Inspections are to evaluate schools as self-responsible schools in their educational and
organisational matters. These inspection visits are carried out by an inspection team, often coming
from a quasi-independent quality institute of the respective Land. In all Länder, inspectors not only
observe the relevant areas of school quality and report the results to the ministry of the respective
school supervisory authority, and/or the legal body in charge of the maintenance of the school, but
they also discuss the problems and possible areas of school development with the head teacher and
the teachers. Thus, they seek to combine both roles, namely, to provide evidence for the purposes
of accountability and to facilitate school improvement. Common in all Länder, too, is that –
although the inspection is a public process – the results are not published (nor do pupil
achievement tables or ‘league tables’ exist).
The inspection system of Lower Saxony serves as a general example for the practice in
Germany, although they are just developing their model. The expert report of Lower Saxony on
the organisation of inspections emphasises that the inspections should be focused on school as a
systemic organisation, organised in a similar way and that they should be based on comparable
evaluation criteria (see Arbeitsgruppe ‘Schulinspektionssystem’, 2005). Inspections are meant to
serve as a monitoring system for the school system of Lower Saxony. The inspectorate on the one
hand fulfils the task to evaluate the quality and needs of schools, and on the other hand, to survey
certain areas of the school system in Lower Saxony in order to identify the fields in which
improvement is urgent and what has to be changed in the long run. Once a year, the inspectorate
reports to the ministry, so that it is able to conclude options for steering strategies aiming at
improved quality management in the school system. Thereby, the focus of inspection always is the
quality of instruction. Schools and practitioners are assessed on the basis of a quality framework,
which exists in different versions for the various school types, as well as in inspection manuals. The
quality framework of Lower Saxony encompasses 16 quality criteria and about 100 sub-criteria
varying according to the school type (see Table I).[3] During the inspection itself, the inspectors
contextualise the school and they evaluate teaching according to the evaluation criteria that are
based on the aforementioned quality framework. The inspectorate emphasises that only the quality
of instruction of the school as a whole is evaluated.
Inspections are carried out in four phases: (1) information about the school and preparation of
the inspection team; (2) school inspection; (3) distribution of the report to the various stakeholders
(school supervisory authority, school administration, teachers, the staff council, the parent and
pupil council, and the legal body in charge of the maintenance of the school); and (4) if necessary,
the head teacher has to improve certain areas of schooling. If a school is assessed to be ‘below
standard’, the head teacher needs to consult the newly reorganised school supervisory authorities,
and within one year, the school is inspected again.
In many Länder that have started a system of school inspections there is no sound assessment
system of the inspection service itself, i.e. of the impacts of the inspectorates’ work, their inspection
teams, their frameworks of quality – comparable to the quality framework of Lower Saxony, which
serves as a yardstick for the quality criteria being measured – as well as of the quality improvement
measures in the schools. However, some judge this – purely democratic and therefore
indispensable – aspect to be crucial for the quality of inspections. By assessing the inspectorate, on
the one hand inspections may be improved, and on the other hand, credibility, trust, acceptance
and support of school administrations and teachers may be gained, which is also highly important
for the effectiveness of inspections. To consider this psychological aspect when building up a
system of inspections seems for the German Länder to be highly essential.
In Germany, teachers are more used to working on their own than cooperating in teams.
This work habit is now being altered, as the new responsibilities of schools and the demands on
pupil-centred instruction methods require a change towards teamwork. The second aspect
influencing the attitude of German teachers is the fact that teaching is by law defined as a
profession in its own right; teachers enjoy autonomy in their teaching as there is the ‘institution of educational freedom’. School supervisory authorities and school leaders are only allowed to
interfere to a certain extent in teaching as long as the teacher keeps to the stipulations of the
curriculum (see academic supervision). These two characteristics probably will impede the process
towards a ‘culture’ of quality control that consists not only of inspections but also of selfevaluations
and assessment tests. At the moment, new demands are very likely to be refused or
seen as a burden, and ‘comparisons’ between teachers, classes and schools – even if not published –
may be rejected. Hence, at first, school inspections will probably further the teachers’ loyalty to the
teaching profession and hinder their loyalty to school as an organisation, as inspections seem to
weaken the position of teachers. Lower Saxony has taken preventive measures by integrating
internal and external assessments of the inspectorate in their system of school inspections.