OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Northern Ireland, United Kingdom

This book finds that, in many ways, Northern Ireland stands out
internationally with its thoughtfully designed evaluation and assessment
framework. The major components are well developed, in particular policies for
student assessment, school evaluation and school system evaluation. It has
been developed using the majority of key design principles recommended by the
OECD. The approach to evaluation and assessment combines: central control over
policy development and standard setting; transparency over procedures and
reporting of results; an increasing responsibility for the implementation of
evaluation and assessment among teachers and schools; and central mechanisms
to monitor the effectiveness of implementation. For example, while schools and
their Boards of Governors are accountable for their educational quality and
are accountable to their communities, school development planning processes
are also monitored as part of external school evaluation by a central
inspectorate. Teachers play a central role in student assessment and their
assessment of pupil progress against central standards is moderated by a
central agency which engages working teachers in the process. Teachers in
primary schools are offered central diagnostic tests to support their
assessment of pupil progress. Only teacher appraisal remains entirely school
based, but there is a set of common competence standards for teachers.