The document discusses inspections in Norway as a way to promote school development and oversight. It outlines Norway's educational system with national, regional, and local authorities. A self-assessment tool called RefLex allows schools to evaluate themselves against national standards and encourages local improvement initiatives. Results so far show inspections are finding fewer issues, and half of school leaders using RefLex identified non-compliant practices and have taken steps to address them. Challenges remain around balancing state and local control over schools.

1. Inspections as a twin vehicle for
school development and control?

2. Introduction
- The Norwegian context
- Our system
- Demographic, social and
political conditions
-The example
- How the inspection is
positioned and works in the
system
- Results so far
The Norwegian example

3. Large differences in capasity
and competence

4. Ministry of Education and Research
The Directorate for Education and Training
County Governors
Local
Municipalities
own and run
Primary and lower
secondary education
Adult education
Counties
own and run
Upper secondary
education and
training
Adult education
Statelevel
CentralRegionalLocalauthorities
Independent
schools
and
kindergartens
Legal entities

5. RefLex
(Reflex.udir.no)
A self-assessment tool for schools and
school owners
Initiate a self-assessment process
in the schools

6. Reflex is a measure to build a link between internal and external
assesment
Build capasity for local authorities,
schools and stakeholders
Enable to make changes by themselves,
not because they are told to
Encourage local authorities and schools
to use their latitude in accordance with
the common goals in the Education act

7. RefLex is also a compilation tool for school owners
Local authorities can se where
there is a need for change
in the different schools
or in general.
Can be used to team up different
schools with similar issues and
also find best practice examples.

8. Feedback so far
• “The informants at all levels...provide further feedback.. that
the current supervisory methods are better suited to achieving
the goal of good municipal services.”
Translated from Difi-rapport 2015:19
• “The last main question that respondents in the survey were
asked to come up with was concrete proposals to how a
strengthened internal control in practice can reduce state
supervision. This proved to be somewhat challenging, as there
was a widespread belief among many informants that the
amount of state supervision is not necessarily too big”
Translated from KS FoU-prosjekt nr. 154023

9. Results so far
• The inspections identified a lot fewer improvement areas in
2015 than in 2014
• About 30 percent of the identified improvement areas are
improved before final report
• 50 % of school leaders have used the self assessment tool.
Most of them found practice not in accordance with the national
standards. 9 out of 10 who found deviations carried out action in
order to improve their practice.

10. Challenges and dilemmas
• Moving target
• Strong state – weak municipalities? Who sets the agenda?
• One-size-doesn’t-fit-all
• What really works over time?
• Everybody loves autonomy but hates differences in outcome