January 2012
OECD Reviews of Evaluation
and Assessment in Education
Czech Republic
MAIN CONCLUSIONS
Paulo Santiago, Alison Gilmore,
Deborah Nusche and Pamela Sammons
This summary of main conclusions is drawn from OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education:
Czech Republic. The full report is available on the project’s website: www.oecd.org/edu/evaluationpolicy.
ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT
The OECD is a unique forum where the governments of 34 democracies work together to address
the economic, social and environmental challenges of globalisation. The OECD is also at the forefront
of efforts to understand and to help governments respond to new developments and concerns, such as
corporate governance, the information economy and the challenges of an ageing population. The
Organisation provides a setting where governments can compare policy experiences, seek answers to
common problems, identify good practice and work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies.
The OECD member countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel,
Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal,
the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the
United States. The Commission of the European Communities takes part in the work of the OECD.
This work is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General
of the OECD. The opinions expressed and the arguments employed
herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organisation
or of the governments of its member countries.
© OECD 2012
No translation of this document may be made without written permission. Applications should be sent to rights@oecd.org.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – 3
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Executive summary
Student learning outcomes in the Czech Republic are around or slightly below the
OECD average, depending on the skills assessed. However, there is some evidence from
international student surveys of a significant decline in student learning outcomes in the
last decade. There are also indications that both performance and choice of educational
track are strongly influenced by family background. Another concern relates to the basis
for attending a special school, sometimes as a result of learning difficulties and/or a social
disadvantage and not following the identification of a learning disability. Since the 1989
Revolution, schools benefit from considerable autonomy including over the content of
instruction, teaching methods, student assessment criteria, and management of the
teaching body. In this context, the role of evaluation and assessment as key tools to
achieve quality and equity in education was reinforced. While there are provisions for
evaluation and assessment at student, teacher, school and system levels, challenges
remain in strengthening some of the components of the evaluation and assessment
framework, in ensuring articulations within the framework to ensure consistency and
complementarity, and in establishing improvement-oriented evaluation practices. The
Review Team identified the following priorities in its review of evaluation and
assessment policies in the Czech Republic.
Integrating the evaluation and assessment framework
and developing capacity across the school system
There is clearly the perception in the education system that the evaluation and
assessment framework needs to be strengthened and that there needs to be a greater focus
on improving student outcomes. This is reflected in current initiatives. However, at the
present time, there is no integrated evaluation and assessment framework – it is not
perceived as a coherent whole and it does not visibly connect all the different
components. An important initial step for policy development is to develop a strategic
plan or framework document that conceptualises a complete evaluation and assessment
framework and articulates ways to achieve the coherence between its different
components. The process of developing an effective evaluation and assessment
framework should give due attention to: achieving proper articulation between the
different evaluation components (e.g. teacher appraisal, school evaluation and school
development); and ensuring the several elements within an evaluation component are
sufficiently linked (e.g. teaching standards and teacher appraisal). Another challenge are
the limited evaluation and assessment competencies throughout the education system in
spite of the considerable national efforts to stimulate an evaluation culture, as well as
providing some competency-building learning opportunities. Hence, an area for policy
priority is consolidating efforts to improve the capacity for evaluation and assessment. As
the Czech education system is highly devolved and relies on the evaluation and
assessment capacities of diverse school agents, it is important that capacity building
responds to the diverse needs of school governing bodies (regions and municipalities),
school principals and teachers.
4 – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Maintaining the centrality of teacher-based assessment,
improving its consistency and introducing national
standardised tests on a solid basis
At all levels of education, teachers play the major role in assessing and reporting on
student achievement. In general, it can be said that the autonomy in assessment for
teachers and for schools is uncontested and widely supported. However, generally there is
a traditional approach to the organisation of classrooms in the Czech Republic.
Assessment for learning is not systematically used in Czech schools. There is little
emphasis in assessment practices on providing student feedback and developing
teacher-student interactions about student learning. As a result, the Czech Republic needs
a stronger commitment to improving students’ achievement through the use of formative
assessment to enhance student learning, rather than simply through the use of assessment
summatively for recording and reporting learning. Another concern relates to the current
introduction of national standardised tests at grades 5 and 9 (in Czech language, foreign
language and mathematics), which arises as the result of the increased focus on key
learning outcomes for students. The standards against which the national tests will be
marked, currently being developed, may be more appropriately regarded as specifications
for the national tests, rather than indicators of the quality of student achievement expected
at different levels of the education system. The preparation of the standards is also being
rushed by the requirement for national tests to be piloted in 2011. It would be best to
thoroughly develop sound educational standards covering the full breadth of student
learning objectives prior to developing national tests. Also, it is essential to better
articulate the purposes of national tests and recognise that they cover a limited range of
competencies. A further priority should be the introduction of moderation processes
within and across schools to increase the reliability of teacher-based judgments. The
objective is to reduce the variations in the ways teachers assess students and set marks so
equity of student assessment is improved. This should go along with the development of
guidelines at the national level for assessing against student learning objectives.
Developing teaching standards, strengthening teacher
appraisal for improvement and establishing teacher
certification
Teacher appraisal appears to be widely accepted and a well-established aspect of
regular practice in schools. However, its application is hindered by the absence of teaching
standards, no national framework to make school-based practices consistent across schools
and there is no mechanism to ensure that each individual teacher receives proper
professional feedback. As a result, the Czech education system should pursue the efforts
that are being made in preparing a professional profile or standards for the teaching
profession to provide a credible reference to make judgements about teacher competence.
Another priority should be strengthening regular formative appraisal with a professional
development focus which is separate from the more summative appraisal processes.
Teacher appraisal for improvement purposes is likely to benefit from a non-threatening
evaluation context, a culture of mutually providing and receiving feedback, clear individual
and collective objectives, simple evaluation instruments, supportive school leadership,
opportunities for professional development and close linkages to school self-evaluation. To
ensure that developmental appraisal conducted by school principals is systematic and
coherent across Czech schools, it is important that the Czech School Inspectorate validates
externally the school-level processes for teacher appraisal. Finally, advancement in the
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – 5
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
teaching career could be organised through a system of teacher certification at key stages in
the career, which would imply the establishment of a clearer career structure that applies
across the country. The different career steps should match the different levels of expertise
reflected in teaching standards and be associated with certain pay levels.
Strengthening school evaluation and developing
the instructional role of school leadership
The Czech Republic shows a clear commitment to external accountability based
around school evaluation with a well-established regular cycle of external school
evaluations carried out by the Czech School Inspectorate. However, a challenge for the
Czech Republic is that currently external school evaluation tends to emphasise
compliance with legislation rather than the promotion of school improvement. There is
also a new emphasis on promoting schools’ self-evaluation. However, the penetration of
school self-evaluation across the school system remains at an early stage of development.
As a result, the external school evaluation process should strengthen its focus on school
improvement and move away from the current “compliance” driven model. This would
imply providing advice for improvement to all schools evaluated, rather than just
focusing on lower performing schools. The school evaluation framework, the criteria and
questions governing judgements and the methods employed should all focus much more
directly on the quality of learning and teaching and their relationship to student outcomes.
Also, it is recommended establishing better synergies between external and schools’
self-evaluation, especially concerning the alignments of the aspects assessed. In addition,
school leaders need to refocus more their work on instructional leadership. This would
imply school leaders engaging in more professional development to enhance capacities
especially in promoting school improvement, and enhancing the quality of teaching and
learning. Finally, there is a need to re-conceptualise the overall approach to evaluate
school principals by school organising bodies so that the role of the school principal as an
instructional leader is reinforced.
Raising the profile of system evaluation within the evaluation
and assessment framework
The evaluation of the education system as part of the evaluation and assessment
framework has received limited policy attention thus far and there is no comprehensive
strategic approach to it. As it stands, system evaluation draws mostly on the evaluation of
schools complemented with a set of indicators on education. Some key information gaps
remain such as the unavailability of measures on students’ socio-economic background
and the limited information on the teaching and learning environment. At the same time,
the national monitoring system for school education is considerably weakened by the
absence of national data on student performance, i.e. there is no information on student
learning outcomes which is comparable across schools, regions or over time. Also,
system-level data are not used to their full potential in analysis which could be useful to
inform policy development. As a result, the profile of system evaluation within the
evaluation and assessment framework needs to be raised. An initial priority is to broaden
the concept of system evaluation as the wide range of system-level information which
permits a good understanding of how well student learning objectives are being achieved.
It should include a varied set of components such as broad measures of student outcomes;
demographic, administrative and contextual data; information systems; and research and
analysis to inform planning, intervention and policy development.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS – 7
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Conclusions and recommendations
Education system context
Student learning outcomes are around the OECD average
but have declined significantly
Student learning outcomes in the Czech Republic are around or slightly below the
OECD average, depending on the skills assessed. In 2009, achievement levels of Czech
students in the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) were
not statistically significantly different from the OECD average in mathematics and
science and were just below the OECD average with statistical significance in reading
literacy. However, trend analyses of PISA results have shown a serious decline in student
learning outcomes, among the most serious in the OECD area – for instance, the
Czech Republic is among the four OECD countries for which performance in reading
literacy between 2000 and 2009 decreased significantly.
There are concerns about the strong social selectivity
and inequities in the education system
There is evidence that performance as well as choice of educational track is strongly
influenced by family background. An issue often debated is the fact that the 6- and 8-year
Gymnasium has potentially far reaching effects on equity as it tends to favour a minority
of students into elite publicly-funded schools. Another concern relates to the basis for
attending a special school. It is well known in the Czech school system that a good
proportion of students who attends special schools do so as a result of learning difficulties
and/or a social disadvantage and not following the identification of a learning disability.
This is particularly the case of Roma children whose attendance of special schools is still
very high in spite of the decision to progressively integrate disadvantaged students into
mainstream schools.
Increased autonomy for schools reinforces the role
of evaluation and assessment
Prior to 1989, the Czech education system was characterised by a strong central
direction and the standardisation of processes. Instruction was based on a detailed syllabus,
specified textbooks, detailed guidelines for teachers and standardised procedures for the
preparation of teachers. The approach radically changed following the 1989 Revolution.
Schools benefit from the free choice of textbooks and considerable autonomy over the
content of instruction, namely through the development of their own school education
programmes (in accordance with the national Framework Education Programmes).
Teachers can choose their teaching methods in agreement with the school strategy and the
requirements set in the School Education Programme. In this context, the role of evaluation
and assessment as key tools to achieve quality and equity in education was reinforced.
8 – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Strengths and challenges
There is a range of initiatives to strengthen the evaluation
and assessment framework which nonetheless remains
incomplete and not integrated
There is clearly the perception in the education system that the evaluation and
assessment framework needs to be strengthened and that there needs to be a greater focus
on improving student outcomes. This is reflected in current initiatives. National student
standardised tests in grades 5 and 9 are in the course of development, the common part of
the school-leaving examination was launched in 2011, external school evaluation is
consolidated and increasingly focuses on the improvement of student outcomes, school
self-evaluation is mandatory, Framework Education Programmes are formulated as
competency aims, the availability of national indicators on education has considerably
expanded, and there is the intention to introduce teaching standards. These developments
clearly communicate that evaluation and assessment are priorities in the school system
and reveal a broad agenda to develop an evaluation culture among school agents.
However, at the present time, there is no integrated evaluation and assessment
framework. As in other OECD countries, the different components of evaluation and
assessment have developed independently of each other over time. There are provisions
for student assessment, school evaluation, teacher appraisal and system evaluation, but
these are not explicitly integrated or aligned. The existing framework is not perceived as a
coherent whole and it does not connect all the different components.
There are common references at the national level but
Framework Education Programmes lack descriptions
of expected performance
There are some common references to provide the basis for evaluation and
assessment. At the national level, the central government in office establishes priorities
for educational policy, which provide the framework for policy development. These are
expressed in the 4-year Long-term policy objectives of education and development of the
education system. These are relevant references to shape the evaluation and assessment
framework. However, these policy objectives tend to be somewhat short-sighted and
associated with single policy initiatives. Also, there are no clear national goals for
education aligned with broader social and economic goals. By contrast, at the level of
student learning goals, there is a good basis for common expectations of outcomes from
schooling. Both in basic and secondary education, there are national Framework
Education Programmes (FEPs) in a range of educational areas. These establish
competency aims for students at key stages in the education system and broadly specify
the content for the learning. Within these binding goals for student achievement, the
schools are given a good degree of autonomy to develop local curricula (School
Education Programmes) and approaches for evaluation and assessment. Nonetheless, a
range of stakeholders expressed that FEPs do not provide statements of learning goals and
expectations that are clear enough to guide teaching and assessment practices and bring
consistency to education in the Czech Republic. The agreed national competency aims for
student performance, as expressed in the FEPs, are quite broad and there are no
descriptions of expected learning progress through the curriculum. This is part of a more
general challenge about the lack of descriptions of expected performance in the education
system. Standards have not been developed not only for student achievement but also for
defining the expected performance of teachers, school principals and schools.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS – 9
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
There is an “open door” climate among teachers but there
is a narrow understanding of the purposes of evaluation
and assessment
A major strength in the system is the “open door” climate which exists among
teachers. Classroom observation is a key instrument in external school evaluation
ensuring the proper evaluation of the quality of the teaching and learning in schools.
Also, the observation of classes by school management is common practice in schools,
including in the context of school-based teacher appraisal and schools’ self-evaluation
processes. This is a crucial element to ensure the effectiveness of the evaluation and
assessment framework which depends to a great extent on the ability to cultivate a culture
of sharing classroom practice, professional feedback and peer learning. However, the
Review Team formed the view that there is a narrow understanding of the purposes and
the potential of evaluation and assessment. Evaluation and assessment are still perceived
mostly as instruments to hold stakeholders accountable, to “control” and assess
compliance with regulations. This is visible at all levels with the focus often being
whether formal requirements are met and with less attention given to the quality of
practices or ways for these to improve.
There is a need to strengthen competencies for evaluation
and assessment across the system
While there have been considerable national efforts to stimulate an evaluation culture
by strengthening assessment and evaluation activities, as well as providing competencybuilding
learning opportunities in some cases, the Review Team assesses that there are
still limited evaluation and assessment competencies throughout the education system.
There is a need to improve the evaluation competencies of school governing bodies, in
particular at the municipal level. There is great variation in the capacity for municipalities
to develop and effectively use quality assurance systems. There is also a need to improve
the competencies of school leaders in evaluation and assessment, in particular with regard
to ensuring a meaningful school self-evaluation process, and providing pedagogical
guidance and coaching to individual teachers. Another area where there is limited
expertise is standardised test development. This is a rather technical area requiring very
specific expertise in domains such as educational measurement, test development,
validation of test items or scaling methods, which happens to be scarce in the Czech
Republic. Other areas in which building capacity is a considerable challenge include: the
competencies of teachers for student assessment (both formative and summative); the
data handling skills of school agents; and analytical capacity for educational planning and
policy development at the system level.
Assessment is seen as part of the professional role of teachers
but approaches to learning and assessment remain markedly
traditional
Teachers in the Czech Republic play an important role in the assessment of students.
At all levels of education, teachers play the major role in assessing and reporting on
student achievement. The introduction of School Education Programmes has given an
even greater role and increased responsibility to teachers for establishing student learning
objectives and assessing against these. Schools are required to establish and publish the
criteria against which students are assessed, and have these validated by the school board.
10 – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
All students are assessed in an ongoing manner throughout the school year in each
curriculum area using a variety of approaches. There is widespread use of oral
assessments, as well as written tests/examinations. There is an emerging use of student
self-assessment in areas of key competencies. In general, it can be said that this autonomy
in assessment for teachers and for schools is uncontested and widely supported. However,
generally there is a traditional approach to the organisation of classrooms in the Czech
Republic. Teaching and assessment practices have not changed for many decades and
largely still reflect the beliefs and approaches used before the liberalisation of the
education system in 1989. Assessment for learning is not systematically used in Czech
schools. There is little emphasis in assessment practices on providing student feedback
and developing teacher-student interactions about student learning. Feedback is often
understood as “summative assessment done more often”.
An external dimension to assessment was introduced but
the multiple purposes of school-leaving examinations raise
some concerns
A component of centralised, national assessment of student achievement has been
introduced into the procedures of the school-leaving examination. The school-leaving
examination includes both a national common component as well as a school/teacherbased
component. This model allows for an assessment of students that is consistent in
format and content across all schools nationally, while recognising the value of
assessments that are best made by teachers. Also, common assignments for the
apprenticeship certificate have been developed by the National Institute of Technical and
Vocational Education for use by the schools. The national examinations at the end of
secondary education appear to serve two competing purposes. One purpose for the
examination is to provide a certificate of achievement for students at the end of their
secondary school education. However, it also appears that national examination results
may also be used for comparing the performance of schools. These two purposes are not
compatible and would require different approaches to be optimally valid for each
purpose. If the national examinations are for certifying students’ achievement, then it
would be important to ensure that the examinations cover adequately the breadth and
depth of the curriculum, knowledge and competencies/skills. There are important other
sources of information that would be necessary to collect in order to understand the
performance of a school.
There is an increased focus on student outcomes but the
national standardised tests entail a range of limitations
and risks
With the liberalisation of the education system and the introduction of curricular
reforms, there is an increased focus on key learning outcomes for students. Alongside this
focus, is a move to identify expected minimum standards of achievement for students at
key points in their education. In this context, the Czech Republic is introducing national
standardised tests at grades 5 and 9 (in Czech language, foreign language and
mathematics). The purposes while announced by the Ministry remain not well understood
by the education sector. The tests are being designed to be IT-based, and will therefore
potentially cover the limited range of student learning objectives that can be assessed with
objective item formats that can be computer marked. In preparation for the introduction
of the national tests, a team of educators has been developing standards against which the
national tests will be marked. It is the view of the Review Team that the development of
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS – 11
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
the standards is being rushed by the requirement for national tests to be piloted in 2011.
Development of the standards began in November 2010 to be completed by mid 2011.
Given the more immediate reason for their development, the standards may be more
appropriately regarded as specifications for the national tests, rather than indicators of the
quality of student achievement expected at different levels of the education system. Also,
the Review Team considers that it is essential to better articulate the purposes of national
tests and recognise that they cover a limited range of competencies. The tests, as
originally announced by the Ministry, will likely be very “high stakes tests”. This will
certainly arise if the test scores are used to evaluate schools and/or teachers. Overseas
experience has demonstrated that there are serious negative side effects when national test
scores of student achievement are used for these purposes (e.g. “teaching to the test”,
“narrowing of the curriculum”).
There is limited consistency of student assessment across
schools and classes
Each school is responsible for establishing the student assessment criteria. There is
evidence that assessment rules and practices often differ between schools and descriptions
of assessment procedures and criteria are often very general. In addition, it is not common
practice for Czech teachers to specify assessment criteria in full detail and to inform
students of them in advance. Even though schools may use the same five-point marking
scale, schools have different marking criteria. Therefore, it cannot be assured that the
marks awarded in one school align with similar marks awarded in another school. This
inequity of grading becomes particularly problematic when a student moves to another
school. The general lack of national specifications or guidelines for student assessment
hinders a consistent application of assessment criteria. Also, there is little moderation
(professional discussions between teachers about the quality of students’ work) of marks
within schools and no moderation across schools in the Czech Republic, and generally,
moderation which involves teachers discussing authentic student work is underdeveloped.
The principle that teachers should be evaluated is widely
accepted but teacher appraisal is not systematically
implemented for all teachers
While the processes and criteria for teacher appraisal are not regulated nationally,
there is a clear legal requirement for school principals to appraise their teachers. In the
schools visited by the Review Team, school principals and teachers described teacher
appraisal as a well-established aspect of regular practice in schools. Teacher appraisal
appears to be widely accepted as an important and normal part of school activities. A key
strength of teacher appraisal in the Czech Republic is that the process is clearly focused
on evaluating actual teaching practices in the classroom. The typical approach to teacher
appraisal is for school principals and/or their deputies to observe classroom practice,
followed by a common discussion and analysis of the observed practice with the teacher.
At the same time, given that the design and implementation of teacher appraisal is the
responsibility of each individual school, teacher appraisal practices vary across the
system. The quality and extent of teacher appraisal approaches in individual schools
depend on the capacity and leadership style of the school principals. While school
inspectors check whether teacher appraisal is implemented as part of school selfevaluation,
there is no mechanism to ensure that each individual teacher receives proper
professional feedback. As a consequence, there is also no guarantee that
underperformance is identified and addressed accordingly.
12 – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
There is currently no shared understanding of what
constitutes high quality teaching but there are plans to
develop teaching standards
At the moment, there is no clear and concise statement or profile of what teachers are
expected to know and be able to do. At the national level, there are no uniform
performance criteria or reference frameworks against which teachers could be appraised.
Professional standards are essential to guide any fair and effective system of teacher
appraisal, given the need to have a common reference of what counts as accomplished
teaching. The lack of such a framework weakens the capacity of school principals to
effectively appraise teachers as required by labour-law provisions. Nonetheless there are
some plans to develop teaching standards and a new career system for teachers.
The importance of teacher professional development is
formally recognised but its links to teacher appraisal could
be enhanced
For teacher appraisal to lead to improvement of practices, it is important that
feedback is followed up with appropriate professional development. The importance of
continuous professional development for teachers is recognised in legal documents in the
Czech Republic, with Act No. 563 on Pedagogical Staff establishing an obligation for
teachers to undergo in-service training and an annual entitlement of 12 days leave for
professional development purposes. However, the provision appears fragmented and not
systematically linked to teacher appraisal. Without a clear link to professional
development opportunities, the impact of performance review processes on teacher
performance will be relatively limited. Professional development is predominantly a
choice by individual teachers and is not systematically associated with school
development needs. School principals interviewed by the Review Team rarely tracked
their teachers’ professional development activities and the extent of strategic planning for
professional development appeared limited. There was little evidence of school-centred
professional development that would emphasise the community of learners within the
school.
The link between teacher appraisal and rewards
is not transparent
There are potential benefits of linking teacher appraisal to pay increments, as is
currently done by school principals in Czech schools. It can allow school principals to do
proper staff planning, stimulate professional development, and reward, retain and
motivate teachers. However, there are indications that the current system of performancerelated
pay increments does not fulfil these functions, mainly due to a lack of
transparency in the way that increments are awarded. Many of the teachers the Review
Team spoke to indicated that the relationship between performance and pay was not
transparent. Teachers often did not know how their salary was determined and whether it
was based on classroom observations or other aspects of their work. A major reason for
the lack of transparency is the absence of a clear framework for evaluating the
performance of teachers.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS – 13
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
External school evaluation is established but it has limited
emphasis on school improvement
The Czech Republic shows a clear commitment to external accountability based
around school evaluation with a regular cycle of external school evaluations carried out
by the Czech School Inspectorate (CSI). The CSI is highly respected and schools,
municipal and regional authorities value the availability of individual inspection reports
for schools on a regular basis. In general, the external evaluations are welcomed and
found helpful to identify certain kinds of problems by schools and other stakeholders and
to provide a national overview of the system in terms of the specified criteria used.
However, a challenge for the Czech Republic is that currently external school evaluation
by the CSI is predominantly an assessment of how legal requirements are met, or how the
School Education Programme is being fulfilled and how it adheres to Framework
Education Programmes. The accountability function tends to emphasise compliance with
legislation rather than the promotion of school improvement. Advice is only given to
“weaker” schools which are identified as those that do not meet the minimum standards
as set by law. There is not enough focus on strategies for promoting improvements in the
quality of teaching and learning and better outcomes for students including better
progress and attainment for those schools that need it the most.
The external evaluation model embodies a number of features
of best practice but a number of limitations exist
The process of external evaluation undertaken by the CSI is well structured and
systematic. Each stage in the process is clear and the approach builds logically. The
importance of communicating clearly the basis upon which evaluation judgements will be
made has been recognised and built into the model. A set of publicly-available criteria for
external inspection is drawn up every year. Also, the principle of transparency in
publishing the results of inspection and the responsiveness to stakeholders (there are
provisions that enable parents to trigger an inspection if they have concerns) are well
established. Furthermore, the approach to external evaluation in the Czech Republic is
designed to be evidence driven. The provision of a data profile for an inspection team,
provided by the Institute of Information on Education, offers outcome information, aids
efficiency by allowing the team to focus its attention on key issues and can help to
benchmark and contextualise judgements. Similarly, documentation is sought and
analysed as a key part of evidence gathering and a sample of stakeholders is interviewed
in the course of the inspection. However, there are a number of challenges in the current
approach to external school evaluation. It is difficult to take account of the socioeconomic
context of the school because this is not required by the Education Act and
no national data are available to promote this. It also appears that there is not enough
emphasis on pedagogical aspects particularly on identifying the main features of
effective or high quality teaching using evidence from international studies and
research. Moreover, the criteria used in the CSI external evaluations are not stable enough
from year to year and as a result comparison across years might not be assured in all
areas.
14 – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
There is a new emphasis on schools’ self-evaluation which
needs to be strengthened
The new emphasis on promoting schools’ self-evaluation has the potential to
encourage schools and principals to place a greater emphasis on school improvement and
development planning. Combined with external evaluation through the work of the CSI
and regular publication of school reports the emphasis on institutional self-evaluation
makes it a more balanced approach to school evaluation than one relying only on external
evaluation. The introduction of self-evaluation is explicitly linked to the Czech
Republic’s intention to encourage flexibility and greater autonomy at the school level.
Increasing schools’ self-reflective abilities will support internal quality assurance and
will help maintain quality across the board. However, the penetration of school
self-evaluation across the school system remains at an early stage of development.
Schools have only a limited understanding of the contribution that self-evaluation can
and should make to improving practice and no clear models have emerged generally.
There seems to be limited capacity amongst school staff and principals to engage in
self-evaluation and ultimately school self-evaluation seems to lead to little change of
school practices. As a result, although some form of self-evaluation can be identified
generally, its rigour and impact on practice remains incipient. The potential of selfevaluation
to engage parents in the work of the school has also not been sufficiently
exploited.
School leadership is promoted in school evaluation but there
is no full recognition of the role of school leaders and their
appraisal is limited
There is an explicit recognition that the process of self-evaluation is hugely dependent
on a principal’s capacity to stimulate engagement, to mobilise resources and to ensure
appropriate training and support. The approach to inspection has, in turn, reinforced the
importance of such leadership. School principals are seen as important actors in the
course of an inspection, have direct accountability during the self-evaluation and
external evaluation processes and have the main responsibility for ensuring that the
results of the inspection are communicated and its recommendations taken forward. In
spite of this, there is little evidence of a culture of instructional/educational leadership
(as opposed to administrative and managerial leadership) and while the school principal
has a key role in the system and considerable responsibilities, this has not as yet been
translated into a dedicated career structure. There is also limited preparation for the role
of school principal and little recognition and financial reward. The CSI seeks to evaluate
certain features of school leadership and management but these focus mostly on
compliance with regulations and limited attention is given to the principal’s
pedagogical leadership abilities or professional development needs. The evaluation of
school principals, conducted by organising bodies, is largely absent except in terms of
the financial aspects of budget management. There is no link made between the
evaluation of school leaders and evidence of student outcomes or the quality of teaching
and learning.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS – 15
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
There is little emphasis on the evaluation of the
education system
The Review Team formed the impression that the evaluation of the education system
as part of the evaluation and assessment framework has received limited policy attention
thus far and there is no comprehensive strategic approach to it. While the 2005 Education
Act determines who takes responsibility for system evaluation, it does not define the
objectives of system evaluation and what it should achieve. As it stands, system
evaluation draws mostly on the evaluation of schools complemented with a set of
indicators on education. Even if there is the concern to establish Long-term policy
objectives and develop indicators to assess progress towards achieving the objectives, it
can be said that the policy objectives are narrow and do not adequately capture student
learning objectives.
An Education Indicators Framework is established but there
are key information gaps at the system level
An Education Indicators Framework is in place to assist decision makers analyse the
state of the education system, monitor trends over time, compare regions and provide
information to the general public. The framework includes four core components:
students, teachers, schools and funding. However, some key information gaps remain.
A significant gap is the unavailability of measures on students’ socio-economic
background. Other gaps include the unavailability of information on student assessment
for individual students, incomplete data on teachers such as their qualifications and
professional development activities and limited information on the teaching and learning
environment.
The participation in international surveys is instrumental
for system evaluation but national student performance data
are absent
International surveys have provided – in spite of their lack of alignment with student
learning objectives in the Czech Republic – unique information about student learning in
the Czech Republic. Participation in international surveys provides benchmark
information on the education system’s performance and also allows monitoring of
progress over time, for example via the trend data available for PISA from 2000. At the
same time, the national monitoring system for school education is considerably weakened
by the absence of national data on student performance, i.e. there is no information on
student learning outcomes which is comparable across schools, regions or over time.
System-level information is not fully exploited
The Review Team formed the view that system-level data are not used to their full
potential in analysis which could be useful to inform policy development. Comprehensive
statistical analysis of student outcomes such as an assessment of the factors influencing
student performance or a study about the impact of socio-economic background on
student performance does not seem to be available. In addition, there is limited use of
system-level data to inform school management, there is no comprehensive information
system for use by education agencies and the systematic sharing of data between schools
is limited.
16 – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Policy recommendations
Better articulate learning goals
For evaluation and assessment to be effective in improving quality across the whole
education system, it is essential that all school agents have a clear understanding of the
national goals for education. This requires the development of goals aligned with broader
social and economic objectives, including aims at promoting equity and excellence and
the articulation of the ultimate purposes of learning for citizens. In this respect, goals for
the education system in the Czech Republic could be made more concrete. For instance,
the Long-term policy objectives could include targets for improving educational
outcomes, contemplating both achievement levels and equity. Furthermore, there is a
need for clearer reference points in terms of expected levels of student performance.
While it is important to keep the curriculum open so as to allow for teachers’ professional
judgements in the classroom, there is still scope to make student learning goals more
concrete. The national competency goals established in the FEPs can be refined and
expanded to include clearer guidance concerning expected student learning progressions
and criteria for assessment in different subjects. This could take the form of national
standards defining what constitutes adequate, good and excellent performance in different
subject areas at different stages of the education system.
Integrate the evaluation and assessment framework
The full potential of evaluation and assessment will not be realised until the
framework is fully integrated and is perceived as a coherent whole. An important initial
step is to develop a strategic plan or framework document that conceptualises a complete
evaluation and assessment framework and articulates ways to achieve the coherence
between its different components. The different levels of education governance should be
engaged in regions and municipalities so their responsibilities and roles in the framework
are clearly established. The plan should essentially constitute a common framework of
reference for educational evaluation across the country with the ultimate objective of
embedding evaluation as an ongoing and essential part of the professionalism of the
actors in the education system. The plan should establish a clear rationale for evaluation
and assessment and a compelling narrative about how evaluation and assessment align
with the different elements in the education reform programme. It should describe how
each component of the evaluation and assessment framework can produce results that are
useful for classroom practice and school improvement activities. The plan should include
strategies to both strengthen some of the components of the evaluation and assessment
framework and to develop articulations across the components.
Develop evaluation and assessment capacity across the
school system
As the evaluation and assessment framework develops and gains coherence, an area
for policy priority is consolidating efforts to improve the capacity for evaluation and
assessment. As the Czech Republic education system is highly devolved and relies on the
evaluation and assessment capacities of diverse school agents, it is important that capacity
building responds to the diverse needs of school governing bodies (regions and
municipalities), school principals and teachers. A priority is to develop the evaluation
competencies of school governing bodies, at the region and municipality levels.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS – 17
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Competency profiles for regional and municipal education officers should be developed.
There is also a need to reinforce the educational leadership skills of school principals as
their role in the Czech Republic still retains a more traditional focus on administrative
tasks. Teachers could also benefit from a range of professional development
opportunities, including improving skills for formative assessment; enhancing the
capacity to assess against the objectives defined in the FEPs; and improving the capacity
to collect and analyse information for self-improvement. Another area to explore is
building capacity at the system level, including regional and municipal levels, to ensure
an effective use of the results generated by evaluation and assessment activities, including
analytical capacity for educational planning and policy development. Finally, a
considerable investment is needed to develop expertise in standardised test development,
including areas such as educational measurement and test design.
Develop educational standards covering the breadth of
student learning objectives prior to developing national
standardised tests
There is a need for clear external reference points in terms of expected levels of
student performance at different levels of education. While it is important to leave
sufficient room for teachers’ professional judgements in the classroom, it is necessary to
provide clear and visible guidance concerning valued learning outcomes. Teachers would
benefit from education standards with more specific descriptions of what students should
know and be able to do at different stages of the learning process. The national tests
should not be the vehicle for developing standards as this would set an inappropriate
precedent. Rather, sound standards (and associated supporting resources such as learning
progressions and assessment tasks) for the full breadth and depth of the curriculum should
be developed as the basis primarily for guiding teachers’ work in classrooms, assessing
against the curriculum and reporting to students and parents. In other words, if tests are
developed they should then be aligned to such standards rather than the tests setting the
standards.
Limit the undesired effects of national standardised tests
Before implementation, the Ministry should reflect further on the purposes of the
national tests, articulate those purposes in ways that are convincing for educators, and
carefully design appropriate measures that will optimise the positive impacts on student
learning and minimise the negative impacts. If they are to be introduced they should first
be trialled to enable an evaluation of impacts before full-scale implementation. National
standardised tests (as well as school-leaving examinations) should be valid and reliable
instruments, assess the breadth of learning objectives in the curriculum, and results
should be used properly for their intended purposes by teachers, schools and education
agencies. An independent working group with representatives from a range of sectors and
organisations in education could be established to further debate the national test, monitor
its implementation and conduct impact evaluations. The high stakes nature of the test will
undoubtedly influence classroom (and perhaps governmental) practices.
18 – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Strengthen the role of formative student assessment
At the heart of improving student achievement in the Czech Republic should be a
greater awareness and practice of using assessment for learning, that is, using assessment
formatively in an ongoing way to monitor students’ learning and to plan for their next
learning steps. The Czech Republic needs a stronger commitment to improving students’
achievement through the use of formative assessment to enhance student learning, rather
than simply through the use of assessment summatively for recording and reporting
learning. Effective formative assessment requires that teachers develop sophisticated
skills for uncovering students’ level of understanding, for providing feedback and
adjusting teaching strategies to meet identified needs, and for helping students to develop
their own skills for learning to learn. Strategies to improve the impact of formative
assessment might include a stronger focus on short-cycle classroom interactions, building
teachers’ repertoire of research-based formative assessment techniques, and strengthening
the approaches to respond to identified learning needs.
Put in place moderation processes to ensure the consistency
of student summative assessment
A priority should be the introduction of moderation processes within and across
schools to increase the reliability of teacher-based judgments. The objective is to reduce
the variations in the ways teachers assess students and set marks so equity of student
assessment is improved. This should go along with the development of guidelines at the
national level for assessing against student learning objectives. Teachers require
exemplars of student work to illustrate achievement at different levels or marks,
benchmarks or indicators of desired student achievement, optional assessment tasks, and
tests. These issues are particularly important to consider for the school-based assessment
component of the school-leaving examination if it is to have national comparability, be
fair and have the confidence of the public. Engaging in appropriate moderation
procedures also provides substantial professional learning benefits for teachers.
Develop a professional profile or standards for the
teaching profession
The Czech Republic education system should pursue the efforts that are being made
in preparing a professional profile or standards for the teaching profession. Teaching
standards, i.e. a clear and concise statement or profile of what teachers are expected to
know and be able to do are a key element in any teacher appraisal system as they provide
a shared understanding of accomplished teaching and a credible reference to make
judgements about teacher competence. Teaching standards should contain quality criteria
or indicators for professional teaching practice and should be applied in individual
performance appraisals. They should build on the work already accomplished and
discussed in 2009 and be framed in the context of the overall objectives for schooling.
The teaching standards should be developed in a way as to provide a common basis to
guide key elements of the teaching profession such as initial teacher education, teacher
professional development, career advancement and, of course, teacher appraisal. It is also
important that teacher appraisal takes account of the school context. Schools have to
respond to different needs depending on the local context and face different
circumstances.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS – 19
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Strengthen teacher appraisal for improvement purposes
The Review Team recommends strengthening regular formative appraisal with a
professional development focus which is separate from the more summative appraisal
processes. Teacher appraisal for improvement purposes is likely to benefit from a nonthreatening
evaluation context, a culture of mutually providing and receiving feedback,
clear individual and collective objectives, simple evaluation instruments, supportive
school leadership, opportunities for professional development and close linkages to
school self-evaluation. The main purpose of this process should be continuous
improvement of teaching practice. It should be an internal process carried out by line
managers, senior peers and the school principal with a focus on teachers’ practices in the
classroom. The main outcome would be feedback on teaching performance and
contribution to school development, which should lead to a plan for professional
development. To ensure that developmental appraisal conducted by school principals is
systematic and coherent across Czech schools, it is important that the Czech School
Inspectorate validates externally the school-level processes for teacher appraisal, holding
the school principal accountable as necessary.
Consider establishing a system of teacher certification
to determine career progression
Teachers and school principals could benefit from the establishment of a clearer
career structure that applies across the country. The concept of career stages, or a career
ladder, would help meet this need. Access to each of the key stages of the career could be
associated with formal processes of summative appraisal that complement the regular
formative appraisal. The different career steps should match the different levels of
expertise reflected in teaching standards and be associated with certain pay levels. This
would ensure a link between teacher appraisal results and career progression, therefore
establishing an indirect link with pay levels. Advancement in the teaching career could be
organised through a system of teacher registration or certification at key stages in the
career. While the process could be mostly school-based, led by the school leadership
team, there would need to be a stronger component external to the school to validate the
process and ensure that practices are consistent across the Czech Republic. Teacher
appraisal for registration/certification would have as its main purposes providing public
assurance with regard to teachers’ standards of practice, determining advancement in the
career, and informing the professional development plan of the teacher.
Strengthen external evaluation for school improvement
The CSI external school evaluation process should strengthen its focus on school
improvement and move away from the current “compliance” driven model. This would
imply providing advice for improvement to all schools evaluated, rather than just
focusing on lower performing schools. The school evaluation framework, the criteria and
questions governing judgements and the methods employed should all focus much more
directly on the quality of learning and teaching and their relationship to student outcomes.
The CSI external school evaluations would also benefit from a greater focus on
monitoring student outcomes if appropriate national assessment data become available.
Such analyses should take the schools’ socio-economic and other features of context into
consideration. This should be accompanied by judgments made on how well schools
address equity, to be published in individual school reports and in overview reports at a
20 – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
national and regional level. The CSI should report explicitly on school performance in
relation to outcomes achieved for disadvantaged and minority students (particularly
Roma students) and provide advice to support improvement. Also, it is suitable to ensure
stability in inspection criteria across a wider range of areas for a longer period of time.
This will allow for better comparisons to be made of change in the system across several
inspection cycles and it will help to evaluate the impact of policy changes and systemlevel
improvement more meaningfully. Follow-ups to external inspection should be
strengthened (and generalised), requiring all schools to establish an improvement plan
regardless of the results of the school evaluation. A programme of follow-up visits,
suitably differentiated on the basis of the original report, would give added impetus and
credibility to the overall evaluation process.
Improve the alignment between self-evaluation and external
evaluation and thereby raise the profile of self-evaluation
The Review Team recommends establishing better synergies between external and
schools’ self-evaluation, especially concerning the alignments of the aspects assessed.
There is a need to ensure that the criteria used in both processes are sufficiently similar as
to create a common language about priorities and about the key factors which influence
high quality learning and teaching. Lack of clarity about what matters is likely to
reinforce confusion and continue to relegate self-evaluation to something which serves
inspection rather than creating a platform for a discussion based on reliable and
comparable evidence.
Improve the instructional leadership skills of school
principals and strengthen the evaluation of these skills
School leaders need to refocus their work more on instructional leadership. This
would imply school leaders engaging in professional development to enhance their
leadership capacities especially in promoting school improvement, and enhancing the
quality of teaching and learning. School principals should be expected to engage in
monitoring and evaluating the quality of student outcomes in their school compared with
results in similar schools. In addition, school principals should be supported to place a
greater emphasis on evaluating and promoting the quality of teaching, and focussing on
the professional development needs of staff to support the school’s improvement needs
and priorities. Finally, there is a need to re-conceptualise the overall approach to evaluate
school principals by school organising bodies so that the role of the school principal as a
pedagogical leader is reinforced.
Raise the profile of system evaluation within the evaluation
and assessment framework
The profile of system evaluation within the evaluation and assessment framework
needs to be raised. An initial priority is to broaden the concept of system evaluation as the
wide range of system-level information which permits a good understanding of how well
student learning objectives are being achieved. It should include a varied set of
components such as broad measures of student outcomes; demographic, administrative
and contextual data; information systems; and research and analysis to inform planning,
intervention and policy development.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS – 21
OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN EDUCATION: CZECH REPUBLIC © OECD 2012
Develop national student performance data for system
monitoring
A clear priority in the Czech Republic for system evaluation is the development of
measures of student learning outcomes. This effort has now started with the development
of national standardised tests for students in grades 5 and 9 in the curricular areas of
Czech language, foreign language and mathematics. This is a valuable effort with the
potential to provide national data on student performance which are comparable across
schools, regions and over time. The Review Team supports these efforts but expresses
cautions in three specific areas. First, standardised tests need to be closely aligned with
student learning objectives. Second, it needs to be recognised that inevitably national tests
measure a limited range of student learning outcomes. Third, the Review Team believes
that the national tests at this stage should be conceived for dual purposes: to provide a
powerful pedagogical tool to teachers against testable areas of the Framework Education
Programmes; and to monitor national student performance and allow regions and
municipalities to monitor their school results against it. To have reliable national
measures of performance across broader curricular areas the Czech Republic could also
consider introducing sample-based national monitoring surveys.
Prioritise efforts to meet information needs for national
monitoring
An immediate priority for meeting information needs to adequately monitor student
outcomes in the Czech school system is to strengthen the information on student socioeconomic
background, including parental level of education, occupation and income
level; immigrant or minority status; and special needs. Also, moving to data at the
individual student level would be a considerable improvement to the collection of data
from schools. Moreover, the monitoring of student performance across specific groups
(e.g. by gender, socio-economic or immigrant background, minority status) as well as the
analysis of student performance across regions needs to be strengthened. Finally, there is
a need to include stakeholders’ perceptions of the teaching and learning environment in
the national monitoring system.
Optimise the reporting and use of system-level data
The amount of existing information on schools and system performance offers many
opportunities to engage stakeholders in supporting improvements across the school
system. While large amounts of data are collected from schools and comparable student
results will soon become available, there is room to strengthen the analysis and
mobilisation of such information for system monitoring and improvement. This includes
strengthening the analysis for educational planning and policy development; improving
feedback for local monitoring; integrating available data and facilitating access by key
agencies; and easing the sharing of student information across schools.