The Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (Onesqa) kicked off its fourth round of quality evaluations on Friday after a two-year delay.
Onesqa's fourth round of evaluations was initially planned to take place between 2016 and 2019. However, due to internal problems, such as the position of Onesqa director being left vacant for almost a year, the schedule was delayed.
The previous Onesqa evaluation rounds were heavily criticised in the education fraternity for providing nothing substantial to improve the education system and only putting a greater burden on schoolteachers and university lecturers as they had to spend days outside classrooms compiling reports for the evaluations.
According to a Quality Learning Foundation (QLF) study, teachers had to spend nine school days out a total 200 per year to prepare documents for Onesqa assessments.
Most of them considered the documents a key issue affecting learning at schools.
Speaking at a seminar titled "School-friendly QA: An innovation platform", Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin said he has ordered Onesqa to start its fourth round of evaluations which have been revamped to reduce paperwork and be more flexible for teachers.
Dr Teerakiat said the fourth instalment will be completely different from the previous rounds as there is no score nor indicator to gauge educational institutions if they pass or fail.
Under the new assessment system, according to Dr Teerakiat, educational institutions will be divided into five groups which are developing, moderate, good, great and excellent, based on their resources and facilities such as the number of teachers working in the school, the quality of library services, and internet speed.
"Only executives of educational institutions will be required to write a self-assessment report which can be as short as two pages. The report will have to mention just three key points. The first point is at which level does a school think it is at. The second is to provide evidence in order to prove what it claims, and the last is to develop a plan which will allow a school to improve to a higher level," he said.
After that, the report will be sent to Onesqa which will work with all educational agencies to provide each school with the necessary advice and support and follow up on their progress, Dr Teerakiat added.
"Each school and educational institution has their own challenges, so the 'one size fits all' model should not be used to assess them. In Ireland, there is no office for national education standards and quality assessment, but the quality of education is very high because each school assesses itself," Dr Teerakiat said.
According to Dr Teerakiat, 4,500 schools under the Office of Basic Education Commission will form part of the first batch of institutions to be assessed.