2016-12-02
Inadequate Monitoring of Education: Obstacle to Informed and Effective Decision-making
Lithuania regularly implements measures for the improvement of quality of education; however, learning outcomes of students remain lower than the average of the OECD countries and do not improve. The supreme audit institution completed an audit on the Monitoring of Education assessing whether the state-level monitoring of education is organised and carried out effectively. The audit revealed that the monitoring fails to cover the entire education system, thus the institutions do not have enough data to make informed decisions regarding the improvement of performance of the students and the entire education system.
In 2007–2015, EUR 74 million were used for the monitoring in the field of education. Major part of the financing (EUR 57.4 million) came from the European Union (EU) funds allocated to the qualitative studies of monitoring in the field of education and the relevant project activities. Another EUR 16.5 million were allocated from the state budget for the purposes of organising and carrying out the monitoring of education in 2013–2015.
The use of these funds failed to ensure collection and tracking of qualitative data necessary to shape education policy, ensure the quality of education and academic progress of students. All schools in Lithuania had to undergo assessment by 2014; however, 55 percent of them did not undergo an external assessment and did not receive recommendations for the improvement of their activities. Some of the municipalities and schools do not participate in the assessment of learning outcomes of their students, even though the necessary system has been developed and tested (EUR 3.4 million). Monitoring of the quality of pre-primary education has not been developed and is not carried out, even though this had to be achieved by 2013. The necessary measures were created and prerequisites for targeted assessment of vocational training schools (EUR 2.2 million) were set in place; however, state-level monitoring of the quality of vocational training has not been launched.
It has been found that studies of monitoring in the field of education are not planned, and the results are not collected and published in a manner making it easy to use them. According to the auditors, it is important to ensure monitoring of the most important and relevant indicators, and carry out priority studies, which would allow for a more cost-effective use of the funds and provide opportunities to avoid duplication of studies.
Taking into account the defects of the system found at the time of the audit, recommendations were presented to the Ministry of Education and Science. Proper implementation thereof would ensure targeted use of the funds allocated for the monitoring of education, monitoring of all the key and most relevant indicators, and performance of the priority studies. This would allow avoiding duplication of studies and activities, while keeping the public informed of the quality of education and achievements of students. The Ministry has presented a plan for implementing the recommendations. In the opinion of the supreme audit institution, deadlines for the implementation of the measures provided for in the plan are too long; they should be implemented as soon as possible.