School `doctors' make house calls

Onesqa became operational in November 2000 and it must appraise every school at least once in every five-year cycle.

The three goals of each quality appraisal are (1) to provide the learners, parents, and society with confidence and assurance of each school's ability to offer services of the quality and standard required to maintain Thailand's global competitiveness; (2) to help bring about improvements in the quality of education; and (3) to ensure transparency and accountability.

Intensely independent

Onesqa is somewhat unique in that it is an external agency. As a matter of public policy and carefully crafted legislation, Onesqa is kept separate from the Ministry of Education.

Onesqa guards its autonomy intensely and because it is autonomous, it reports directly to the Prime Minister. It is anticipated that Onesqa will remain independent under Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, the interim cabinet and Education Minister Prof Dr Wijit Srisa-arn.

"It is imperative that Onesqa _ as an educational quality assessment agency _ be a public organisation, enjoying the status of a state body, which is neither a government office nor a state enterprise, in order to achieve the highest efficiency and integrity,'' says Dr Somwung Pitiyanuwat, director of Onesqa.

``Not being under the obligation to report to the Ministry of Education or other education agencies helps to preserve Onesqa's neutrality and integrity, and therefore its independent findings are not subject to outside pressures to distort its assessments, honesty, or candor. This serves as a genuine check and balance on other agencies,'' the venerable and highly acclaimed director says.

Onesqa vs Niets

Dr Somwung offers that it is perhaps helpful to clarify the distinct functions of Onesqa and the National Institution for Educational Testing Services (Niets). ``Niets has a different function,'' he says.

``Niets assesses the quality of education through the students' achievements as manifested by exam results. In contrast, Onesqa assesses the quality of education through the evaluation of the schools and universities against [the key criteria]. So we must work very closely with Niets,'' says Dr Somwung, who is also a member of the executive board of Niets. ``Niets is also a public corporation, but is not independent. It is part of the Ministry of Education,'' he adds.

Onesqa uses a set of objective standards and key performance indicators (KPIs) to assess the qualitative health of each educational institution. The standards are slightly different for each of the three school types. The basic education schools are evaluated using 14 standards and 53 KPIs; the vocational schools are evaluated using eight standards and 30 KPIs; and the higher education schools are evaluated using eight standards and 28 KPIs.

Key CRITERIA

The various standards and KPIs for the three school types are as follows:

For simplicity's sake, the 30 standards and 111 KPIs will be collectively referred to in this article as the key criteria.

A sampling of the 14 standards applied to the basic education schools shows that the assessment must include an evaluation of whether each school is teaching its students integrity, morality and other beneficial values (standard 1). The schools must endow students with the ability to think both analytically and synthetically, and must also lavish upon students the skills of discursive thinking, creativity and to have vision (standard 4). It is also important that learners demonstrate essential knowledge and skills of the school's approved curricula (standard 5).

``Under Standard 5,'' says Dr Somwung, ``the KPIs require that teachers develop within each student work skills, conscientiousness, the ability to work congenially with others and the appreciation of having an honest occupation.'' That's just one example of ``how we assess the abilities of each school,'' he says.

Teachers must strive to instil a desire to self-initiate inquiry and to engage in lifelong learning (standard 6). Standard 7 requires that learners be taught to have a positive attitude towards work and to value ethics in the workplace. Such a focus is partly designed to eliminate corruption in later life.

Teachers, administrators and the schools must do their parts. For example, teachers must use the student-centred method of teaching (standard 10), and the school and its administration must adopt and support the student centred method (standard 12).

The school is also obligated to teach the required curriculum and to have appropriate resources for the teachers and students to complete the goals (standard 13). And finally, each school must cultivate a cooperative relationship with its community (standard 14).

Other key criteria require learners be proficient at Thai, English, maths, science, social culture and religion, physical education, art, and vocational training. And still another requires that teachers have a bachelor's or higher degree.

Diagnosing 40,000 patients

Onesqa is responsible for objectively diagnosing the quality of Thailand's 40,258 schools, according to the most recent information from Onesqa. That number comprises 39,205 basic education schools (not including early childhood centres and homeschoolers), 781 vocational institutions, and 272 higher education institutions.

The cost to critique each school varies per genre. Each assessment costs 32,000 baht per basic education school, 54,000 baht per vocational institution, and 80,000 baht for each higher education institution.

Onesqa determines the quality of each school by the careful application of the key criteria. The key criteria are applied by 6,080 professionally trained assessors, who are third-party, independent contractors that are educated, certified and appointed by Onesqa. The assessors come highly recommended from various segments of Thai society.

Prior to becoming registered assessors, the candidates must undergo thorough training for one week under the auspices of Onesqa. They learn how to apply the key criteria when surveying schools, administrators and students' abilities.

Friendly approach

The school ``doctors'', as they are fondly referred to, are required to have good bedside manners. They use an amicable or friendly approach during their evaluations pursuant to the Amicable Assessment Model. This friendly approach requires the appraiser to offer constructive criticism in a respectful, non-confrontational `Thai way'.

``The method is designed to promote and strengthen positive attitudes towards quality assessment and to encourage the schools and their administrators to put faith in the highly trained school doctors,'' says Dr Somwung.

Depending on the size of each school, teams of two to seven assessors are sent to each school for up to three days to conduct a thorough and independent assessment. The results of their examinations are then compared with the school's self-assessment report (SAR), which is required to be submitted by each school prior to on-sight inspections. The jobs of the school doctors are complete upon the filing of a final report with Onesqa for each school diagnosed. A copy is sent to the school assessed, and schools are urged to correlate the results of their respective SAR and the final report by the assessors, and to work toward making the recommended improvements.

``Each school, however,'' says Dr Somwung ``is instructed that if the needed improvements are not made, the school will not be punished or suffer any loss of funding for the next year.'' A school's final ``bill of health'' is, it seems, more suggestive than directive.

Finally, Onesqa collects the thousands of final reports, amalgamates them into a single dossier that represents the collective qualitative health of Thailand's schools _ called the Standard of Education of Thailand _ and submits copies to the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Education, other relevant agencies, and to the general public.

Dr Somwung says that the assessments, thus far, are on schedule. Of the 40,000 schools in Thailand, 8,688 were assessed in 2001, 25,734 schools were assessed from 2002 to 2005, and more than 7,780 primary and secondary schools, 188 vocational schools and 76 higher educational institutions have been assessed in 2006, he says.

Two-thirds need intensive care

Dr Somwung has pronounced that based on Onesqa's interpretation of the current assessment results, of the 40,000 schools in Thailand, 30,000 are in a qualitative coma and need to be immediately placed in an intensive care unit (ICU). The results show that students in those schools lack creative thinking and display no thirst for knowledge; and two-thirds of the schools assessed fall below the educational standards set by this office, he said.

``According to our surveys, Thai sstudents are good and happy children, but they lack the abiliy to carry out research,'' he said.

I can praise, however, Mahidol Witthayanusorn school in Nakhon Pathom, which is doing an outstanding job, and as a result has been given a free hand to manage its education, says Dr Somwung.

Yet there remains a reluctance to publish the rankings of the schools, so that the public may be apprised of the comparative quality of the schools, and know which ones are in need of emergency academic or administrative surgery. A word about O-net, A-net 2007

``It is interesting that you asked that question. I'm sure Dr Uthumporn [Jamornmarn, director of Niets] is going to be ready,'' Dr Somwung said, when asked if the preparations for the O-net and A-net exams are on schedule and likely to experience fewer problems than this year. Most analysts agree that Niets should have started preparing for the 2006 exams in October of 2005, and that the failure to engage in sufficient preplanning contributed to the highly criticised score results of last April and May.

Realising that October is all but gone, Dr Somwung expressed some urgency in seeing that preparations for the February 2007 exams commence very soon. He said that he was sure that the new director of Niets would not have problems similar to those related to this year's score results. In the meantime, we anxiously await the forthcoming Onesqa report that will tell us what is the current Standard of Education in Thailand.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Since this interview was taken several weeks ago, Learning Post has been in negotiations with Dr Somwung to become a columnist and weekly contributor. Learning Post is pleased to announce that beginning November 7, Dr Somwung will pen a weekly column entitled: ``Onesqa: Quality leads to Success''.

His column will report on all issues related to the ongoing qualitative assessments of Thai schools, including but not limited to student-teacher ratios and school rankings. Tune in and learn from one of the most eminently qualified educators and administrators in the region.

For more information about Onesqa, visit www.onesqa.or.th or email info@onesqa.or.th .