result of changes in factors affecting the student performance such as improvement in the teaching and learning environment. Examples of output indicators are:

Ø  Perception of teachers, parents and students of the relative progress made by students and students' performance in major educational domains, e.g. civic awareness and moral attitudes, participation and achievement in sports and other extra-curricular activities, social and communication skills, and willingness to serve the class, the schools, the family and the community

Ø  Ability to cope with pressure and changes

Ø  Academic achievement.

Ø  Value-added improvement of output indicators

The concept of value-added improvement should be adopted in assessing the performance of schools. This should provide a more appropriate and fairer basis for assessment than simply looking at the current level of performance. Apart from comparing the current effectiveness of different schools, individual school's performance over a period of time and a student's progress over the years (e.g. as he/she enters and leaves a school) should be measured.

The concept of value-added improvement in output indicators provides an incentive for all schools to make continuous improvement, and an equitable basis for self-evaluation and comparison among schools.

Schools of similar background or under the same school sponsoring bodies should also be encouraged to form quality circles on a voluntary basis to develop appropriate quality indicators for their own reference. They should share experience with other schools.

Measurement of non-academic performance

Academic achievement is the most used output indicator.

Measurement of academic achievement

Participation of front-line educators - The participation and contribution of front-line educators, who have first-hand knowledge of school education, are crucial for the development of effective indicators.

Delors commission report on quality education

The Delors Report was a report created by the Delors Commission in 1996. It proposed an integrated vision of education based on two key concepts, ‘learning throughout life’ and the four pillars of learning- to know, to do, and to live together. It was not in itself a blueprint for educational reform, but rather a basis for reflection and debate about what choices should be made in formulating policies. The report argued that choices about education were determined by choices about what kind of society we wished to live in. Beyond education’s immediate functionality, it considered the formation of the whole person to be an essential part of education’s purpose. The Delors Report was aligned closely with the moral and intellectual principles that underpin UNESCO, and therefore its analysis and recommendations were more humanistic and less instrumental and market-driven than other education reform studies of the time.

The Delors Report identified a number of tensions generated by technological, economic and social change. They included

• Tensions between the global and the local
• The universal and the particular
• Tradition and modernity
• The spiritual and the material
• Long term and short term considerations
• The need for competition and the ideal of equality of opportunity and
• The expansion of knowledge and our capacity to assimilate it

These seven tensions remain useful perspectives from which to view the current dynamics of social transformation. Some are taking on new meaning, with fresh tensions emerging. These include patterns of economic growth characterized by rising vulnerability, growing inequality, increased ecological stress, and rising intolerance and violence. Finally, while there has been progress in human rights, implementation of norms often remains a challenge.

The Present Status and Prospects of Education in India

A sub-committee of Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), which is the highest deliberative and advisory forum on education in the country, was, therefore, constituted in September, 2004. This Committee (2005) was assigned with a responsibility of preparing a blueprint for the Universalisation of secondary education. But still the goal of achieving universal enrolment in elementary education is a far distant dream.

Various developments in quality education

Education for the holistic development of the Adolescents - To nurture multiple abilities like linguistic or verbal ability, logical-mathematical ability, spatial ability, bodily kinesthetic or sports ability, musical ability, inter-personal ability, intra-personal ability and naturalist or environmental ability.

Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan

As a follow-up of the recommendations of the CABE Committee report, the MHRD has launched a scheme for universalisation of access to and improvement of quality at secondary stage in the year 2009 and has brought out a “Framework of implementation of Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan”. The framework provides a detailed road map for the implementation of access and equity related components of USE and also deliberates upon quality components providing norms largely for infrastructure requirements. Hence, a need was observed by various stakeholders for a document, which provides a vision and multi-layer strategic guidelines on quality improvement of secondary education.

The vision for secondary education is to make good quality education available, accessible and affordable to all young persons in the age group of 14-18 years (RMSA Framework, MHRD, 2009).

This vision statement points out towards three A’s i.e. Availability, Accessibility and Affordability of secondary education to the target group under the overarching objective of providing quality.

• Government institutions
• Schools and student enrolment
• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
• Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan
• The right of children to free and compulsory education act (2009)
• Assessments and outcomes
• Teacher training and qualifications
• Funding and expenditures
• Technology in schools
• Research and experiments in education
• Cost effectiveness of interventions

Every country has to engage in educational reform from time to time in terms of teaching, content and management of school education. Yet, however extensively the system may be reformed, the present basic functions of school education are likely to survive in the coming century and the key words for their survival might be the ‘quality’ and ‘relevance’ of school education.

Educational policy should address the question of the quality of school education from the following three aspects:

1. Upgrading the quality of teachers, through the adoption of the following policies and measures:

• The level of pre-service education of teachers, which is carried out at secondary-school level in some countries, should be raised to higher education level, as in the case of many industrially developed countries, which have created teachers’ colleges and universities. In some of those countries, graduate courses are offered in teacher education.

• Teachers’ certificates should indicate whether they are for primary school, secondary school, technical or vocational education, teaching the handicapped etc

• Recruitment and placement of teachers should reflect an equitable balance between the various subject-areas, experienced and less-experienced teachers, urban and rural areas, etc.

• In-service training is strongly recommended as lifelong education of all those engaged in the teaching profession to upgrade teaching capacities both in theory and practice. Curriculum development and related matters should be taken into account in the in-service training of teachers.

• Working conditions of teachers – such as class size, working hours/days and supporting facilities – should be considered.

• Teachers’ salaries should be high enough to attract promising young people to the teaching profession and a reasonable balance achieved between their salaries and those of other civil servants.

The formulation of a comprehensive teacher policy, combined with abovementioned measures, should be a matter of prime concern to the authorities concerned.

2. The design and development of the curriculum and related matters should be carried out by the authorities and professional groups concerned. The school curriculum reflects the contents of teacher-training courses. Teaching methods, textbooks, teaching materials and aids should be developed at the same time as the curriculum. In particular, computers and other information media should be utilized to enhance the process both of teaching and learning. Academic research achievements in natural and social sciences, and humanities should be taken into account in curriculum development. The important role of experimental studies, and experience of working and living with nature, should also be considered in the development of teaching and learning methods.

3. The improvement of school management is the third area in which school education can be upgraded. School is a fundamental educational establishment where practical educational activities are carried out systematically. Although in most cases teachers work alone in classrooms, they are members of a group which works together to develop what could be called a ‘school culture’. We can hardly expect high-quality school education without good leadership on the part of the headmaster and active co-operation of teachers in school management. Finally, improving the quality of school education considered from the three aspects mentioned above should be a fundamental policy issues in all countries, whatever their circumstances, in the coming century.

References  

http://www.vvob.be/vvob/en/education/our-vision-on-quality-education

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