External School Review system must be changed to encourage improvement

Hong Kong schools are undergoing the second round of external school review (ESR), which serves as a linchpin of the accountability framework.

Simply put, a team of experts go into schools to review and validate each organisation's self-evaluation processes, and advise them on how their work can be improved. All schools have to go through the two cycles of ESR with an interval of about six to seven years in between.

The Education Bureau is now reviewing measures to conduct future ESRs more effectively.

It proposes that there will be no fixed cycle of ESRs in future, and a more differentiated mode will be adopted, with flexible arrangements to cater for school needs. Schools will be randomly selected for future ESR, and more focus will be put on the effectiveness of learning and teaching, especially in the classroom.

The reasons for the rethink are that ESR has become a normal feature of school operations, and there is less threat to the schools now than before, as schools are familiar with the proceedings. It is time to do more to develop the culture of self-evaluation, and help schools build the findings of self-evaluations into their self-improvement plans.

There is no disagreement with the culture-building approach the bureau is taking. Though schools are less afraid of ESR now, it does not mean that they have grasped the purpose of self-evaluation and ESR.