Appraisal systems in developed countries such as the UK have been well documented, as they have been in existence for a long time and are under constant review. A study of such a system may provide useful insights as to what influenced their introduction and what challenges were encountered during implementation. Furthermore, it can provide a valuable conceptualisation of teacher appraisal and should serve as a point of comparison for understanding the current IQMS in South Africa, and also possibly offer some lessons learnt from experience for future practice and policy. The history of the development of the appraisal system in the UK is particularly instructive as it has to some extent served as a model for the IQMS. In the UK, the early approach of teacher evaluation was based on the “inspectorial model”. According to Thompson (1990:10), the original approach to “appraisal” in England was a confidential report by an inspector. The teacher did not have access to such a report. However, the purpose and processes of school inspection in the UK have changed over time. Since the early 1990’s, the teacher appraisal system has shifted away from the inspectorial model to an almost professional development model and assessment for performance-related pay.
In 1976, James Callagham (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party) made his famous Ruskin College speech which criticised the school curriculum as being inappropriate for the last quarter of the twentieth century. He called for the school curriculum to come under public scrutiny, and in order for this to take place, teachers had to become more accountable to interest groups outside the school, including parents and industrialists. Thus the pressure for formal teacher appraisal in Great Britain came into being. This no doubt roused the ire of teachers and their unions (Bell, 1988:3).
In 1977 Shirley Williams, the Labour Party Secretary of State for Education, argued in her Green Paper that if the education service was to give value for money, then a high priority had to be given to the establishment of standard procedures of advice, and where necessary, warning, to underperforming teachers. In 1983, Sir Keith Joseph, the Conservative Party Secretary of the State for Education under Margaret Thatcher, insisted that those managing schools had a clear responsibility to establish a policy for staff development based on the assessment of every teacher’s performance. In 1986, Kenneth Baker, the then-secretary of State for Education, passed his new Education Act through Parliament which agreed to a national framework for the appraisal of education (Bell, 1988:4).
Over the years there have been a large number of appraisal systems devised by Local Education Authorities (LEAs), even more systems devised by individual schools influenced by management development training, and others that have been part of official pilot studies (Bollington, Hopkins and West, 1993:2; Bell, 1988:8). These various influences combined to create a case for teacher appraisal. The movement towards appraisal was given further impetus when the Department of Education and Science (DES) funded a study carried out by the Suffolk LEA. This study made recommendations on those principles and processes that appraisal should ideally encompass (Bollington, Hopkins and West, 1993:3). During the period 1987 to 1989, the DES funded the School Teacher Appraisal Pilot Study, piloting teacher appraisal in six LEAs. The outcome of this pilot was a National Framework for Appraisal, which in 1989 proposed the introduction of a national appraisal system concerned with the professional development of teachers and the good professional management of schools (Newton, 2002:29; Turner and Clift, 1988:19).
This began with awareness-raising of the aims, processes and links with school development plans. Teachers thereafter engaged in broad self-evaluation using job descriptions. This process afforded teachers an opportunity to introspect concerning their practices. After self-evaluation, appraisers and appraisees met at a pre- observation conference to set ground rules for the process, agree on dates and decide on focus areas. This was followed by classroom observation, which was
compulsory. After the classroom observation an appraisal interview was held to set targets for future development. Appraisees and appraisers met often thereafter to review progress on the targets. It is interesting to note that the IQMS has borrowed heavily from this model, as the IQMS processes are quite similar. This form of appraisal also served to improve communication in schools, and led to a greater sense of coherence and mutual understanding. It also encouraged teachers to work on and improve specific areas of their teaching, to the benefit of their learners.
However, according to Bollington, Hopkins and West (1993:63), the School Teacher Pilot Study concluded that where appraisal did not prove to be beneficial, it was due to the following factors:
Lack of appropriate training, or a gap between training and appraisal
Having an appraiser you don’t have confidence in
Failure to understand the process
Delays in the process, for example, in giving feedback
Too “cosy” appraisal
Vague targets
Lack of commitment from the principal, and
Pressure from other concerns and innovations.
From the above contentions it is clear that whilst appraisal has much to offer to both the individual and the organisation, there are a number of factors that may threaten the success of an appraisal system. An awareness of these factors will better equip managers and appraisers to be successful in their planning and implementation of the appraisal system.
While formal appraisal systems were evolving and gaining momentum in the UK, Newman (cited in Poster and Poster, 1993:14) felt it appropriate to warn that
while there are common features in appraisal systems operating in different schools, there is no single universal arrangement that will work for all. Experience has shown that there may be difficulties if a school borrows a system from another school and tries to use it without any attempt to see whether it is suitable or not.
The above assertion suggests that schools need to be allowed the flexibility to adapt their appraisal process to meet their different management styles and structures, different approaches to learning and different self-experiences (Biputh, 2008:59). If this does not occur, then the appraisal system is reduced to “one size fits all”, and fails to serve effectively as a strategy for improvement (Wadvalla 2005:48).