engleski

Improvement of School Quality Through Key Objectives

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the analysis of key objectives of secondary schools in Croatia, specified within School development plans during the self-evaluation process. School self-evaluation was implemented in Croatian educational system for the first time after first National assessments were conducted in May 2006 – and at that time only gymnasium program schools were included. Results of National assessment represented first comparable data on student achievement due to objective evaluation criteria – so they were an excellent starting point for discussion on school quality and efficiency. Each school started the self-evaluation process (based on the National assessment results and on the results of background questionnaires for students) by writing a Self-evaluation Report that contained School development plan. Within School development plans these schools specified key objectives and specific targets for school development and quality improvement. In the following year (2007) National assessment was conducted in VET program secondary schools and these schools were also encouraged to start school self-evaluation process using the same instruments. For the purpose of this paper analysis of School development plans set by schools in both secondary school programs was conducted – to determine the nature of key objectives defined and how frequently these were referred to by different schools. The goal was to establish the similarities and the differences in key objectives specified by gymnasium program and VET program schools. Qualitative analysis of 147 School development plans from gymnasium and 138 School developmental plans from VET schools resulted in classification of 22 key objectives for the school quality assurance. Results had shown that the majority of the schools acknowledge the following key objectives as their main priority: quality of educational process, material conditions and school equipping, school climate, continuous education of teachers and cooperation with all stakeholders.

self-evaluation; school development plan; quality categories; priority areas; specific targets

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