Assessment and assurance of quality in public kindergartens and schools is mostly based on their self-evaluation, for which head-teachers are responsible in accordance with the law.
The monitoring of work in public kindergartens and schools is conducted by school inspectors by the School Inspection Act. They are employed at the Education Inspectorate. The inspection mainly includes the monitoring of the regularity of work, the implementation of rights and obligations of children and teaching staff, the organization, documentation management, eligible use of funds etc.
Requirements for appointment
The inspectorate is managed by the chief inspector. The chief inspector must hold at least a higher education degree (equivalent to a master’s degree) and have 10 years of work experience in education.
School inspectors implementing control in kindergartens and schools must hold at least a higher education degree (a master’s degree or equivalent) and have 7 years of work experience in the teaching, development-research or administrative field of education and must have completed the professional exam for inspectors.
In their work, the school inspectors are often assisted by specialist experts. The minister determines the specialists list and the rules for appointment. The specialists lists shall be formed by individual professional fields and shall contain several specialists for each field. The lists of specialists for the pedagogical field shall be determined by the competent council of experts.
Specialists for the pedagogical field must have at least a higher education degree (equivalent to a master’s degree) and 10 years of work experience in the teaching, counselling or development-research field, and at least the promotion titles of councillor or higher education teacher.
Conditions of service
The Education Inspectorate is an independent body within the Ministry of Education. It is responsible for inspecting the implementation of educational regulations in kindergartens, schools, upper secondary student residence halls, higher vocational colleges, institutions for children and youth with special needs, institutions for adult education, and private institutions offering publicly valid programmes.
School inspectors and specialist experts are civil servants. Their status, conditions of service and salaries are defined by the rules applying to public servants.
Specialist experts are usually educational advisers employed at public development-research, education and counselling institutes. The working tasks and responsibilities of education advisers include research and development work, the preparation of proposals for decision-making in the national councils of experts, the monitoring of experiments and the implementation of new programmes, counselling to kindergartens and schools, the organization of continuous professional development for teaching staff etc.