This chapter explains the quality assurance systems in place in early childhood and school education, higher education, and adult education and training.
This introductory article provides an overview of the quality assurance systems in place in Wales at central and institutional level.
Central level
The Welsh Government sets the overall framework for quality assurance. This includes compiling data on and evaluating school performance, to raise standards and hold schools to account, and monitoring learning providers’ performance in further education.
It is also responsible for setting the overall policy direction for higher education in Wales, and has established the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) to ensure that a framework is in place for assessing the quality of higher education and scrutinising the performance of providers.
Note: The Welsh Government plans to establish the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (CTER) by 2023. It is intended that the CTER will provide strategic direction to, and oversee the funding and quality of all education for individuals over the age of 16.
Statutory committees of the National Assembly for Wales provide an important means of scrutinising policy, expenditure and proposed legislation at central level. The Children, Young People and Education Committee is responsible for matters relating to the education, health and wellbeing of children and young people in Wales, including their social care.
The Wales Audit Office supports the National Assembly for Wales in its task of holding the Welsh Government to account for the way in which it spends public money.
Inspectorates
The Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) is the independent regulator of childcare and social care in Wales. It is responsible for the regulation and inspection of children’s day care, childminders, out-of-school care and children’s social care. It also works with Estyn in the inspection of private and voluntary providers in receipt of public funding to provide early childhood education and care for three- and four-year-olds.
Estyn, the office of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Education and Training in Wales, plays a role in system-level quality assurance through the inspection of maintained primary and secondary schools; independent schools; special schools; pupil referral units; further education, adult community learning; work-based learning; teacher education and training; and local government education services. The Chief Inspector also produces an annual report outlining the strengths and weaknesses of the education system.
International perspectives
Information from international surveys of student attainment provides comparative performance measures for school education. Wales participates in PISA (the Programme for International Student Assessment). For further information, see the PISA page on the Welsh Government website.
In 2014, the OECD carried out a review of the Welsh education system. The review report, Improving Schools in Wales: an OECD Perspective, provided a number of recommendations for the Welsh Government to develop in the long-term. A second OECD review, The Welsh Education Reform Journey: a Rapid Policy Assessment (2017), assessed the changes which had been implemented since 2014, and a third OECD review, Achieving the New Curriculum for Wales (October 2020), analyses the progress made with the new curriculum since 2016,and offers suggestions on the actions Wales should take to ready the system for further development and implementation.
Institutional level
The education system in Wales operates within a strong framework of accountability to students, parents, the community, and to the Welsh Government, which has set expectations for school level education that include a strong emphasis on collective responsibility for raising standards. This includes placing importance on ensuring that providers address the needs of pupils from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. External inspection plays an important role, as does the publication of performance data.
Institutional self-evaluation is both an important part of the quality improvement process and a key input to external evaluation. Publicly funded pre-schools, schools, further education (FE) colleges and universities are accountable for their own performance to their governing bodies which include representatives of key stakeholders, such as, in the case of schools, parents, staff and representatives of the local community.
Early childhood education and care (ECEC)
Early childhood education and care is delivered in a range of public, private and voluntary settings. These settings are inspected differently, depending on whether they are funded by the local authority.
Maintained schools and maintained nursery schools, which provide education in the Foundation Phase for three- to seven-year-olds, are inspected by Estyn, the office of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Education and Training in Wales, in line with the Education Act 2005. See the subheading ‘Schools’ below for further information.
Early years settings in Wales that are not maintained schools or maintained nursery schools, alongside schools offering provision for children under the age of three, are regulated and inspected by the Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW). They must adhere to the 12 standards for quality, management, physical environment and staffing set out in the National Minimum Standards for Regulated Childcare for Children up to the age of 12 years (Welsh Government, 2016). This is supplemented by future changes to the national minimum standards for regulated childcare (Welsh Government, 2018) which is due to be implemented in September 2021. However, if these settings receive funding from local authorities for delivering education for three- and four-year-olds, educational quality and standards are inspected jointly by Estyn and the CIW. A new inspection framework for the joint inspections was introduced from January 2019.
Schools
Self-evaluation is an important part of the quality assurance process: it provides the basis for school planning, development and improvement. Ultimate responsibility for institutional self-evaluation rests with the school governing body and the headteacher of each school, who evaluate all aspects of the work of the school and set objectives for improvement. It is recommended that they do so by using Estyn’s Common Inspection Framework (2017). In addition, all schools are required to produce a rolling three-year development plan which outlines the school’s strategic plan for improvement, as set out in The Education (School Development Plans) (Wales) Regulations 2014.
External inspection of maintained schools is carried out by Estyn, in accordance with the Education Act 2005 and The Education (Amendments Relating to the Inspection of Education and Training) (Wales) Regulations 2014. Inspections are based on the Common Inspection Framework (2017). The guidance handbooks for primary and secondary schools provide detailed information on inspection arrangements. There is also supplementary guidance on evaluating particular areas of education, such as literacy and ICT.
Every local authority in Wales is required to promote high standards of education for pupils of school age in its area by monitoring and supporting their performance. This is a requirement of the School Standards and Organisation (Wales) Act 2013. Some local authority school improvement functions are delegated to regional consortia of local authorities. The allocation of support for schools is determined through the National School Categorisation System, which has been in place since 2015.
The review of teachers’ performance is conducted annually, within the school, in accordance with The School Teacher Appraisal (Wales) Regulations 2011. It is described in the article on ‘Continuing Professional Development’ in the chapter on ‘Teachers and Education Staff’.
Higher education
The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) holds key responsibilities with regard to the regulation of higher education (HE) in Wales. This is set out in the Higher Education (Wales) Act 2015, under which HEFCW has powers to assess the quality of education in the higher education institutions (HEIs) that it regulates, and to require HEI governing bodies to take steps to improve the quality of education where necessary.
The HEFCW uses the Quality Assessment Framework for Wales (2018) for this purpose, which is underpinned by a set of baseline regulatory requirements. These align with those used in England and Northern Ireland, ensuring that there is a shared approach to quality assessment in HE across all three jurisdictions.
Other arrangements relevant to quality assurance in higher education include:
- the Quality Code for Higher Education (QAA, 2018), which sets out expectations and core practices for UK HE providers
- external examining – external examiners ensure an independent assessment of academic standards at the institution making the award
- the publication of information, such as the UK performance indicators published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
- external assessment of the quality of research through the Research Excellence Framework for UK HEIs
- the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), in which HE providers in Wales can choose to participate.
Note: The Welsh Government plans to establish the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (CTER) by 2023, with the aim of strengthening and simplifying the post-16 sector in Wales. The CTER will be:
- the regulator for both higher education (HE) and further education (FE) institutions and the primary funder of HE and FE provision
- responsible for apprenticeships, adult learning, and schools-based post-compulsory education and training (PCET), delivered through local authorities
- responsible for Welsh Government-funded research and innovation in the PCET sector.
Subject to legislation, the CTER will be established by 2023.
Further education and work-based training
The Welsh Government expects the post-16 education providers it funds to develop their own quality assurance systems to maintain high standards and ensure continuous improvement. As outlined in the Self Assessment Guidance for Post-16 Providers, they must provide Welsh Government with an annual self-assessment report (SAR) and quality development plan (QDP).
External inspection of further education and work-based learning is conducted by Estyn, the office of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Education and Training in Wales, under the 2017 Common Inspection Framework.
Article last reviewed April 2021.