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Reports of school inspections from 6 February will be published

Minister Hanafin signs regulations for publication of School Inspection Reports

The Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, T.D. has signed the regulations to allow for the publication of reports arising from inspections of schools and centres of education. These regulations will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas today as required under the Education Act. The Minister also published Guidelines on the Publication of School Inspection Reports. The Guidelines describe how the Inspectorate of the Department will publish the reports arising from the inspection of schools and centres for education.

The reports from inspections carried out after 6th February 2006, will be made available to the public generally.

The Minister said that the Guidelines had been produced following an extensive consultation process with representatives of teacher unions, school management, trustees, parents and students. She was pleased that the necessary guidelines and regulations were now in place to enable publication of reports to take place.

Minister Hanafin said "last summer I announced that I intended to publish inspection reports on schools and I invited all the education partners to engage with the Inspectorate in a consultation process on how best to achieve this. These guidelines have emerged from this consultation process and I am delighted now to have signed the regulations to allow the publication to proceed."

The Minister believes that school inspection reports will help to provide accurate and balanced information on schools to parents, students, schools and the wider public.

"By making these reports available, I am providing more information about schools. Crude league tables, based solely on examination results, are damaging and misleading whereas these reports will provide accurate and balanced information on the work of schools," said Minister Hanafin.

The Minister noted that the inspection process provided a comprehensive evaluation of the work of schools or sections within schools. "During Whole School Evaluations, for example," she said, "inspectors meet with the school's board of management, the teaching staff and the representatives of the parents' council. In post-primary schools, they meet the students' council. They collect information from school documentation and teachers' planning. They observe lessons, they interact with students and they examine students' work. Their reports provide judgements on the quality of school management and school planning. They assess the quality of learning and teaching in the school, and the quality of supports for students, including those with special educational needs. All of these judgements take into account the context in which the school is working."

Minister Hanafin thanked the education partners for the way that they had participated in the consultation process. "Many valuable suggestions were received," she said, "and these have been carefully considered in the refinement of the final procedures."

ENDS

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