Profile of VET organisation
Name of organization: Zentralgewerbeschule Buchen
Address: Karl-Tschamber-Str. 1, 74722 Buchen
Email: [email protected]
Country: Germany
Type of VET institute:
No of staff:
No of trainees:
Quality Management Dimension
Process Quality in VET school management
Baseline / problem
Evaluation of results as well as increasing complaints from pedagogy staff showed that information processes and procedures in the past were not fully effective in terms of reliability and timely delivery of documents. So the school started a quality initiative, in order to more effectively use and make available timely information about (changes in) school management and process chains. The initiative is thought to improve staff satisfaction and enable the smooth transition of new teachers into the school system
Good practice: (Measures, instruments, criteria, indicators)
The QM documents developed show how educational processes and documents can be described and managed with the use of database-software (SYCAT Modules), and how to render transparent and make available to everyone in the intranet.
Furthermore the system shows in a structured manner, how new colleagues are systematically introduced to the school environment within a period of one year.
The overall aim is to optimize internal school processes and enable a convenient work environment as to increase employee satisfaction. Teachers and management staff do have instant access to all relevant documents about the school via DokWeb and all the latest information through the School Information System (SIS).
Teachers who start their work at school receive structured support by peers and step by step are introduced to all relevant school processes and the school management system.
As for the continuous improvement of the school organization, a set of quality measures was introduced, covering:
- records of employee satisfaction,
- implementation of an online-based School Information System (SIS),
- quick access to all documents,
- school conferences, with the aim to systematically take into consideration possible improvements of the common quality culture (recommendations to school management),
- implementation of two-folded intervention chain (pedagogy / formal and disciplinary with regard to behavior problems of pupils),
- checklists for the introduction of new staff and instruments for the testing of introduction methods.
Indicators defined:
- Employee: grade or degree of satisfaction.
- Level of implementation with regard to the requirements of SIS.
- DokWeb and SIS are avalaible from any computer in the management network.
- Teachers in need of timely information use SIS, whereas for required documents DokWeb is used (regulations, forms, records etc.).
- Increase of formally verified documents stored in DokWeb, approved by date or period of validity.
- Timely implementation of all amendments approved by the school management.
- Existing proposals for action are available for use.
- The checklists for the introduction of the new colleagues after one year are completed and stored in personnel files.
Instruments and data sources:
- Satisfaction evaluation questionnaire / teacher deployment plan / human resource plan / feedback from school management / results from internal audits.
- Comparison tables: requirements (milestones), capacities and functions achieved.
- Quick reviews (in teachers’ room), complaints and lack of complaints.
- Teacher survey.
- Issuing of documents list available from the electronic system, by ID and publishing date.
- Logs of proposals evaluated and approved by the quality committee.
- Overview of interventions, proposed by the local / regional school organization.
- Checklist of steps stepped introduction : 1 Days, 1 Month, first Year.
Problems and constraints encountered and solutions found:
Especially the search for documents has shown critically. In some cases documents could not be found due to missing key words or other type of tagging. With an overall increase of documents in the system, the problem is growing constantly. In response to the problem a tagging system will be developed.
Due to the numerous quality management information arising from evaluation measures, audits, improvement proposals etc. it became obvious that an effective realization of the QM measures will require a coordination unit, responsible for the steering and monitoring of the QM process and single measures. Therefore a QM-steering team was introduced. The team will be responsible for:
- feedback to school every 2 years: end of the school year
- use feedback from internal audits: March each year
- Provide periodic staff meetings held twice a year (half period and end of year)
It also has shown, that descriptions of the school organization have to be reviewed regularly in order to allow for plausibility and coherence.
The SIS system is under further development:
- implementation of statistical functions,
- teachers shall be enabled to connect to the system from their home office.