Abstract:

Within the South African public school context, school evaluation is an example of a top-down school improvement mechanism which has been imposed by the post-apartheid government since 2001. The National Policy on Whole-school Evaluation (WSE Policy) mandates different education role-players to implement complementary internal and external whole-school evaluation processes culminating in the design of a compulsory school improvement plan (SIP). Although school evaluation is given a favourable policy implementation platform within the transforming public education landscape, several implementation difficulties perpetuate ―one key challenge being a lack of adequate technical evaluation capacity to undertake effective school evaluation. Technical evaluation capacity is understood as a set of interrelated data specific knowledge and skills ranging from a clearly articulated theory of change to rigorous data analysis and reporting. To this end, this study investigated the current technical evaluation capacity of school-based teaching and management staff to conduct effective school evaluation concurrently understanding how technical evaluation capacity manifests as a non-monolithic attribute across diverse school milieus in one of South Africa’s provinces, the Gauteng province. Using a qualitative study, the researchers explored, explained and interpreted the phenomenon of school evaluation, its processes, perspectives and experiences of a sampled group of school-based participants in relation to understanding the reciprocal implementation trajectory between technical evaluation expertise and school improvement dimensions. An interpretivist, non-probability sampling was used to select socially and culturally diverse cases from public secondary schools adhering to the research traditions underpinning focus-group and individual interviews. One of the main findings of the study revealed that there was a multi-layered deficiency of rigorous technical evaluation capacity across the public secondary school structure of the Gauteng province of South Africa. This technical capacity deficit contributed to school evaluation being fundamentally practised as a superficial once-off activity across diverse school milieus predominantly in support of compliance mandates, thus negatively impacting the relationship between school improvement policy and practice.

Keywords:

Internal whole-school evaluation, implementation, school management, technical evaluation capacity.