School Assessment and Evaluation

[talisman01]

I just thought I would share this with you but I am also wondering if your school is going, or has gone through, the same pain.

I work in a provincial school in an Isaan village. My school is one of twelve such schools in my province. All twelve schools, and I understand all government schools also, and similar provincial/government schools throughout the country, are in the process of being assessed and evaluated. The inspectors, three apparently, are coming from Bangkok and will begin the assessment of my school a week today.

My school was informed about the forthcoming inspection almost three months ago. Since then, a two-person provincial team has visited the school to check that all the administrative files and folders were in order. They were but, even so, three teachers were despatched to Bangkok to attend a big three-day seminar recently, attended by teachers and Directors from across Thailand, at which they were told to do certain paperwork this way and not that way so ma ny things had to be changed.

Since then, the pace of getting reading has hotted up considerably. A lot of money is being spent on environmental work to make the schools grounds and flower beds etc look nice and well loved - they have never received such TLC before! Students and frantically decorating classrooms while all classes have been suspended. As of today, we now have some students playing the national anthem on Ankalungs at assembly and students have been informed about a newly create school motto, teachers are busy doing last minute projects to have something to show, and lesson plans even have to be created for a full academic year....and so it goes on.

The inspectors will be scrutinising the admin folders and files, checking out all the facilities (there are few!!), checking out the environment, sitting in on at least one class of each teacher, asking random students things such as the new motto etc etc.

I have been at my school for just over three years and I can't help wondering why, if all this TLC work is deemed necessary, why did it take the threat of an inspection to get it done when, IMO, it is far easier to keep things looking good rather than getting there from scratch.

If your school has been evaluated, how did it go ? If your school didn't pass - a nearby school failed and will have to be re-evaluated later - what was the Thai staff reaction ?

Talisman

[inzman]

My school was evaluated a year ago. I was told its done every 2 years. Was not a problem.

[onlycw]

Oh, that explains the dozen of workers, re-planting flowers etc. Must mean my school will be evaluated soon.

[culicine]

Schools need to get re-accredited every few years or so. We seem to have ministry officials come to my private school every year. I'm not sure about schools, but at my wife's college, if they get an excellent score, they can get a 5-year accreditation - so there won't be inspected for another 5 years. Other's could get 2 or three years. But yes, there is a lot of prep to impress the inspectors. I've never, in 13 years, had an inspector come into my room and see my teaching. They seem to be more interested in the paperwork. And all admin is obsessed about making the school beautiful, though I think the inspectors can see past that:)

[Scott]

We have a Board of Directors for our school and its affiliates, so we get inspected by them. We also get inspected by the MOE. They make a visit about once a year and the inspection is once every 3 to 5 years. They just spent 3 days at one of the schools I take care of. The school is new, so the review was part of an on-going process. It went well and was especially nice because the Admin was very busy and left the foreign teachers alone.

The emphasis is on a lot of fluff. The paper work has to be in order and beautifully written. The ink has to be in the right color. The gardens must be beautiful and what is really important is that the bulletin boards are beautiful. God help them if they are not up to scratch on the singing of the National Anthem.

They don't usually pay much attention to foreign teachers.

They do check our lesson plans, mostly to see that we have them. There really wasn't anyone who was proficient enough in English to actually review them.

[sirchai]

We've got a "few" events coming up. A) Third visit of a bunch of hypocrites to "inspect" our Anuban one and two, as the King's Award will be given to only two schools. Ours seems to be one of only some that "made it through" all the nice boards, dances, songs and a few thousand flowers just popped up out of nowhere

That will be next week. As usual, they'll start to hyperventilate and almost all people working here are a sort of involved preparing unnecessary things.

Unfortunately, the Thai electricians aren't the best of this planet and so many wires are just taped together and they are hot as hell..But that's not important at all.

The food in the canteen is still uneatable as it always was, dirt, cockroaches and students have to share the place which sometimes is our meeting hall.

The A-team of a well known university from the capital will show up by the end of the month. Nobody really knows who'll visit and what to arrange.

Then next month. A herd of school directors from smaller cities in the northeast will visit our ERIC department, to have an idea how to manage an English program.

This on the other hand will keep me busy, as a brochure has to be "created", with fancy words, explaining the humor of the Lizard King's bread.

Well, the still missing, but long promised air- conditioning units, in our so superficial English department will be equipped with- I guess- a few good looking and tuned fans, made in China. I'd assume with fancy lights underneath,as it's a very useful tradition here.

Of course, the lesson plans for the next century have to be "created" with help from our monks nearby. A big board with useless information will be done by our friendly and very helpful high(ly) professional team from the island country of an ASEAN member state.

But not just that. They'll also cut out pieces of milk boxes and other toxic stuff to show these though guys how to reduce, reuse and recycle, by creating fancy clothes nobody on this planet would wear.

Oh, almost forgot the speech. A well prepared and thoughtful speech will be written by me in hope to receive Isaan's Pulitzer prize for Lilliputians.

The only light I see at the end of the tunnel is that most of said directors were "trainees" of mine in a seminar not too many moons ago, where they'd to be prepared for the ASEAN community.Thus on the other hand will show if the task in form of a real presentation, I'd given them in a four day seminar was too difficult for them.

Just keep smiling as everybody else around you. Buddha is with us, as Jesus Christ was with America and George W. Bushmilk.- .

Edited January 9, 2014 by sirchai

[Torrens54]

Glad my daughter attends Wattanothaipayap here in CNX (just like her Mom did.)

Great School, excellent amenities, brilliant staff and very polite students. Will pass ANY Inspection!

[SlyAnimal]

My school was inspected at Christmas, they didn't look in on any of our classes although did attend the Christmas show (but only for 15minutes, they didn't even eat their chocolate cake!!), and there was a presentation which the school put on for them about the school.

Otherwise we wouldn't have really noticed that they were even there. Although classes were cancelled just prior to their arrival so that that the students could paint/clean the school, and assemblies were longer in the weeks prior to inspection as the national anthems were practiced etc.

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect Thailand

[bundoi]

The emphasis is on a lot of fluff. The paper work has to be in order and beautifully written. The ink has to be in the right color. The gardens must be beautiful and what is really important is that the bulletin boards are beautiful. God help them if they are not up to scratch on the singing of the National Anthem.

They don't usually pay much attention to foreign teachers.

They do check our lesson plans, mostly to see that we have them. There really wasn't anyone who was proficient enough in English to actually review them.

Fluff? Paper-work aka documentation in any decent school is surely not fluff. Well I guess it is if you can't read Thai.

There has been a fairly major and ongoing review of regulations and processes over the last 3 years or so, and I for one admire the MoE's intitiatives even though it's just another occasion for Thai-bashing for many others.

Are any of the NES teachers in your school proficient enough in Thai to write teaching plans in Thai. Or are you suggesting that teaching plans should only be written in the target language - do you think that would be appropriate for Mandarin, Japanese and German too for example?

[Scott]

It is fluff when it has been printed out on a computer, neatly, and then has to be re-done in handwriting, with a specific color of ink.

[bundoi]

It is fluff when it has been printed out on a computer, neatly, and then has to be re-done in handwriting, with a specific color of ink.

Well that definitely is weird Scott. At our school we didn't have to do anything like that for the inspection; but for the school register we still have to consolidate all the daily registers manually into the main ledger even though we send it by weekly email via an application which was supplied by the MoE. It seems that some of the old practices are co-existing with the new during this period of change.