FOR years I campaigned for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Schools in Scotland (HMI) to be stripped of its policy-making powers so it could function unambiguously as a quality assurance agency.
Douglas Osler, the senior chief inspector, resisted the idea, but it was accepted by the executive last year largely because of the collapse of the Scottish Qualifications Authority and HMI’s involvement in the Higher Still project, whose complexity
was such a significant factor there.
I am aghast, however, at yesterday’s report in The Scotsman that the executive is planning to transfer HMI’s role in inspecting individual schools to a new corps of local authority inspectors. Such a proposal goes against the grain of Scottish practice over the best part of 100 years and ignores the failings of local authority inspectors in England and Wales that led to the setting up of the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED).
The perception in the 1970s and 1980s was that local inspections south of the Border did not produce consistency between local education authorities and lacked objectivity because local inspectors, being employees of the LEA, were not seen to be independent of either chief education officers or local councillors. Why should we import a failed system from England?
It is suggested that HMI in Scotland should concentrate on its new power to inspect the 32 education authorities. Some of these reports do not inspire confidence in the LEAs as quality assurance agencies. Take the report on East Dunbartonshire, which said the authority failed to provide adequate leadership or support to the headteachers in its area. Remember this is a "leafy suburb" authority, controlling some of the most successful schools in Scotland.
Or take the report on Shetland, which said the much larger than average expenditure on schools because of oil industry money had not significantly impacted on standards.
A factor in both these cases - and one fast becoming the norm across the country - was that the department running the schools was also responsible for children’s services and other functions more related to social work than to education. Chief officers in these combined departments may not come from an educational background.
No wonder more and more headteachers are questioning whether administration by the 32 local authorities is the best solution for Scottish schools. Some of these authorities are too small to provide the strategic back up requires for improving educational standards. They are ill-equipped for the task of providing the development planning supposed to ensure delivery of the executive’s educational priorities. The comparison, made by many headteachers , is between the former large regions such as Strathclyde and Lothian and some of their successors. Such a comparison is not flattering to many of the new authorities.
If the local authorities are not competent in terms of educational support and strategic planning, how could anyone have confidence in them as quality assurance agencies?
Even where individual local inspectors were completely professional and resistant to political pressure, they might not be seen to be such.
Indeed, there is now the beginning of a demand for schools to have a more direct relationship with the executive. Headteachers wish to have the freedom to operate within executive policies, taking decisions on the school curriculum in consultation with staff and boards and also decisions on spending their share of a ring-fenced Scottish educational budget.
The financial debacle that has affected schools in the Borders has had an influence throughout Scotland, but there are other influences too, all pointing towards schools having more financial and curricular freedom within some kind of light local administrative management. Joint school management committees covering the same areas as the police and fire boards are one option.
Within such a reformed structure, HMI would be the only body with the credibility to carry out inspections, to ensure maintenance of standards and to check executive educational priorities are being delivered.
They have a long track record in this area and their ability to provide quality assurance for all the nation’s schools has, with rare exceptions, never been seriously impugned.
The reported move towards local inspection is out of tune with the times, takes no account of likely changes in the administrative structure and ought to be taken no further.
Fred Forrester is a former depute general secretary of the teaching union, the Educational Institute of Scotland.
