Summary
The Ministry of Education (the Ministry) is responsible for leading the public education sector to ensure that the education system works for all. Within the sector, each state and state-integrated school is governed by a board of trustees (board). There are about 2469 boards and about 18,500 trustees.
We examined the effectiveness of the Ministry's monitoring of, and support for, boards in their governance role. This included reviewing the Ministry's systems for monitoring boards and identifying boards that may be at risk of poor performance, its systems for providing support, the types of support available, and its systems for providing general training for all trustees.
Our findings
Overall, the Ministry provides a useful level of training and general support for all boards. It also has good systems for supporting boards that are clearly at risk of poor performance. However, we know little about whether the training and support provided is contributing to improved governance of schools. This is an area the Ministry needs to improve.
The Ministry also needs to more actively monitor the whole school portfolio so that it identifies schools that would benefit from support earlier, and provides that support promptly and consistently throughout the country. It already has a wealth of information about schools that it could use to effectively target its training and support resources for boards.
General training and support for all school boards
The Ministry has made some training and support available to all boards. This is generally well received by trustees. However, we are not confident that the training and support provided meets the needs of trustees, because the Ministry has not systematically analysed the training and support provided or identified the main training and support needs of boards.
In our view, the Ministry needs to strengthen its monitoring of training contracts to ensure that significant issues and trends are reported systematically. It also needs to focus on identifying and evaluating the outcomes achieved – for example, how the training and support contributes to improving governance.
We consider that there is scope to significantly improve the outcome monitoring and evaluation of the services delivered to ensure that they meet the needs of trustees, can be used to make appropriate amendments to training programmes, and contribute to improved governance of schools.
Monitoring board performance and identifying school boards at risk of poor performance
The Ministry does not have policies and procedures for monitoring the performance of boards. As a result, although it is identifying some boards at risk of poor performance in terms of the welfare or educational performance of their students or school operations (boards at risk), we cannot be confident that it is consistently identifying all boards at risk and that it is offering timely support to those boards. The support offered to boards with similar issues may be different depending on where they are located. This is because practices for monitoring boards vary between the Ministry's offices.
The Ministry has a range of information available on board performance that it could use better to identify boards at risk. However, as monitoring is not clearly defined, we cannot be sure that the Ministry is using the most appropriate sources of information.
The Ministry is not systematically reviewing school charters and Analysis of Variance reports to establish whether boards adequately understand and demonstrate compliance with the National Education Guidelines. It could better use this information to identify risks to board performance and the support needed to improve it.
Providing support for school boards identified as being at risk of poor performance
The Ministry has some useful systems for supporting boards at risk. However, we were not able to establish that the Ministry decided to offer support, either informal support or statutory intervention, consistently and in a timely way for all regions and boards. This is because the systems and practices vary between Ministry offices. There is no overall guidance available to help Ministry staff to decide when and what support they should give to boards.
The Ministry has effective policies and procedures for managing statutory interventions once it intervenes. These are usually followed. However, the Ministry needs to improve how it monitors statutory interventions and assesses the effectiveness of statutory interventions. There is not enough information on the effectiveness of statutory interventions in improving board governance in the long term.
It is unclear whether the limited number of people in the group available for implementing statutory interventions is a disincentive for the Ministry to intervene or affects the length of time it takes to intervene. However, putting in place a more transparent and open process for appointing people to the group would remove ambiguity and could help to increase the number of people available.
Our recommendations
Training and support for school boards
We recommend that the Ministry of Education:
- systematically analyse available information about what training and support school boards need so it can identify and prioritise the main needs and match services to those needs;
- strengthen the monitoring and evaluation of the contracts for school board training and support to include a focus on how the support provided by those contracts contributes to improved governance of schools; and
- evaluate methods of providing school board training to identify best practice that it can use more widely.
Monitoring the performance of school boards
We recommend that the Ministry of Education:
- clarify the criteria or triggers for identifying school boards at risk of poor performance, and prepare policies and procedures for monitoring boards to identify as early as possible boards that may be at risk;
- identify the information it needs to consistently identify school boards at risk and use it in a timely way; and
- review school charters and Analysis of Variance reports to assess the extent to which school boards are meeting the National Education Guidelines, and use this information to identify areas where boards may need further support.
School boards at risk
We recommend that the Ministry of Education:
- improve guidance for its staff on how to support school boards at risk of poor performance, and encourage consistent systems and best practice to provide boards at risk with timely support that is effective in resolving the issues and contributing to improved governance of schools;
- document and make transparent the process for appointing people to the group available to carry out statutory interventions; and
- put in place a more systematic monitoring and evaluation framework for statutory interventions so it can assess the effectiveness of statutory interventions in improving a school board's capacity to govern.
Response from the Ministry of Education
The Ministry has advised us that it will be taking action to address our recommendations.