The Future of Education

Is the organizational performance an asset for the education sector? In a context of ever evolving needs and social economic instability, public administrations have to rely on effective management to enhance the quality of their organizational performance. In line with this goal, EUPAN (European Public Administration Network) designed the Common Assessment Framework (CAF), a holistic model aimed at assisting public administrations in their quest for continuous performance improvement. The CAF is an easy-to-use and free tool based on the Principles of excellence, specifically tailored for and developed by the public sector itself at European level. Around 4000 registered cases of public organizations across Europe prove an extensive use of this framework. Since its launch in May 2000, the CAF has been promoted in 53 countries. Among them are 24 MSs supported by the European CAF Resource Centre managed by EIPA.
Due to the extended dissemination of the model in the education sector, related with organizational and cultural reasons, the CAF & Education version has been developed in 2011. In 2014 EIPA CAF experts in collaboration with the Italian CAF Center carried out a survey in order to assess the effectiveness of CAF implementation in this field. Data underlined that CAF application can initiate a substantial organizational and cultural change, trigger improvement actions and, above all, enhance performance results. The data collected gave evidence of an increased perception of transparency in the institutions, a more efficient use of internal resources and a greater development of staff competencies. All these elements are recognized by managers and stakeholders as factors producing beneficial impacts on schools key performance results. At European level Italy is the country where the usage of CAF is broader. As the high level of application by Italian schools (more than 600), the paper discusses the strategies and major initiatives implemented to promote and support the CAF & Education diffusion. The aim of this work is to provide an overview of this self-assessment model with a specific focus on the educational sector.

Keywords: self-assessment, Total Quality Management, continuous performance improvement;

References:
[1] Ec.europa.eu. (2013). Improving Public Organizations through Self-Assessment. Available at:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/ramon/statmanuals/files/CAF_2013.pdf
[2] EIPA. (2013). CAF & Education. Available at:
https://archive.eipa.eu/en/pages/show/&tid=141
[3] Presidency of the Council of the European Union (2014). CAF in the Education Sector Successful stories of performance improvement. Available at:
https://archive.eipa.eu/files/File/CAF/CAF%20Education%20Research%20Report_20150601.pdf
[4] EIPA. (2016). CAF Improvement identification, prioritisation and implementation. Available at:
https://archive.eipa.eu/files/File/CAF/CAF_Study_Slovak_Presidency_compressed.pdf
[5] EIPA. (2019). European CAF Resource Centre - EIPA. Available at:
https://www.eipa.eu/portfolio/european-caf-resource-centre/