The National System for the Inspection Evaluation of the Educational System in the Czech Republic (NIQES) is a development project conducted by the Czech School Inspectorate. It aims to create a transformed, modern and flexible system of national school inspection, to develop new methods and tools for evaluation of the Czech education system quality and to ensure professional development for both inspectors, and for teachers and school principals in the sphere of new inspection procedures. This project is co-financed by the European Social Fund and by the state budget of the Czech Republic.
The project was launched on July 1, 2011 and ended on October 31, 2015.
1) create a set of new inspection procedures, tools and methods for monitoring and evaluation of education quality both on the education system level and on the individual school level.
2) to create a system of school educational programs evaluation including a user friendly technological platform to support development and administration of school educational programs, to be put in hands of pedagogical staff.
3) to build a complex system of CSI staff personal development as well as continuous professional development of school inspectors, teachers and school principals in domains of new inspection procedures, methods and tools created within the project.
4) to build a technological platform for electronic monitoring of pupils’ outcomes in schools across grades and subjects (i.e. learning outcomes check up at the 5th and 9th grade, development of a so called system of school and home testing), providing pupils, parents, schools and the state with an effective feedback on the learning process.
At present, the CSI is developing within the NIQES project a new interactive environment for elaboration, modification and evaluation of School Educational Programs, including the integrated inspection activity system for collection, recording and evaluation of data (so called “InspIS”). Some modules of this system will be used by schools on the mandatory basis in order to meet legal obligations towards the CSI (e.g. collection of data on injuries, electronic inspection surveys etc.). The other modules will be at disposal of schools, but not on a compulsory basis (e.g. a module for School Educational Programs or a school portal.)
Since November 2013 till March 2014, all the InspIS information system modules went through demanding pilot testing at selected Czech schools. The system will be adjusted according to the pilot testing results. The full operation is going to be launched this year (2014).
In the middle of February 2014,
the public operation of InspIS SET system modules for home and school testing were launched. As one of the additional school evaluation tools,
the modules can serve for electronic pupils testing according to individual preferences (the home testing module) or according to school needs (the school testing module). After completion of a test, the
user receives almost immediately a complex result composition, including analyses of his/her knowledge and skills – in which he/she performed better or worse.
This system includes also a continuously updated database of freely accessible test tasks from various subjects and literacies designed for various grades (the target for 2015 is to collect 10 000 tasks).
During the school years 2011/2012 and 2012/2013,
two nationwide general rehearsals took place within the NIQES framework for testing learning outcomes of the 5th and the 9th grade pupils in basic schools and in corresponding grades in other types of schools. Almost all of the schools in the country have been involved. Beside functionality verification of the electronic testing system under the nationwide load, the main objectives was to provide relevant feedback on 5
th graders' and 9
th graders' learning outcomes in comparison with external educational standards for Czech language, mathematics and one of the chosen foreign languages (English, German, French).
More information about the NIQES project is available in Czech on
www.niqes.cz