Background and Research Questions

         School evaluation is a systematic assessment of the process or outcomes of school based on a set of explicit standards for the purpose of decision-making and improvement. Other similar terms include school inspection, school audit, or school accreditation. All of them refer to the process of systematic collection of data on many aspects of school, including teacher quality and teaching, learning, and school management to reach a judgment on school quality and effectiveness.

         UK is well known for its school inspection. Ofsted is the national agency responsible for school inspection. In Taiwan, school inspection is a responsibility of local government. As such, the practice of school inspection vary greatly from city to city. In some cities, school evaluation does not exist. In the other cities, rigorous school evaluation has been implemented. School evaluation as an act of quality assurance does not seem to affect the quality of schools because Taiwan students perform well in international comparison with its diverse quality assurance system of schools. UK, with its rigorous school inspection policy applied almost to all schools, has an average performance in PISA(see http://www.bbc.com/news/education-25187997) . It is thus interesting to find out how school evaluation systems in two countries differ and how do they contribute to school improvement and student evaluation. 

The research questions to be addressed are as follows.

1. How are the school evaluation systems in Taiwan and UK designed? What are their roles and functions?

2. How are student performance emphasized and evaluated in school evaluation?

3. What contributions and limitations do school evaluation have towards improving student performance?

The contributing factors for variations of student achievements are a lot. It is possible that school evaluation has little to do with the student performance. However, serving as a mechanism for school quality assurance, it is important to examine the connections between student performance and school evaluation to advance the design of school evaluation in assuring the quality of schools. 

         In this paper, inspection and evaluation are considered as the same.

Literature Review

Two bodies of literature are examined. The first part is the design of school evaluation in UK and Taiwan. UK has a national-wide school inspection policy that covers almost all schools. Documents from Ofsted are examined and analyzed. In Taiwan, after reviewing the school evaluation policies across differing cities, the school evaluation of New Taipei City is analyzed in-depth for comparison. The scope of literature review includes the purposes of school evaluation (inspection), evaluation criteria, methods of data collection for judging school performance, and specifically, the role of student performance in student evaluation.  

         Another body of literature is test-based accountability. In some parts of the world, such as UK and Australia, test results have been used as an important piece of information in making judgment about school performance in school evaluation (inspection)(Knapp & Feldman, 2012).School evaluation is able to provide more authoritative information and suggestions on school improvement (Fitz & Lee, 1997; OZga, 2009; Schagen & Weston, 1998）。However, test-based accountability has its limitations. Critiques include the ignorance the learning of complicated skills, test-driven teaching, and lack of innovation and creativity in teaching. Failing to consider the value schools add to students is another criticism.

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