Managing for Quality and Accountability in Western Australian Education

Abstract

In pursuit of devolution and school‐based management with attendant concerns for quality and accountability the Western Australian Government embarked in 1987 on major restructuring and reform of the education system. Backed by legislative changes affecting all public sector institutions it attempted major system‐wide reform of the curriculum, of management and administration, and of the part played by all stakeholders. In Western Australia, as elsewhere, there is a strong desire to improve the quality of education and at the same time increase public accountability. Hence there is a need to explore the relationship between quality and accountability. Policy‐makers see close connections between these factors. Closer scrutiny reveals that the connections may not be as direct and mutually reinforcing as is thought. In just three years the Western Australian Ministry of Education has initiated a myriad of sweeping changes, the like of which has never been experienced before in what has been a centralised, conservative system. Some of these changes include devolution of responsibilities to schools, the introduction of school development planning and school councils, performance management and appraisal, merit promotion, monitoring of student learning, financial auditing and wholesale curriculum reform. Underpinning these measures lie the twin motives of quality and accountability. The ways in which the changes have been implemented top‐down without adequate guidance or support have, inter alia, brought the system to breaking point. Exercising quality control and accountability over one million square miles calls for a greater degree of managerial and administrative competence than the Ministry of of Education has yet displayed.

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