Introduction to the education review office chapters

The next two chapters make for a composite case study of the Education Review Office, the New Zealand agency responsible for monitoring the ‘the effectiveness of learning centres in meeting their agreed educational outcomes as set out in [school] charters’ (French, 2000, p. 5). This is, in many senses, the systemic fulcrum against which the levers of a negotiated approach achieve their purchase. The ERO purposefully denies its previous title of ‘Inspector’, with ‘review’ being emblematic of a less assertive and threatening approach. What we read of here are accounts of the change process that is transforming this service.

The ERO process is based on what is termed a ‘complementary’ approach to school evaluation – that is complementarity between external and internal self-review. Complementarity is achieved, as we will see, by the use of negotiation and a collaborative and developmental intent. This is not confined to ERO and schools. A broader look at New Zealand education reveals a similar transformation in the tertiary sector in which the New Zealand Qualifications Authority is developing a similar approach to the evaluation of non-university higher education institutions. This is no coincidence – the two approaches to complementarity are co-ordinated by a Ministry of Education that, elsewhere in its portfolio, is also pursuing more centralising initiatives. The dynamics are at play.