This project aims to improve the quality of education by helping Educational Administrations to understand their responsibility in promoting self evaluation in Educational Centres. We believe that the most important elements for improving educational quality are those changes which can be incorporated into centres as a result of self evaluation. These changes can arise from particular worries, needs or goals to be achieved identified as a result of an audit conduced by staff in the particular Centre. For these reasons, Educational Administrations must support centres in the processes of self evaluation. We believe that advice, training and staff development will be required to assist staff make an objective, thorough and systematic evaluation of their own performance.

To achieve this we need to study the actual self evaluation systems in place in different European Countries. We will study the role that Educational Administrations play in each participating Country in promoting self evaluation and identify the strengths in each model. We will then design a new system building on the strengths of each model studied.

The target groups are Educational Administrations, Inspectors, Advisers, Headteachers and teachers.

The project will last for 3 academic years starting in September 2000 and finishing in August 2003.

The main activities and expected outcomes of the project will be:

• To collect information about the self evaluation systems in place in participating countries.
  
  
• To evaluate the level of training and support given to Centres by the Educational Administrations in each country.
  
  
• To determine the statutory basis of self evaluation in each country.
  
  
• To evaluate the support materials in each country to promote self evaluation.
  
  
• To design a new model based on the strengths of the systems evaluated.

Expected results:

• To achieve an improvement in the quality of education on offer in those centres which will pilot the new self evaluation model designed as a result of this project.
  
  
• To understand fully the educational systems of the participating countries, thus promoting collaboration among countries.
  
  
• To identify practices which could be incorporated into any education system to enhance teaching and learning.
  
  
• To design training materials which can be used in educational centres to promote self evaluation.
  
  
• To design a course to enable the experiences gained from the project to be shared.