General Education Quality Assurance: The Extent of Quality Assurance Implementation from Inspection Approach in Ethiopia General Education

Abstract

The purpose of this empirical study was to investigate the extent of quality assurance implementation from inspection approach and its contribution in quality enhancement and accountability. The study focused on areas of inspection policy frame work and strategies, the trend of external and internal inspection process at General education system. In the investigation qualitative approach used; the study conducted at Jimma Town in Oromiya regional state; in the study two schools purposely selected and 7 respondents have been participated in the study (one education office inspector; two, school principals; two, school department heads and two, teachers). Thematic analysis method was used to analyze the data that obtained from Interviews; observation, and document analysis. The study result shows that, in Ethiopia general education context inspection is one of the mechanisms designed to evaluate schools' performance related to input, process, and output. Based on the inspection result schools and concerned bodies are expected to work on school education quality enhancement and students learning outcome improvement. However, the finding of this study indicates that, the inspection strategy designed at MOE did not practically implement as it designed and it has a shortage of linkage to the operational practice. The main reasons are: miss understanding of practitioners on the objective of inspection; the inspection standards lack clarity and have ambiguities to evaluate schools practically; the strategy lack focus to support school management, teacher engagement, pupils, and parents. Also, in practice the external inspection process did not link to school self-evaluation or internal inspection; no mechanism or strategy lay responsibility and accountability on concerned bodies to improve or find a solution on identified problem based on the inspection report. For the effective implementation of the inspection mechanism, the strategic direction that developed at the center should be linked to operational practice and procedures at the district education office and school level; also, the mechanism for holding to responsibility and accountability from the top to school management and all concerned bodies should be designed. The inspection manuals and standards should be revised to evaluate effectively the overall system and tangible things in the schools. The external inspection system also should be linked to the internal inspection mechanism to strengthen school self-assessment practice and to support school improvement plan implementation.