In the current conditions, education, like all spheres of life, has undergone strong changes. First, the pandemic, and then the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, forced to look for operational solutions for solving the issue of organizing children’s education, creating a safe educational space, ways of obtaining education for Ukrainian children who are abroad, ensuring equal access to quality education.
Over the past three years, institutional audit has become a tool for the development and improvement of general secondary education institutions in our country. This procedure replaced school certification and became a powerful tool on the way to quality education.
Institutional audits are currently suspended due to the armed aggression of the enemy. We asked Valentina Zagreva, head of the State Education Quality Service in Lviv Oblast, and Oleksandr Sukhanov, head of Gymnasium No. 1 of the Chervonograd City Council of Lviv Oblast, about the prospects for resuming external evaluation of educational institutions and about the development of educational institutions that have passed the institutional audit procedure.
“The pandemic has made us stronger, taught us to respond flexibly and overcome challenges, and now the war has forced us to learn even faster. A crisis is a test that breaks the comfort zone, but it is also a path to development. Despite difficult events, the pedagogical community holds the educational front with dignity. The fact that, despite everything, the educational process continues is a huge achievement of teachers, students of education, their parents, authorities and the Ukrainian public.
Despite the difficult events in which our country is, we must think about the reconstruction of Ukraine. Education is an investment in the future. Children should receive quality education today.
Ensuring a common understanding of the quality of education and the quality of educational activities for the development of each individual is quite a challenge that requires maximum cohesion and consolidation from us.
According to the fourth part of Article 41 of the Law of Ukraine “On Education”, the external system of ensuring the quality of education includes several components, one of which is an institutional audit conducted by the State Service for the Quality of Education and/or its territorial bodies.
Institutional audit is an external evaluation of the activity of an educational institution, during which independent experts evaluate how management and education are organized at the school.
In the Lviv region for 2020-2022, an institutional audit was conducted in 38 institutions of general secondary education. In Chervonograd district – 3 (Gymnasium No. 1 of Chervonograd city council of Lviv region, Zabuzka comprehensive school of grades I-III of Sokal city council of Lviv region, Voyslavytsk comprehensive school of grades I-II of Sokal city council of Lviv region).
I note that during the audit, educational experts paid attention to both successful aspects of school activity and those where the quality of educational activity is low and needs improvement.
Based on the results of the audit, the educational institutions received conclusions regarding the quality of the educational activity of the educational institution with an indication of strengths and weaknesses and recommendations – proposals for improving the quality of educational activity.
Conducting an institutional audit contributes to the successful interaction of all participants in the educational process, the community, taking into account the needs of children and their parents, improving the effectiveness of the management of the educational institution and will allow monitoring the progress in the development of education seekers, teachers and the school as a whole,” says Valentina Zagreva, head of the Service .
According to Oleksandr Sukhanov, head of Gymnasium No. 1 of the Chervonograd City Council of the Lviv Region, an institutional audit took place in 2021, based on the results of which the educational institution was able to more efficiently adjust its educational and management processes.
“Our institution (Chervonograd Secondary School of the I-III grades of the Chervonograd City Council of the Lviv Region, now – Gymnasium No. 1 of the Chervonograd City Council of the Lviv Region) underwent an institutional audit and received an impetus to move forward: the act, conclusions and recommendations drawn up based on the results of the procedure . During the institutional audit, a group of experts studied the educational environment, the system of evaluating students, pedagogical activities and management processes. These are four “whales” on which the quality of school educational activity rests.
What has changed since the completion of the institutional audit? How has our educational institution changed? Did you manage to solve the problems? What remains a challenge? We analyze and think!
Most importantly, we have become a team of like-minded people who are easy to work with and who support any endeavors and ideas. In our team, they know how to hear everyone, listen to everyone’s opinion… This is the main component of the secret of the gymnasium’s success. Everything we do, we do together – all participants in the educational process (students, teachers and parents).
Improvement steps began with the development of an internal system for ensuring the quality of education, clearly defining what needs to be improved. We learned to self-assess (regular study and evaluation of one’s own