From General Quality Assurance to Strict Quality Control? A Case Study of Flemish Educational Policy

• In Event: Division H VP Session: Past Designs, Present Tensions, Future Paths: Reimagining Educational Assessment Across Contexts

Abstract

Since Belgian educational policy became regionalized in 1989, Flanders, being the northern part of the country, has seen an interesting evolution with respect to its assessment culture, partly in response to the decreasing performance of Flemish students in several national and international large-scale assessments during the last decades.
During the nineties, attainment targets were introduced in all domains and for all educational levels that specified the minimal educational goals schools had to reach with the majority of their students. From 2002 onwards, sample-based national assessments were organized during twenty years. These assessment were primarily oriented at the system level, namely to check how many students effectively reached the standards. Participating schools were given feedback about their students’ performance. Schools that were not in the sample could take the initiative themselves to assess their students’ level by using parallel tests. After each assessment a consensus conference was organized with all stakeholders to discuss the results and to propose general actions for improvement.
The 2009 decree on educational quality issued that schools had to assess systematically their quality using data-informed decision making. From 2014 onwards primary schools were obliged to administer standardized tests to their sixth-graders in a broad range of learning domains, for which three sets of validated tests were recognized by the authorities. Moreover, from 2021 onwards screening of all students in the final year of kindergarten on listening comprehension became mandatory. Finally, since 2024 a compulsory, population-based system of testing of mathematics and reading comprehension in four different grades in primary and secondary education is being implemented. School results have become high-stakes, as the test results are shared with the inspectorate. Teachers can also use individual students’ test results to make decisions about their study progress.
In summary, the short history of Flemish educational policy shows a drastic change in assessment culture. Its focus has changed in multiple aspects: from the system level to the school level, from low-stakes to high-stakes, and from a broad range of testing domains to a narrow focus on mathematics and reading. Apparently, the implicit policy assumption currently seems to be that the decline in student performance can be reversed by increasing the number of standardized assessments and by holding schools directly responsible for low test performance.

Author

• Rianne Janssen, KU Leuven