Inspectorate's intervention in external school assessment: A study based on school principals perceptions

Abstract

In Portugal, the system of evaluation of nonhigher education and teaching appears in 2002, with the publication of Law nr. 31/2002, determining that the schools are subjected to external evaluation processes. This evaluation process was handed over to the School Inspectorate since 2007, being this one of the main domains of the inspective intervention. The present study aims to examine how is perceived, by school principals of Portuguese public schools, the role of the inspection in the process of the External Evaluation of Schools. With a descriptive nature, the study relied on a survey application, answered by 111 school principals of mainland Portugal. The results suggest that the External Evaluation of Schools is an inspective activity valued by the school principals and developed in alignment, on the one hand, with the mission and functions of the School Inspectorate in the educational system, and, on the other, with the objectives enshrined in law for that activity. Also, it is showed that the school principals perceived this activity as an opportunity to claim the principal role and accreditation of their leadership in the exercise of their autonomy.