Development of External Quality Assurance
in Finland

Eeva Tuokko

Centralized Quality Assurance
The practice of inspecting schools dates back to the role of the primary school inspectors, whose duties were both to see to that the regulations were observed and to guide, advise, and suggest improvements. The stress was mainly on the observing of regulations, which was believed to guarantee best practices in education.

From 1970 - 1981, when the comprehensive school system was being introduced in Finland, the functions of inspectors were moved to Departments of Education of the Provincial Governments. These inspectors adopted most of the tasks previously entrusted to those employed by the central government, the General Board of Education. The introduction of the comprehensive system ended the previous divisions between grammar and technical and vocational schooling. All pupils of 7 - 16 of age were to be educated without any kind of streaming, and it was felt that there was an absolute need for inspection and guidance. That is why the provincial departments started to employ educators specialized in the subjects taught in the comprehensive school. It was their job to inform the teachers in their area about the objectives of the national comprehensive school curriculum. Thus, quality assurance was guaranteed on the one hand by the inspectors concentrating on observing the regulations, while the guidance and advisory functions were planned to vanish gradually as the comprehensive system was adopted in the whole country.

Decentralized Quality Assurance
Transferring both duties and power from the state to municipalities was part of the process which had already started in the 80´s. Until 1976 all schools were to be inspected every third year but after that only if there was an obvious reason for it. The year 1988 brought another change with it: steering and guiding remained the main task of the provincial departments, inspection was not mentioned at all, and the word "inspector" had quietly disappeared. Decentralization culminated into a new law of municipalities in 1995. It included the idea of decreasing national norms and regulations to a minimum. As many decisions as possible concerning citizens were to be made at local level.

Yet, the municipalities receive part of their funding from the state. Since state support is no longer ear-marked, meaning that it is up to the local decision makers to choose how much money is spent on education in their area, the state is less aware than before of both the input and the output. An apparent need to change the prevailing system was found to exist.

New education legislation came into power at the beginning of 1999. Instead of norms, providing information was adopted as a new way of state steering. It includes, among other things, the idea of directing whatever regulations there are towards the function of education itself, instead of the organizing of it. However, the law also takes up the concept of external evaluation as a method of receiving feedback about the level of educational outcomes. In other words, it is no longer through inspection that quality in education is assured. The trend is to make municipalities accountable for quality in education. In addition to external evaluations, each municipality is expected to develop a system of internal local evaluation. According to a survey carried out in 2000 - 2002, not very many municipalities had developed one yet.

External Evaluations as Tools of Quality Assurance
One of the basic principles of evaluation is to meet the demand for transparency. Those concerned should be aware of the evaluation, be informed about its grounds as well as have an opportunity to comment on the evaluations in question and their findings. Today it is not enough that the central government is aware of how norms are taken into consideration. Neither is it satisfactory that teachers are informed about best practices in the hope of teaching improving. All these still exist, of course. To support them, a system of external national evaluations has been established.

The evaluation system adopted is an evaluation system for learning achievements, which comprises the development (including piloting) of school tests, their administration, as well as analysing the results and drawing the conclusions.

"The purpose of this national evaluation system is to yield information about the quality of learning achievements. The evaluation findings are used in the development work concerning the education system and framework curricula as well as in practical teaching work. The findings also help in monitoring the implementation of equal educational opportunities." (NBE 1999: 66)

According to the plan devised by the Ministry of Education in the 1990´s, national subject-based evaluations are implemented in Math and Mother Tongue (Finnish and Swedish) every second year. Other subjects are evaluated less regularly according to agreements made between the Ministry of Education and the National Board of Education, usually for a period of three years. Since 1998 the following evaluations have been implemented in the basic education: Math (in 1998 and 2000), Science, Mother Tongue (in 1999 and 2001), English, Swedish and Finnish, Religious Education, and French, German and Russian.

"National evaluations take place at the same time in all schools in the sample. The National Board of Education is responsible for the implementation of these evaluations and also for publishing their findings. The findings are reported in a manner that allows for comparisons on how well the objectives have been met when considered by region, various subgroups, and sex.
The evaluation system for learning achievements is designed to operate in such a way that the achievements will provide regular feedback data on the success of education in terms of meeting the objectives set in the framework curricula. It will be established for comprehensive school and for upper secondary education." (NBE 1999: 66-67)

In the comprehensive school, for instance, the purpose of national evaluations is primarily to check that students´ achievements in terms of skills and knowledge correspond with the objectives set in the Framework Curricula. Evaluation is therefore focused on the central contents of different school subjects and on the central aims of school education: learning-to-learn, motivation to learn, and communicative competence. (NBE, 1999: 68)

Here is an excerpt from the Framework Curriculum: General objectives of foreign language studies, to illustrate some of the criteria used in designing the tests for English:

"The aim for the end of the upper level is […] that the student

• understands speaking that concerns everyday things and that is delivered at a normal tempo;
• can participate in a conversation on ordinary things by applying natural and fluent pronunciation, accent, rhythm, and intonation;
• can understand fairly easy written language that discusses general things;
• has assimilated vocabulary central to the language, main phrases, and basic structures;
• can produce short, narrative or descriptive written texts, for example, with help if necessary;
• knows ways to communicate that are peculiar to the target language and culture; and
• has assimilated knowledge about the countries, peoples, and cultures of the language areas." (NBE 1994, 75)

When reporting the results of the evaluation in English, for instance, and in Swedish alike, the test designers decided that pupils should know more than 45 % of the test contents. Of course, the expectations are the same for boys and girls, for Finnish- and Swedish-speaking pupils and those in different parts of the country. That is why the results are expressed in percentages. One can then see the differences between different groups as well as between the achievement levels in different skills.

The individual schools participating in the evaluation are informed about the results of the evaluations. The local bodies in charge of education are also informed about any national evaluation taking place in their schools. It is expected that, if need be, the results of the evaluations would lead to improvement and development. However, the state has not been entrusted with any means to find out whether this objective is reached. Neither are the parents nor the pupils so far well enough informed about the purpose of national evaluations. The results of the national evaluations are intended to promote and assure quality, but at the moment it appears that this is left to implementation at individual school level - if the school has been part of the national sample.

The results of evaluations are intended to be used to identify the areas in need of improvement, to form an overall picture of the state of education, and to develop better evaluation methods. Thus evaluation, by assuring quality, also supports equality both between genders and among the different parts of the country.

This is still a period of transition. After this piloting stage, new core curricula will be developed in a year or two. Then criteria for different language skills will be more clearly defined which will have an impact also on the format and contents of evaluations.

How evaluation will be organized in the future is a question to which an answer is being sought. National evaluations are likely to remain, however, as a tool of quality assurance.

Bibliography
National Board of Education (1994) - Framework Curriculum for the Comprehensive School, 1994, Heksinki: Painatuskeskus 1994
National Board of Education (1999) - A framework for Evaluating Educational Outcomes in Finland. Evaluation 8/1999, Heksinki: Yliopistopaino 1999