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The evaluation and inspection of many public services, including education, has become increasingly common in most countries in the developed world (McNamara & O'Hara, 2004; MacBeath & McGlynn, 2002). There are various reasons why this may be the case. It can be argued that it is, on the one hand, part of the movement towards low trust policies derived from the ideology of neo-liberalism which seeks to apply the values of the market to the public sector. On the other hand, it can be argued that increased evaluation is a necessary and defensible component of democratic accountability, responsibility and transparency (O'Neill, 2002). The research reported here sets out to explore the idea of a personal vision or core of ethics as being central to educational leadership, through in-depth interviews with a number of school leaders. The chapter begins by briefly placing educational leadership in the modern context, characterised by the paradox of apparently greater decentralisation of responsibility to schools being in fact coupled with a further centralisation of actual power and greatly increased surveillance of performance (Neave, 1998). Relevant developments internationally, and then specifically in the context of Ireland, are described. It is suggested that in Ireland the modern educational context may indeed be creating difficult ethical and moral dilemmas for leaders to face. To see if this is so in practice, five in-depth interviews with school principals are reported. The evidence arising from these interviews indicates that school leaders do feel guided by a strong moral or ethical compass.

The efficacy of and ethical justification for applying positivist research principles to the evaluation of social processes such as education are being increasingly challenged. Recent work in educational evaluation has tried to meet this challenge by moving the focus towards understanding the impact of projects and innovations on their recipients and by encouraging self-evaluation. However the dominant form of educational evaluation still involves judgements made through the eyes of the external evaluator and the connotation persists of evaluation as the external monitoring of professional practice. This article suggests that in the case of educational programmes, initiatives and innovations the focus of judgement should move from the evaluators to the practitioners and the former should find a new role in supporting the professional development of the latter.

In recent years, state funded, practitioner-led organizational improvement programmes have become increasingly common within the Irish education system. Central to this new model of public funding has been the demand for extensive evaluation of each programme, a demand that has raised a number of important theoretical and practical issues for programme evaluators. The issue addressed in this article is that of the difficulty of designing approaches to evaluation which can meet the cultural and organizational needs of schools, while at the same time providing evidence as to the effective or otherwise implementation of national educational policy. Initially, the article identifies and examines the tension that has arisen between programme funders' demand for an evaluation process that produces measurable 'outputs' and the programme participants' demand that the evaluation be sensitive to the specific cultural climate and needs of the organization under investigation. An approach to overcoming these conflicting demands arising out of a project where such problems became central to the process of evaluation is suggested. This approach grew out of the distinction drawn by Habermas (1972) between practical and emancipatory knowledge and was developed in light of Daly's (1997) application of this concept to research, in her identification of first and second order stories or narratives.

This article examines the training needs of educators working in the further education (FE), adult education, and Second Chance sectors in the Republic of Ireland. The research on which it is based was funded jointly by the European Union Leonardo da Vinci Programme and the Department of Education and Science of Ireland and took place from 1998 to 2002. It consisted of a survey of the coordinators of 162 further education (FE) centres and follow up interviews with 13 of these coordinators. The paper concentrates largely on the skills and competencies identified as the key to providing a quality service for the clientele of FE in Ireland. It begins by describing the different types of provision which the FE label refers to in Ireland and then presents some quantitative data which establishes the training deficit suffered by staff in the system. The main part of the paper is based on the interview data obtained, which offers a very complex picture of the skills and competencies perceived as vital in delivering a service which meets the needs of the clientele. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the extent to which further and adult educators perceive personal development and interpersonal communications skills to be the most vital tools in their work. In consequence, it is argued, programmes of professional development for staff in this field must find ways to enhance these skills.

Abstract
In this paper, we provide an overview of the development of school inspection in Ireland over the past twenty years using the analytic and critical lens developed by Richard Boyle in partnership with the current authors. The paper is fundamentally a reflection on the nature, purpose and operation of evaluation in the Irish public sector through the lens of education. The paper provides a historical overview of developments in the linked areas of school evaluation and inspection, and goes on to explore how the implementation of this mode of quality assurance has influenced, and been influenced by, a wide range of policy actors. The argument made is that education has embedded a culture of evaluation in a unique yet systemically resonant manner and that a reflection on this reality will help illuminate our understanding of the role of evaluation across the public sector as a whole.

The core assumption of polycentric inspection is that when schools reach a certain quality threshold, they can further improve best through a coordinated, collaborative effort between clusters of schools and external agencies such as, for example, social services and training providers. The suggested role of an external agency with the respect and resources of the inspectorate is to provide stimulus and support to make the network effective. Using a bounded case study method, this research seeks to assess the potential of polycentric inspection as a tool for improving school effectiveness and outcomes. Evidence from this study suggests that this mode of evaluation has had a significant impact on improving schools, supporting teachers' practice and, arguably, increasing student examination outcomes in the network examined. In consequence, it is suggested that these findings have wider implications for the changing conception of school evaluation and how improvement can be achieved in education.

With an increasing emphasis on school self-evaluation as a mechanism for school improvement, many countries provide a range of supports to guide schools through the self-evaluation process. While models of support vary across jurisdictions, there are a number of common approaches that prevail, including the provision of an external specialist to support the school self-evaluation process. However, there is very little research carried out in relation to models of external specialist support for school self-evaluation. Building on previous research this article explores the implementation of a specific model of external specialist support for school self-evaluation in five Irish post-primary schools (student age cohort 12–18 years). This model differs from the standard set of supports provided by the Department of Education and Skills to schools in Ireland. The model was developed and facilitated by a researcher from the Dublin City University, Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection. An action research methodology was used to implement and test the model of support in five schools and the related findings are outlined. While the findings are relevant to the Irish context they may have a wider application for self-evaluation policy and practice in other jurisdictions. The model may have particular relevance for jurisdictions where self-evaluation is being introduced for the first time or where implementation issues exist.

This article is a case study of the emergence of an evaluation culture in the public sector and particularly in education in Ireland. It suggests that the emergence of this culture was strongly influenced by external bodies, particularly the EU and, to a lesser but significant degree, the OECD. It is further argued that the continuation of systematic evaluation is still dependent on external forces, since a commitment to evaluation as a tool of governance has not taken hold among key policy-makers in Ireland. However it is postulated that, notwithstanding its arguably insecure foundations, evaluation practice has moved beyond the confines of externally funded EU programmes, which saw its first introduction into Ireland. In recent years a broad quality assurance agenda within the public service and to an extent beyond has emerged.The article concludes by making the point that an evaluation culture in a particular country is hugely contextualized and influenced by the constraints of existing ideologies and relationships between different interest groups.Thus, in Ireland, in line with the corporatist and partnership-driven approaches to economic policy and industrial relations which have been dominant in recent decades, the form of evaluation which has emerged is consensual, collaborative and negotiated.

This paper is a case study of the emergence of an evaluation culture in the public sector and particularly in education in Ireland over the past three decades. It suggests that the emergence of this culture was strongly influenced by external factors, particularly the European Union (EU), and to a lesser but significant degree, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Indeed, it can be argued that without these external influences no culture of evaluation would have emerged. Moreover it is further suggested that even after three decades the continuation of systematic evaluation is still probably dependent on external forces, since a belief in or commitment to evaluation as a tool of governance has not taken hold among key policy makers in Ireland. A second point made in the paper is that, while evaluation practice in Ireland was at first largely concentrated around EU funded projects and economic transfers, in more recent times evaluation has migrated to programmes and policies. In particular, it has become an element of the quality assurance processes institutionalised as part of the 'reform agenda' of the public service. Finally, the paper makes the point that an evaluation culture in a particular country—in this case, Ireland, but the same applies elsewhere—is hugely contextualised and influenced by the constraints of existing ideologies, traditions, practices and relationships between different interest groups. Thus, in Ireland, in line with the corporatist and partnership-driven approaches to economic policy and industrial relations which have been dominant in the past two decades, the form of evaluation which has emerged is consensual, collaborative and negotiated.