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The 2021 Inspection frameworks

What exactly is quality? And how do we inspect quality? What are the trends and bottlenecks in the education system and how do we assess this? What do we expect of governing bodies with regard to governance, quality assurance and ambition? What do we expect from school quality and how do we assess schools? This is what the 2021 Inspection Frameworks are all about. These frameworks describe our approach and assessment framework that we apply during our inspections and system research.

Despite being largely similar, a different inspection framework applies to each educational sector. The differences between the frameworks are generally related to sector-specific legislation.

Each inspection framework consists of:

  • The assessment frameworks on system, governing body and school level: What does the Inspectorate inspect?
  • The approach: How does the Inspectorate conduct its inspection?
  • Supervision in higher education works differently: no inspection framework is in place.

On governing body and school level each standard is operationalized. The statutory criteria determine whether a school or governing body is judged “Adequate” (Voldoende) or “Inadequate” (Onvoldoende), whilst fulfilment of its own self-defined quality factors - those displayed or aspired to by the governing body – makes the difference between “Adequate” and “Good”.

For more information on the inspection process, please consult the 2021 Inspection Frameworks for each sector.