School improvement issues, especially under the quality assurance banner, are of ongoing concern in educational systems world wide. In South Africa this matter has been addressed via the integrated quality management system (IQMS) which incorporates individual developmental appraisal and performance measurement as well as whole school evaluation. In contrast with the traditional top-down, authoritarian approach to educational evaluation, these procedures attempt to incorporate a much more participative perspective, in line with developments in other countries. Two key components of this emerging participatory approach are the emphasis now given to self-evaluation at both the individual educator and the whole school levels, as well as the use of a so called ‘critical friend’, a concept which arises out of the movement away from the ‘expert’ tradition towards that of the external evaluator as someone who combines the necessary external perspective with a much stronger supportive and developmental role than was apparent in the past. This paper explores the concepts of school self-evaluation and the use of a ‘critical friend’ with a view towards evaluating the usefulness of these concepts in current school evaluation initiatives, with particular reference to experiences in the South African context.

 

Keywords: School self-evaluation, critical friend, South African context.