Challenges and opportunities for the school system

Abstract

Educational agencies are going through a difficult transition, with important consequences in terms of de-legitimacy of the social mandate historically assigned to the school. The reason for this widespread unease can be traced to the fact that today we live in a complex system.

This paper arises within this problematic framework with the intent to outline the most important lines of change affecting education agencies during the last fifteen years, paying particular attention to the new institutional and normative framework that redefined the whole educational structure in Italy.

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the development of a new vision of the education system, more in line with the challenges posed by the global and complex society that emphasizes both the importance of evaluation of education agencies, on the basis of Quality Assurance more attentive to results, and the community’s responsibility to education.

Keywords

Sociology of Education school education agencies education policies evaluation and Quality Assurance

Introduction

In the last decade, we can observe a historical change within all educational agencies that involves individuals, institutions and organizations.

Education agencies have an essential aim in society, to help persons to find their place in the community, through the interiorization of norms and values (Durkheim, 1987; Parsons, 1951) and the acquisition of knowledge and skills (OECD, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2012a, 2012b) essential to social and work life. To a certain extent the sociology of education has explained the importance of education for the individual and for social improvement using meritocratic theories and the idea of human capital (Schultz, 1961). Many other theorists have demonstrated the perverse effects of educational policy (Collins, 1979), the inequality in access to education (Bernstein, 1971; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1970) and the selection function of the school, caused by discrimination (Althusser, 1970). For this reason, for a few years, in all western countries, an important debate on the necessity to evaluate outcomes of the education system was affirmed. Hence, in the last few years, Italy has also realized important reforms in this respect, in comparison with other countries.

There is no longer any doubt that educational agencies are having great difficulty with this transition. The reason for this widespread unease can be traced to the fact that today we live in a complex system.

This paper outlines the most important lines of change affecting education agencies during the last fifteen years in which the new institutional and normative framework in Italy redefined the whole structure.

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the development of a new vision of the education system, more in line with the challenges posed by the global and complex society. In keeping with this intent, this paper focuses on three central ideas:

the guiding principles that should direct a new educational model closer to contemporary needs;

the delicate issue of the recognition of new professional needs of those who work, at different levels, within educational agencies;

the challenge of evaluation faced in Italy in recent years.

This paper draws on extensive research (qualitative and quantitative), training and consultation carried out in schools, and for schools, over the past ten years, converged in publications¹ and research reports² to which we refer to the study of empirical data in depth. (Here, we report only the most relevant considerations, in line with the aim of his essay.)

To conclude, some reflection regarding the responsibility of the community to promote positive results in education and learning is presented. An educational community founded on social capital (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2001) and trust (Schrader, 2004), able to recognize the value of emotion to favour positive relationships and the success of individuals, groups and organizations (Ashkanasy, 2011) is recommended.

Which education?

The education system, in the third millennium, has no longer its protective boundaries but exists in a global world, where, through the Internet (Castells, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2009), everyone can compare him/herself, directly with the world, without any mediation. Anybody can perceive this stage of unease in the over-communication offered by the evolution of Information Communication Technology (ICT).

Every day, we can observe classes of our schools and universities³ composed of a multicultural mixture where horizontal (between students) and vertical (teacher–student) dynamics can be very difficult, not only because of the constraints imposed by language differences but also because we face differences of a cultural, religious and gender order, which can weigh variously depending on the culture.

Today, we are dealing with an extraordinary social change. For many years, the idea of linear progress and development dominated Western societies. Since the oil crisis of the 1970s, this concept has been seriously undermined. As a result, we measure ourselves with a social and economic crisis that seems to have no end (OECD, 2013), instilling the seeds of doubt regarding the validity and sustainability of a completely liberal and consumerist model.⁴

Without wishing to reconstruct in detail these changes, we can remember how the development of ICT modified the telecommunications landscape.

In the last fifty years, the Internet revolution has radically altered our cultural and social structures, redesigning, completely, the framework of relations that moves within the space–time continuum where time is timeless (Castells, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2009). All this has expanded more and more our way to communicate, acquire information and be in contact with others, changing anthropologically our ‘being' in the world (Heidegger, 1927). Moreover, education agencies have to make a comparison with other, more attractive, socialization agencies (peer group, media, music, fashion, etc). Inevitably, this creates a challenge for education agencies founded on the priority of the ‘high culture’ (Gellner, 1983). Finally, very often, in our post-modern society, we can observe a variety of different kinds of families,⁵ where the young risk growing up in the absence of significant family figures, in a condition of isolation, and with few adults to refer to who are able to listen to them and to educate them in this complexity.

In the face of all these changes, only briefly sketched here, educational agencies are struggling to rethink their social mandate. Consequently, we note the difficulty to reach a new organization shape, able to respond to this complex challenge with new pedagogical, didactic, communicative and relational solutions through which to achieve the school of the third millennium. For this reason, some authors speak of the ‘crisis of the myth of education' (Dubet, 2002).

We are within a social system that considers the information (Castells, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2009), the knowledge (Foray, 2006), the self-affirmation (Touraine, 1997, 2003) and social relationships developed in contemporary society,⁶ in a very different way in comparison to fifteen years ago, so as ‘to shout’ to the ‘end of the social' (Touraine, 2012). But we know that we cannot imagine any real change if this does not happen from the inside, and if we do not take into account specific and targeted problems; that is, if we do not assume a situated, proximal and incremental perspective. And this is particularly true with the school, formed by a disarticulated, disjointed, composite and internally differentiated institution, in terms of resources, visions, people and expertise. Thus, Granovetter (1998) speaks of ‘weak ties'.

Educational agencies may face and survive these changes only if they are located inside the social context, with the intent to ‘surf' this tidal wave that sweeps away every previous certainty. Today, we need new creative and passionate skills to guide this challenge. Accompanying the change, in this perspective, means to develop a new vision of the educational mission, closer to the vocational skills of people (Capogna, 2011a), immersed in an open and turbulent environment, more attentive to the outcomes of what happens and deeply rooted in the territory with which the school exchanges resources and legitimacy.

A school like this, therefore, cannot be a centralized bureaucracy but needs to be located in the socio-cultural context in which it is inserted.⁷ This means, as clearly highlighted by research reports, realized by the Osservatorio sulla scuola dell’autonomia (2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2012) to develop new organizational and professional competencies, at all levels and in all roles, for those who work in the educational institutions and administrative apparatus connected to it (Capogna, 2007a). For this reason, in the last few years, with regard to the processes of evaluation of the overall performance of the school system, the Finnish system is considered as a good practice in all OECD surveys. The observation of this educational model highlights four key factors for the success of education agencies: a) the relevance of a ‘glocal' vision, b) accompanied by the enhancement of local autonomy; c) the interpretation and responsibilities of all actors, d) related to the evaluation of results. The synergic interaction of these factors help to create a conducive environment which spreads the social capital (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2001; McLean et. al., 2002), that is essential to the development of community (McLean et. al., 2002) and human capital.

A new vision of education based on these assumptions relies on some basic principles, which are closely interlinked; and this paper will try briefly to explain them.

The territory: risks or opportunity?

The school of the third millennium is, but overall needs to be, an integrated system (Capogna, 2006, 2007b, 2008b, 2009a), in constant and positive inter-relationship with the training, the work and guidance services, in a virtuous circle that is self-perpetuating without end, where each component cannot be separated from another. This is the logic of life wide learning, which aims to recognize and appreciate every experience of formal, non-formal and informal learning, where people grow and forge themselves, developing vocations, knowledge, abilities and skills, which are useful to the identification process (Touraine, 2003), and to the formation of a ‘tête bien fait' (Morin, 1999), to move independently and critically in a complex society. For this reason career guidance is crucial to inculcate those emotional skills (Goleman, 2011) so important today to move in a turbulent environment characterized by high relational and communicative density, which implies a significant emotional stress.

In the new framework and institutional regulations, the autonomous school has meaning and value only if anchored in a system of local self-government. It has to be embedded, i.e. actually incorporated in the local territory, to respond both adaptively to training needs that come from the world of work, and creatively to trends and emerging lines of development that are expressions of the socio-cultural context. The school cannot be taken out of a framework, and especially it cannot be left alone, abandoned by the indifference of other institutional actors that together contribute to the construction and growth of a community. It can express its independence from government only within a framework of equal virtuous relations with all social actors with which it interacts, where each one fulfils its responsible institutional and social roles.

This observation introduces another important problem, the necessity to always operate in a partnership logic. In the complex system in which we move now, no one wins alone'. It is not easy to build, manage, operate and communicate within networks, because this necessarily requires the development of new skills in leadership, management, action, evaluation and planning. Research conducted by the “Osservatorio sulla scuola dell’autonomia” (2002, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2012) demonstrates extensively the variety of experiences that can be counted under the logic of the network, and the complexity of interactions and processes that are triggered by these. So, the question, for the education system, is to act as an intricate organization within a just multiplex framework of inter-organizational relationships. It is necessary to know how to network, through networking and bridging policies, so as to be capable of producing a positive ‘sum-game’, both to add value to the community development and to be a multiplier of resources through the sharing of goods, services, infrastructures and skills.

The ability to act in a logic network amplifies the possibilities to improve, if it is able to engage with that vision defined commonly as ‘glocal'. Namely a vision able to activate a perspective of a global system, a system of the world, able to contextualize, root, develop and implement within the territory opportunities that, in a globalized society, are on the web (Foray, 2006) and in the world.

To nurture perspectives and new skills to move into a logic of the network it is important also to face another crucial problem with which today we have to deal, the gradual and inexorable reduction of resources, the end of indiscriminate funding, separated from any form of evaluation and reporting ex post, and consequently the deviation towards forms of funding ‘for projects'. Decades of bureaucratic and administration traditions, based on a centralized and top-down logic have deprived the educational agencies of an entrepreneurial spirit. Also this requires educational agencies to rethink and evolve new and more articulate skills for those working, in different positions, in educational institutions. Probably, also for this reason, in Italy we observe, at all levels (central government, schools, universities and businesses), a serious skills gap to access, submit, manage and report on projects, particularly those promoted by the European Community. This is confirmed by the fact that we are among European countries, as many authoritative sources have reported⁸, the one that returns the largest share of funds.

We move now as people, organizations and institutions within a multi-faceted and complicated system that requires nurturing of complex skills, because traditional organizational and education models are no longer adequate.

Skills for a new school

This altered context needs to change radically coordination mechanisms within the educational institutions. For decades, these systems have worked in a standardized professional way; to the present day it is required that these systems, more and more, turn their expertise to the mutual adaptation, defined as ‘adhocracy' by Mintzberg (1983). The conditions to work properly in these kind of organizations are: the ability to set up specialist working groups which are able to work on ‘projects', avoiding the ‘crystallization'; emphasizing the flow of information throughout the whole structure, with respect to recipients, their culture, their needs and the results of processing and project achieved by each working group; enhancing the image of collaborators; and generating in the organization the ‘culture' of flexibility and adapting, and transparent organizational solutions. The ‘adhocratic' model is characterized by the presence both of a close-knit core of specialists and consultants, to conduct non-formal behaviour, and a new way to conceive the hierarchy. This vision of innovative and flexible organization encourages the exploration of new solutions on a variety of routes that are not defined beforehand, and that recognize the emotional skills as keys for the success of individuals, groups and organizations.

This requires every person who works in educational agencies to provide know-how and a set of professional, communicative and emotional skills that were unimaginable only up to fifteen years ago.

Anyone who wants to work today in educational agencies (with which we include the integrated school–job–training system), at any level and in any field, requires a new vision of the educational mission. So, this it is necessary to develop new paradigms to think and ‘put into practice' (Latour, 1998) education, as new and more complex skills of planning, management, evaluation, communication and relationships which allow us to move with greater ease, and less emotional and cognitive stress, within organizations where professional and personal relationships expose us to a work system more and more multiplex.

We are in ‘midstream'. This can lead us toward a new way to imagine the whole educational didactic and teaching system at all levels. There are no simple solutions.

The room for enhancement of these complex skills is varied and requires constant effort, patience and the desire to really ‘get into the game’, because they invest also, directly, the intimate spaces to manage the emotions, the uncertainty and the stress that comes from an organizational and professional system more and more characterized by high density of communication and relationships, and the increasing dematerialization of the organization (Sennett, 2001). This means that, as well as changing the educational goals of the school and the way in which we translate them into practice, we have to modify the way through which we assess needs of professional and personal training for those who work in these environments (teachers, administrators, middle management etc.). So, consequently, we need to revise methods and places through which these people can find appropriate opportunities and training to improve/empower themselves. All this, inevitably, spills over into the policies of recruitment, re-training and career development through which these skills are recognized, valued and promoted within that variety of contexts in which they operate. Then, to adapt educational agencies to this enormous change (school, university and vocational training), it passes through a significant reinterpretation of the traditional personnel policies. In Italy, these policies have often been characterized both by political patronage and by the guarantee of job position, without the promotion of merit and individual responsibility. Maybe, it is time to overcome the ideological clashes and interests of category that have always accompanied the debate on these issues. Nowadays, we need to move the focus on to the idea that education, in its various forms, can be a real resource for all only if everyone assumes their part responsibly.

Evaluating the education agencies: the Italian solution

The theme of complexity so far mentioned, allows us to introduce another thorny issue – that of the evaluation. In fact, the acquisition of powerful software for analysis has permitted the development of what we know as ‘the big data society' (Halford, 2014). The possibility to manage huge amounts of data, accompanied by the increasing desire to check the outcomes of investment in higher education, has produced a wide movement of ideas about the necessity of the evaluation. In many countries the culture and the practice of evaluation has spread since the 1980s,⁹ in contrast to Italy where it looks like a recent phenomenon.

In Italy, the Law 240/2010 regarding the University Reform and the recent Decree of the President of the Republic (28 March 2013, n. 80), regarding the ‘Regulations on the national system of evaluation in education and training', focuses on the problem of evaluation. These regulations clarify the system, actors and tasks that address the National Evaluation System of the university, research, education and training. The Law 240/2010 introduced a system of Accreditation, Evaluation and Periodic Self-Assessment of universities, as requested by the European engagement defined by the Bologna Process (EHEA, 1999) and the Bergen Conference (EHEA, 2005). But we had the first exercise of evaluation of research in 2004,¹⁰ and the commencement of university evaluation in 2013 thanks to the institution of The Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR).¹¹

Also if in Italy the dispute over the assessment, in absence of a real culture of evaluation is very severe, we can see that in other countries, where this practice is much more rooted (like France and Germany), there is an increasing resistance due to the fear of the rigidity and the risk of bureaucratic complexification of the processes. The most important critique is that the Quality Assurance process takes away more and more time from the principal aim of teaching that each educational agency must pursue. In reality, the evaluation is not considered as an opportunity.

The assessment can be appreciated in its true essence only if we understand that it is an important tool of knowledge, useful to understand the dynamics, outcomes and impacts of organizational processes, and related actions by which they are carried out in different contexts. In this sense, evaluation is a learning tool, essential to manage the complexity, capable of resolving critical ‘incidents’ and an opportunity for organizational learning. It is functional to organizational management and institutional design. It is an instrument of knowledge management, for knowledge organizations.

On the basis of this way to conceive the evaluation, we can also understand why educational institutions, like any organization that today moves in a complex society, need to be based on the essential principles of self-assessment, evaluation and social responsibility. One of the foundations of any evaluation system is the relevance of self-evaluation. For this reason, the principle stated in The Law 240/2010 and the Italian DP 80/2013 focuses on the theme of the self- evaluation process of educational institutions. But, if it is true that we agree on the centrality of the process of self- analysis of educational institutions, it is also true that in terms of evaluation we cannot and we must not improvise. These skills in schools and in universities should be guided and trained, so that the evaluation can truly become a lever of development inside the education system. In a manifold society, the strategic assessment is essential to the functioning of the organization, in particular those with a public purpose, and social development (not only, therefore, those in education and training but also for those working in the health services, rehabilitation, nursing, etc.). Surely, we must be careful of both the risk of economistic and reductionist tendencies, and of the denigration against any form of assessment. For this reason, the formation of specific knowledge and skills is essential to accompany a new culture on this issue.¹²

Alongside this we note the importance of ethical behaviour of all the actors who make up the school (teachers, administrators, technical and administrative figures) and contextual actors such as stakeholders (e.g., entrepreneurs) and shareholders (e.g., families) with whom the school must interact. The ethical issue affects every segment of our society and refers to the recognition of the value of the person as such in its historical and cultural specificity. In guiding our choices and our actions the ‘person' figure, in the words of an authoritative teacher (Kant, 1788) ‘should always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end', because the persons with whom we interact are the real, and the only, medium through which we have the opportunity to get to know ourselves (May, 1989; Rogers, 1970). Then, by the process of ‘reflection', through the intersubjective relationship, we can distinguish the ‘I' in relation to ‘me' and the ‘other to me' (Mead, 1932), thus to achieve a genuine path to self-knowledge (May, 1989; Rogers, 1970). It is important to perceive the value in the school of the centrality of the person as such (student and teacher); this is sometimes sacrificed behind the standardization of bond programme, objectives and regulations, with the risk of destroying the value of the creativity and innovation. In an educational system that must form the subject to solve problems that are still unknown, the size of the creative and divergent thinking acquires a new value. And emotional intelligence becomes a new resource.

Conclusions

To conclude, we can say that the educational challenge of the 21st century is the recognition of the role and function of the ‘educational of the community' – a community with which the education system is profoundly anchored. An educational community in this sense cannot be reduced to the space of education institutions, nor can we delegate this responsibility only to teachers. Everyone is called upon to assume a responsible role in an educational community (parents, institutions, political, economic and productive system, social partners, ect), each according to their role, because education cannot be delegated, nor derogated. Also it is essential to promote self-reliance and self-determination of the people (independently to the person's age). In this sense, education is not limited to a simple and impersonal transfer of knowledge, made by teachers who are tired and disinterested. It refers to the original etymology of the term ‘e-duco' which means ‘to lead out', to accompany subjects through support, exercise and discipline to cultivate and train their faculties, their inclinations, the potential of mind, to combat negative inclinations and elevate the soul toward self and the higher morality. The ‘educating community' is not only referred to the educational system on which we blame every failure of our society; it includes all other relevant educational references, each with its own peculiarities, mission and educational obligations. So the ‘educating community' is possible only if it is based on the recognition and appreciation of authentic relationships where effective mutual listening, respect, personal responsibility and solidarity prevail. The educational community defines, next to the institutional mission to promote learning, that it is much more important to ‘teach to be' and to pursue social justice; goals that are not simple to reach in our social complexity, and in respect to which no one should feel indifferent. Going through an ‘educating community', therefore, does not mean only to follow an educational model opened to the community and to the plethora of institutions with which it is in relation. It also means to call the entire community, in the variety of expressions that nowadays characterizes it, to recognize and take on the educational role and responsibility which it bears.

If we still believe that education is the principal way to promote in people an active, responsible and global citizenship, and the participation in a democratic life (Dewey, 2004), we have to accept the challenge of a change conceived as an opportunity. This means accepting the move towards personalist and particularistic interests as Parsons (1951) explained, in place of universalistic and collective interests, which are an essential foundation for the community. The education road passes by the educational right of all to access to the democratic life and also the duty of everyone to participate responsibly towards this recognition.

Footnotes

Notes

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