How does teacher evaluation work in Italy?
While there is no real evaluation system for Italian teachers in the most traditional sense of the word, there are certain situations where teachers pass their “scores” to the right person. This happens when they themselves apply for an economic bonus based on a plan set annually by the school principal. In fact, ours is one of the countries, along with Spain (Asturias and La Rioja), Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, where the evaluation takes place at the teacher’s express request. It all starts in 2015, when a reward bonus based precisely on the evaluation was introduced for all teachers with a permanent contract.
It is clear that anyone given the opportunity has a keen interest in being “evaluated” for a possible prize. This has therefore led to a significant decrease in the percentage of teachers working in schools where assessments are never carried out (-33.7% in TALIS report 2018 compared to 2013). Despite this decline, we are still above the EU average in this position.
In addition, the data could be traced back in the next report. Because, as of the December 2019 budget law, the choice to allocate part of the Fund for Improving Training Offers to award bonus payments to teachers may vary from school to school. The various institutes were therefore asked to take care of the prize and, consequently, the need to evaluate teachers in order to obtain it.
Who is responsible for teacher evaluation in Europe?
If, as we have seen, the subject is very sensitive in our country, there is no lack of different experiences abroad. Suffice it to say that in three quarters of European education systems, teacher evaluation is governed by a framework set up by higher-level authorities. In contrast, only the last quarter of education systems, including Italy, do not have higher-level legislation related to individual teacher appraisal, leaving full autonomy to schools or local authorities. Exceptions to this system are Germany and Spain, which have specific regulations: in the first country, the Länder are the authorities that regulate teacher appraisal; in the second, although there is a central supervisory regulation issued by the Ministry of Education, it is the Autonomous Communities that issue more specific regulations.
Teacher evaluations: in several European countries the “certificates” every year
The timing of teacher appraisal across Europe also varies. There are countries where these are even carried out every year, almost like the “report cards” of the students.
In fact, the TALIS 2018 survey provides some information on how evaluation is carried out in schools: in the EU, 64.5% of teachers work in schools where formal evaluation by at least one evaluator is carried out at least once a year, but this are most commonly carried out in the three Baltic countries, several Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia) and the United Kingdom (England), Sweden and Turkey with at least 90% of teachers working in schools which are evaluated at least once a year. Conversely, in western and southern European countries, as well as in Finland, teachers work in schools where performance appraisal is less common. For example, in Belgium (Flemish Community), Italy, Spain, France, Cyprus, Austria, the Netherlands, Portugal and Finland, the percentage of teachers working in schools where they are assessed at least once a year is below EU levels.
In particular, Spain, Italy and Finland have the highest percentage of teachers working in schools where assessment is never carried out (we are around 25%, 35% and 40% respectively). In Italy, as we have seen, this mainly depends on the fact that the assessment system is linked to the individual initiative of teachers. In Spain, at regional level, the Autonomous Communities can issue regulations on teacher appraisal, but not all have done so. In Finland, on the other hand, the apparently negative result conceals a system that is not based on the formal evaluation of individual teachers, but is strongly oriented towards the quality of education. In fact, development discussions between teachers and school leaders, while they may contain evaluative elements, very often focus on the next school year and teachers’ plans for professional development. This means that teachers have to reflect on their work and the quality of it and continuously take care of their professional competence.