Essentially there are two forms to be completed as part of this school governance evaluation process. As indicated below, it is the scorecard assessment forms that will give the score after the evaluation. The policy checklist form, on its part, is meant to check and evaluate only the availability of school policies and important school
documents that are crucial for effective institutional management. It is important for a school to get excellent scores on both these evaluations.
Two evaluation forms need to be completed:
Scorecard Assessment Form – The scorecard form includes various performance areas, all of which should be scored;
Document and Policy Checklist – The checklist for evaluating key policies, documents and information on school governance as well as the standard and governance objectives.
6.4.1 Questions and scores
The main part of the scorecard form is a series of questions grouped in terms of specific performance areas and targets of school governance evaluation as indicated in Figure 6.1. It also has other important elements such as indicators, goals, objectives, measures, scores and comments. Each indicator should be scored between 0 and 5, based on the level of performance. A series of answers is provided for each question to help scorers or assessors determine the relevant ranking.
Some of the questions that are not applicable to a particular type of special school governance set-up should not be ignored or omitted, but should be marked with a clear, neat and visible dash line and the specific reason must be given in the comments section. This is, inevitably, an approximate process and there will be situations where some of the indicators do not fit conditions in the special school very precisely. Users of this scorecard must choose the answers that are nearest to the situation in the school and they must use the comments section to elaborate
6.4.2 Targets
The targets are expressed in the form of minimum percentage scores expected from schools on a specific performance indicator. The key variables in determining these percentage score targets are law and policy as expressed in the legislative framework on school governance. Consultations, discussions and workshops held during the development and pre-implementation stages of the scorecard resulted in consensus among role players, schools and department officials on minimum targets
scores from all performance areas of the scorecard. Expected targets range from stated minimum targets upwards. However, if the minimum expected target is a range, e.g. 85%-90%, this means that room for change in the minimum score over time is acknowledged.
The fact that minimum expected scores differ between the various performance areas is due to the level of emphasis they are given by the department through its policies, regulatory framework as well as actions taken to enhance that particular area of school governance. For instance, financial management and safety in schools are some the most often expressed aspects of school governance, and therefore the minimum target expected is higher.
6.4.3 Comments
The comments section allows for qualitative explanations, ranging from personal opinion, a reference document, monitoring results or external studies and assessments, to justify why certain scores were given. The point is to give anyone reading the report an idea of why particular assessment scores were given. The researcher also suggests that respondents should add any useful information that could be shared with other school governing bodies and schools, for example, good practices or successful activities.
6.4.4 Final score
Scorecard users and assessors will have a score for each of the performance areas of evaluation and a final score after completing the assessment form. In cases where some questions are not scored, e.g. they are not applicable or not relevant to the particular special school, then the maximum score should be changed to an adjusted score (maximum possible score minus points for questions that are not applicable). Therefore the final score will be a percentage of the score over the adjusted maximum score.
6.4.5 Performance areas linkage to indicators, goals, and measures
A number of performance areas have been developed from various school governance frameworks, regulations and literature as well as from policies and literature on good governance. These were analysed and remodelled in line with the
primary policy documents, ie. SASA, National Education Policy Act, Act 27 of 1996 and Western Cape Provincial Schools Education Act, Act 12 of 1997 sections dealing with schools governance, discussed in Chapter 4, as well as the literature on the balanced scorecard for educational and non-profit sector as presented in Chapters 3 and 5 . Since of these performance areas is broad, they were each broken down into indicators that are the building blocks of each performance area. For each of these indicators a goal and measure was designed on the proposal of the framework or literature. For instance as illustrated on, performance area 1 in the scorecard model looks at the overall state of SGB, where indicator 1 is about SGB election. The goal is that every three years the different school constituents elect delegates to participate on the SGB so as to represent on the school matters.
Therefore the measure of this indicator is to answer a question whether the SGB was elected properly and the correct procedures and principles were followed for electing the members in a democratic, free and fair manner. The score out of 5 based on Figure 6.1 above is then allocated. Finally, if there is any statement or comment for improving the status quo it should be written on the column allocated. The same methodology was followed on all the other performance areas.