Strategies for Improving the Effectiveness of the Education Inspectorate Agency in Uganda: Lessons from the New Zealand Education Review Office

Abstract

This research has been carried on the New Zealand ERO and the Inspectorate of Education of Uganda. The problem with the Inspectorate has been its failure to carry out effective inspection of schools, hence necessitating its restructuring. ERO, however, has a growing reputation for good practice, and has been used in this research as a case study for lesson drawing for the Ugandan situation. Applying a systems model, common variables in organisational effectiveness literature such as organisational culture; human resource management; organisational design; leadership; external stakeholders; motivation; autonomy; contextual factors; and the outputs in schools and in the agency were applied to analyse the experiences of the two agencies. The experience of each case has been examined quantitatively and results triangulated with some qualitative evidence. The descriptive, one sample t-test and correlation statistics constituted the basis of analyses. The study establishes that ERO is perceived to be effective and the Inspectorate of Education as ineffective. The mean for each of the ERO variables is: autonomy (3.88); organisational design (3.72); leadership (4.17); motivation (4.05); organisational culture (3.96); human resource management (3.56); external stakeholders (3.69); contextual factors (3.22); and outputs (3.78). The same for the Inspectorate is: organisational design (2.42); leadership (2.74); motivation (2.78); organisational culture (2.56); human resource management (2.47); external stakeholders (2.71); contextual factors (2.39); and outputs (2.59). The mean difference for a pair of common variables between the two agencies suggests the possibility of lesson drawing by the Inspectorate agency of Uganda from the ERO of New Zealand. For each case the associations amongst the items on 'external stakeholders' suggest that similar interdependence exist among the items that measure all other variables and indeed among the variables themselves. In the end, the findings and conclusions suggest that Uganda's Inspectorate can learn some of the organisational effectiveness strategies from the ERO's experience. The researcher recognises that this study has some contributions for organisational theory, practice, research and public policy.