Kvalitetsutviklingsprosjekt i kulturskolen (KUP)
A
quality development project for music and art schools in Norway
Background
The new Norwegian
government maintains the last 2 years a strong focus on efficiency, quality and
public service. The Minister of Education supports the New Public Management
model, which is based on a ‘hands-off government’ ideology and relies on the
regulating effect of public comparisons. As part of that approach, the results
of state schools have been published on the Internet (benchmarking) and a new
system for quality, based on structure-, process and result quality is to be
developed.
Financing and regulations
The owners of
music schools are municipalities, and they may have one music school or several
under their control. The municipality is responsible for running the school, as
well as for its finances and economics. Municipalities account for 60% of music
school funding, the state contributes 15% and the students 25%. The Norwegian
Council for Music and Art Schools, Norsk
Kulturskoleråd, is also responsible for working with development in music
schools and their quality management. The members of this organisation are
municipalities.
In Norway there
are no statutory quality requirements for music schools. As a consequence,
there is no organisation to monitor their performance. The schools will be
offered to formulate their own quality standards using the integrated quality
care system of the Common
Assessment Framework (CAF). The question of whether eligibility for
municipal or national subsidies should be linked to the implementation of a
quality assurance system is currently the subject of debate.
Quality care initiatives
Several national
governmental plans were designed to improve the quality of music education, for
instance as regards education curricula, especially in higher education. Norway
has just launched the new framework curricula for all music and art schools.
Traditionally,
quality is taken care of by the managers and the teachers. They do so by
applying their own professional standards, but these are rarely integrated into
a systematic approach. One or two schools/municipalities have started work on
quality assurance systems and models of a very different kind. So far, no data
have been published about experiences with such alternative systems.
Norway based its
first steps towards a systematic quality assurance system on the work and
experiences gained in the Netherlands. The idea was to copy the Dutch Art Education
Quality System (KKV). Norway sought opportunities to share in the experiences
gained by various Dutch organisations, including the sector association for art
education VKV, the Inspectorate, several schools of music and KPMG head offices in Amsterdam, and asked
permission to inspect the KKV evaluation report.
Norway’s quest for
an appropriate system coincided with the EU’s efforts to develop the CAF, a
modified version of the EFQM system for use in public administration. The full
CAF-based system, including a set of criteria, became available in 2000. The
evaluation section also included the use of service declarations and consumer
polls.
Selection and development of an
integrated quality care system
The reasons that
led to the introduction of this particular system are the following:
The CAF provides
the organisation with a comprehensive self-assessment tool that incorporates a
variety of perspectives and takes the board, managers, teachers, collaborators
and consumers into account. It also includes a full set of planning and
improvement tools based on Deming’s circle:
Plan - Act – Check - Adjust.
Like the German
QsM system, the CAF contains nine criteria and a host of subcriteria, but the
latter are different (see attached document). The first five criteria are
connected with Methods (Virkemidler),
criteria six to nine with Results (Resultater).
Approximately one hundred questions or possible indications supplement these
criteria. For the first five criteria related to Method, marks are awarded for
each subcriterion. 1 means: We have not yet started or implemented this, or
Don’t know; 2 means: We have just begun implementing this; 3 means: We have
implemented this in part; 4 means: We have fully implemented this; 5 means: We
have fully implemented this and continually evaluate and improve the results.
For the criteria six to nine related to Results the five marks correspond to 1:
if the results are messured and what they show; 2: (verry) negative; 3: stable
trends; 4: good and 5: verry good.
The CAF was
adapted for use in schools of music by the Norsk
Kulturskoleråd, in cooperation with KPMG. Adapting the CAF mainly involved
formulating criteria.
One tool for
selecting areas for improvement is the process card. This concerns 1) core
processes, i.e. contacts between teacher and student; 2) executive and
management processes, and 3) supporting or facilitating processes, e.g.
accommodation, information and administrative services. For each of these
improvement areas indications are given, linked to the work process, which are
then reworded into concrete suggestions related to significant activities.
In support of the
project the Norsk Kulturskoleråd
offers a variety of documents on its website, including a project plan manual
for working with the quality assurance system, and examples of project plans
produced by schools.
The quality care
system is introduced so as to promote the following objectives:
The integrated
quality assurance system will only function satisfactorily if:
Benefits of the system:
a comprehensive self-assessment of the organisation and a full set of tools for
planning improvement measures and the benefits of comparing the different
schools/municipalities with each other based on the measurements from CAF –
benchmarking (in Norwegian: målestokkanalyse).
Drawbacks of the
system: requires schools to invest time, and generates some paper work
Norway started a
system implementation pilot project in 2001. Some municipalities were invited
to join, and the Norsk Kulturskoleråd
received a government subsidy for its contributions. The main goals of the
implementation project were to test the system, to arrange a marketing effort
for the system, to gain experience, and to build up knowledge in several
schools. The project proved to be a great success and will be completed in May
2004, after which the system will be offered for implemantaition in the rest of
the country.
The basic tools
involved:
A governmental
Quality Board will probably be set up to advise, approve, innovate and assist
in the quality management process.
The schools will
not be awarded any particular certificates for using the system, or for
achieving good quality standards. All the parties involved can start working
with the CAF without any particular formal certification. Moreover, the
Norwegian Government’s Modernisation Unit has recommended that the CAF be used
at all municipalities and among public administration in general.
Regulations concerning the
quality development system
So far there has
been no formal obligation on municipalities or schools to implement the Quality
Development process, but this is probably just a matter of time.
Future
Next year the
complete system will become available and implementation will start. Also next
year, the Norwegian parliament will decide about whether to set up a
governmental Quality Board.
Recently a
proposal was launched for restructuring the state offices for education, so as
to reinforce the function of the National Board (which is part of the
Department of Education). According to that proposal, the Board would become a
Directorate with national responsibility for developing the education system.
It would also be linked up with the governmental Quality Board and with
research institutes at several universities.