Current decentralization of the school system and corresponding increase of school autonomy in various areas of their operation, which takes place not only in the Czech Republic but also in many other European countries (see. School…, 2007) is accompanied by new possibilities for quality improvement in the whole educational system including the performance of particular schools. The extent of school autonomy thus impacts demands laid on their own work with feedback, because the external supervision or quality evaluation are not sufficient themselves. At the same time it also brings out the need to expand the current concept of school accountability. A logical consequence is then e.g. an outer pressure on the implementation of self-evaluation processes (see. OECD, 1998; Vašťatková, Prášilová, 2009; EQARF, 2010 and others). In the Czech Republic, the self-evaluation /1/ of pre-primary, primary and secondary schools has become an obligation (it is defined by the so-called School Act, Act 563/2004 Coll. and by compulsory framework educational programmes for schools at ISCED 1, 2, 3), since it is expected to significantly influence their quality improvement (as supported by various partial researches e.g. Vašťatková, 2007; Pol, 2008 and others). Even these days, the internal evaluation is rather a new element in the Czech environment (as supported by various researches, investigations of Czech School Inspectorate etc.). Nonetheless until recently nearly no official methodical support for schools became valid /2/, many self-evaluation tools have been created “underway” etc. 
However, the situation may change soon as there is a national system project that will be presented in the poster. The running project Road to Quality Improvement: Introduction of the System of Self-Evaluation (2009-2012) tries to meet majority of current schools´ needs (such as needs for consultancy support, training, methodology support, self-evaluation tools … except for the financial support) and it also attempts to reflect various other participants´ expectations (such as school founders, school partners, inspectorate etc.). In other words, the objective of this project is to support self-evaluation processes at various schools (kindergartens, basic schools, grammar schools, secondary technical and vocational schools, basic art schools, conservatoires and tertiary professional schools), to find the balance between self-evaluation and external evaluation in co-operation with schools, their founding entities and the Czech School Inspectorate.  




Notes:
/1/ The concept of school self-evaluation is understood as one of the possible, desirable forms of school internal evaluation.
/2/ The support is highly needed due to the newness of the concept that when realising in practice requires ability to combine knowledge from various disciplines such as educational evaluation, education (and its methodology), sociology, psychology, law and others.

   

Act No. 561/2004 Coll., on Pre-school, basic, high-school, advanced vocational training and other education [online]. Available at: . EQAVET (2010) [online]. Available at: OECD. (1998). Education at a glance. Paris. POL, M. (2007). School in transformation. Brno : Masaryk University. School Autonomy in Europe. Policies and Measures. Eurydice. (2007). [online]. Available at: VAŠŤATKOVÁ, J. (2007) Introduction to school self-evaluation. Olomouc: Palacky university. VAŠŤATKOVÁ, J. PRÁŠILOVÁ, M. (2009) Possibilities and Reality of Benchmarking. Programmes and Presentations ECER 2009. Available at: < http://www.eera-ecer.eu/ecer-programmes-and-presentations/conference/ ecer2009/contribution/1773/?no_cache=1&cHash=3bf1474361 >