{"schema_version":"ICEQC_NEWS_ARTICLE_V1","id":"iceqc-news-14635d862e97b1a3","slug":"2017-09-27-education-leadership-responsibilities-evidence-and-follow-up","language":"en","publication_status":"READY_FOR_IMPORT","publication_date":"2017-09-27","last_modified_date":"2017-09-27","title":"Education leadership: responsibilities, evidence and follow-up","summary":"Sets out a controlled approach to education leadership: responsibilities, evidence and follow-up, linking diagnosis, accountable action, outcome measures and verification.","category":{"code":"QUALITY_IMPROVEMENT_METHODS","label":"Quality Improvement Methods"},"article_type":"Quality improvement method","publisher":"International Council for Education Quality Certification (ICEQC)","jurisdictional_scope":"International","historical_reference_basis":"Accountability and institutional governance","reference_authority":"Relevant public authorities and official international sources","sections":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["In 2017, consideration of education leadership must take account of the accountability and institutional governance and the responsibilities it places before education systems. The analysis of the issue under review proceeds on the basis that improvement should begin with a defined problem, a credible account of its causes and a measure capable of showing whether the response has worked. Assessment should consider learner impact, institutional accountability and stewardship of entrusted resources. Administrative form may differ between systems, provided the required outcome and accountability are maintained.","The stated reference—the accountability and institutional governance—establishes the contemporaneous context. Corrective action concerning the issue under review should address the identified cause, assign responsibility and set a review period. Residual risk should remain open until sustained improvement is demonstrated.","A proper examination of the matter should establish the intended outcome before selecting controls or indicators. A decision concerning the intervention should recognise that the intervention should be tested on a scale proportionate to the risk before wider implementation, unless immediate system-wide action is necessary to protect learners. In relation to education leadership, a chosen approach should be justified against its context, with departures and review points under documented control."]},{"heading":"Improvement objective and baseline","paragraphs":["The required public outcome should be stated in operational terms. A decision concerning education leadership should recognise that governing bodies should receive sufficient, reliable and timely information to oversee education quality, learner protection and material institutional risk. Formal adoption, expenditure and activity do not in themselves establish the intended result. Assurance should address actual effect and provide a means of correcting disadvantage that the arrangement did not intend.","The analysis of the practice should make its decision rule explicit. The analysis of the improvement objective proceeds on the basis that effectiveness is the demonstrated change in the condition the action was intended to address. Completion of training, publication of guidance or installation of a system is an output and should not be reported as an outcome without further evidence. The method should prevent an unfavourable result from being dismissed through an unrecorded change in interpretation.","The principal risks in relation to the corrective programme are governing bodies receiving activity data instead of outcome evidence, authority assigned without accountability, material risks omitted from reporting, and conflicts not identified. The risks are interdependent; failure of one control may conceal or disable another. In relation to education leadership, documents should be tested against the decision process they record and the outcome that followed.","Relevant evidence for the improvement objective will normally include governing-body papers and decisions, public reports reconciled with controlled records, independent review records, risk and assurance plans, and corrective-action verification. Currency, provenance and representativeness should be established before evidence is used for assurance. Conflicting records require reconciliation before a complete assurance conclusion is reached."]},{"heading":"Controls and accountable action","paragraphs":["For operational review of education leadership, authorities and providers should proceed in a defined sequence. For the intervention, the reviewer should set a baseline and success measure before intervention, define the review period, compare the result with the intended outcome and examine adverse or unequal effects. Continue monitoring long enough to determine whether the improvement is sustained.","Improvement of the improvement objective should proceed through controlled tests where risk permits.","Decisions concerning the corrective programme should remain traceable to the information available for the stated reference period. A revision should state whether the change concerns the underlying condition, the evidence, the method or the interpretation."]},{"heading":"Evidence of effect","paragraphs":["The analysis of education leadership should remain within the limits of the evidence. The analysis of the improvement objective proceeds on the basis that correcting an individual record does not establish that the process which produced the error has been corrected. In reviewing the issue under review, governance structures do not provide assurance merely because committees exist. Membership, information quality, challenge, decisions and follow-through determine whether oversight is effective.","Accountability for the issue under review should follow decision-making authority. Where work is delegated, the record should continue to identify who is accountable for material consequences to learners.","Corrective action concerning the improvement objective should address the identified cause, assign responsibility and set a review period. Public confidence cannot be separated from an institution's ability to identify responsibility and substantiate its conclusions."]}],"word_count":695,"content_hash":"sha256-d1c965f0055d5e56a12df0ef54b4d506416b9f4dbb599c3085f7ee81bbd6ad8a","seo_keywords":["education leadership","education quality improvement","education quality","ICEQC"],"schema_type":"TechArticle"}