Conference: Latest Trends in School Evaluation, Prague, 18 April 2011

The international conference will reflect the fact that the current evaluation of education is in a rapid move. The external evaluation, which has been in practice over decades, is accompanied by the internal evaluation performed by individual schools and school facilities.

The title of the conference encourages a discussion over the latest trends in the field of education. It also expresses changes and related challenges faced by external evaluation institutions. The international conference will reflect the fact that the current evaluation of education is in a rapid move. The external evaluation, which has been in practice over decades, is accompanied by the internal evaluation performed by individual schools and school facilities. The journey to the right balance between external and internal evaluation has become a key topic in many European countries. Furthermore, it is impossible to overlook the economic difficulties and related budget and personnel restrictions that force the inspectorates to carry out deep changes in their inspection systems. At the same time, starting from the mid-nineties of the last century international testing has had a stronger impact (PISA, TIMMS, PIRLS...). This testing is very popular among parents and policymakers. It is fast, performed on the national scale and puts high pressure on schools aswell as external school evaluation. Parents are more often calling for school charts, written evaluation and public evaluations. And the response of the school inspectorates to such trends will be the key question addressed in the conference.