International Best Practices of School Review Processes and Perceptions of Principals on School Outcomes and Improvement

Abstract

Education plays a vital role in developing nations and laying the foundation for our future. With the onset of 21st century skills, nations across the world have launched a series of national reform initiatives to remodel their education system with the goal of having a national human capital force that competes globally. One key initiative towards this end is to make the reviews and reports on the performance of all education and training providers in the country more authentic and transparent. These kinds of reviews have invariably helped establish a culture of school improvement and quality assurance. The current study explores the best practices in the school review process in select countries and examines in detail, the case of the Kingdom of Bahrain. Since 2008, all government schools in Bahrain have undergone three cycles of inspection by the Education and Training Quality Authority, previously known as the Bahrain Quality Assurance (BQA). The study thus aims to investigate the impact of external reviews on school improvement and how far the BQA aligns with the international school review frameworks and best practices. For the secondary source of data to conduct the qualitative exploration, information was collected from the BQA records available online to identify the patterns of improvements. For the primary source of data to supplement the quantitative explanation, questionnaire was used to elicit perspectives of principals, vice principals, and acting principals on these school reviews. The study is important to the Bahraini government and may provide a model for other countries to improve education.