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by Nihal Cooray, Director General, National Authority on Teacher Education

This article seeks to enquire into the subject of Calling Education to Account, its purpose and meaning. I want to discuss the unique place it occupies in education and clarify its usefulness to the overall development of schools as organizations.

The purpose of an accountability system is in part contained in the meaning of the word, which, at a simple level, is to hold someone to account. Yet the main point on which all its advocates would agree is that it is an attempt to improve the quality of education, and, it is sometimes added, to prove that this is being done. The general notion that accountability in a system must have only one purpose is not correct. If there are a variety of parties on either side of an accountability relation they may interpret that purpose differently and have additional purposes of their own. Once we go beneath the generality of purpose expressed in the phrase 'improvement' we are bound to get to particular and divergent purposes.

It is therefore inappropriate to say accountability has one purpose. A parent, for instance, may see school as ensuring that his child gets fair treatment. The educational administrator may see it as a major way of deciding which schools need more financial provision for the improvement of sports activities. A politician, perhaps, would see some schools in his constituency for upgrading purposes. Thus the accountability carries a string of purposes keeping with individual expectations and aspirations. Purposes may be more or less specific and are of different kinds.

To say that an agent is accountable for his actions to another is not merely to say that he is able to deliver an ACCOUNT, but to assert that he is obliged to do so. Such an obligation may be held to exist by virtue of a legal contract or an unwritten agreement without any legal force. The agent has the right to use resources, which are not his own, for purposes which are negotiated between him and the provider to whom he is accountable.

The provider of the resources may contract with an agent for the use of his skills: for the use of these skills the agent is accountable. The managing director employed by a company offers his skills of administration and management. The same company may employ a group of research chemists. Their skills are used not only to improve on the goods already produced but also for the production of new goods. The company's resources are at the disposal of both manager and chemists: both are accountable for the way they use those skills. There is, however, an exception to this which deserves our notice. A barrister, for instance, contracts his services to the client through a solicitor. But neither solicitor nor client can hold the barrister accountable. The reason for this practice is that the barrister has no control over the outcome of the case - that is a matter for the jury and the judge.

But the barrister is expected to do his best when he presents the case. He will use all his best when he presents the case. He will use all his skills at his command. If he fails to come up to the expected standards, then it is not the solicitor or the client to whom the barrister is accountable, but to his professional peers represented by the Bar Council.

Forms

Thus when we examine various forms of accountability we may discern one distinction of significance. In the first case quoted above the agent is accountable for outcomes and results, while in the exceptional case the agents are accountable to codes of practice, that is, codes of professional principles. We would say that the managing director is accountable to the company and think of barrister as answerable to his professional peers.

They are simply different forms of accountability, i.e. accountability for results, and accountability in terms of professional codes of practice. In our system too this principle of twin-purpose of accountability could be applied if we had a strong, independent professional body such as a National Council of Teachers similar to Bar Council and Medical Council.

In the school there may be a conflict between accountability in a collective sense, through parent bodies and School Development Boards, and accountability to the individual parent as partner in the education of his child. We need partnership at both of these levels - collective involvement in policy to give strength and direction to parent aspirations, and individual rights to make sure there is no barrier in the last resort between the individual and the school. The latter is the best guarantee that the base of parent activity will broaden in time.

Modes

Accountability in a school system must meet two basic interconnected demands: (1) the preservation and, where possible, enhancement of overall level of performance through maintenance procedures: (2) the detection and application of corrective measures to eliminate or reduce weaknesses through appropriate problem-solving mechanisms. Taking these two sets of considerations together, we can distinguish six different modes of accounting, as follows:

1. Answerability for maintenance;

2. Answerability for problem - solving;

3. Responsibility for maintenance;

4. Responsibility for problem - solving;

5. Strict accountability for maintenance;

6. Strict accountability for problem - solving

Mode 1

The parents' awareness of what their children's schools are doing may be promoted through regular communication on individual pupils' progress, or by allowing ready parental access to teachers, or by encouraging a general atmosphere of open enquiry. Other forms of provision, if possible, would include explanation of curricular aims and teaching methods, homework and reports on general standards of performance.

Mode 2

This deals with means of responding to matters of parental concern. Early disclosure of problems - whether affecting individual children or relating to wider issues. The problems could be indiscipline, absenteeism, irregular schooling etc.

Mode 3

This is expected to include the development of good relationships with parents on the one hand and the administrative authority on the other, alongside various forms of domestic monitoring of standards and the regular review of staffing, curricula and teaching arrangements.

Mode 4

This is related to internal problem - solving. On the institutional front being aware of and taking steps to rectify points of weakness and the vigilant anticipation of potential crisis and in relation to individual children - the sensible use of screening procedures (such as pupil records and diagnostic tests) to identify and give remedial help to those at risk.

Mode 5

This is concerned with the accountability of each school to its immediate administrative authority for overall quality of provision. Observing accounting procedures and meeting with centrally agreed specifications.

This would also include the school's openness to informal visitation by authorized officers, its readiness to justify its curricular goals and methods and readiness to account for below - average levels of pupil performance.

Mode 6

This includes a clear duty to report to the administrative authority on grievances or complaints deriving from external sources, and all such internal difficulties which the schools are unable to resolve by themselves satisfactorily.

Evaluation

In the accountability procedures process models of evaluation have been advanced as alternatives to accountability models that are based on product efficiency criteria. In order to provide an appropriate model of accountability, it is argued, evaluation should aspire to reflect the processes of teaching, learning and schooling. We need to know not so much what our pupils can be demonstrated to have learned rather what transpires in the process of learning and teaching. We need, in other words, to educate our judgements about the adequacy of provision for learning and the quality of experience pupils have.

One of the best ways to improve these judgements is to study the processes of teaching, learning and schooling in order to be able to compare practice with intention, opportunities with aspirations. And one of the best ways to represent and promote understanding of these processes is to accumulate and make available detailed descriptions of teaching and learning and the values and effects of curriculum policies within the context of particular schools. This arrangement could be facilitated by setting up an Assessment Performance Unit (APU) in every educational zone with a staff trained in assessment, monitoring and record keeping.

These evaluations can take different forms. One form which has gained worldwide reputation is school self-evaluation. The main reason for this general acceptance is that it encourages a high degree of participation in the conduct of the evaluation and the sharing of the knowledge. This school self-evaluation also provides a more effective and constructive model of accountability than many of the current models in use. APU should have sufficient capacity to lend professional support to this form of evaluation. We share responsibility with the school for the education of our children. School and parents must be accountable to each other for their contribution to a shared task.

We have paid dearly in the past for failure to educate the majority, and shall surely pay more dearly if we fail in future. We do not want to make the school accountable for failure.

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