The Role of District Education Officers in Ensuring Accountability in Schools

Abstract

Accountability has become one of the more dominant terms in education systems across the world, and like other terms, "accountability" can mean different things across education, and can be conceptualized and applied in different ways. What is meant by the term accountability is enacted by school actors, specifically teachers, principal teachers and education officers, who are ostensibly accountable for the education of their pupils. There appears to be layers to accountability in education, as it works towards its most clear goal of improving education quality. The purpose of our research investigation into accountability focuses on how District Education Officers (DEOs) enact their authority in order to meet the expectation of the accountability regime. Qualitative-method approaches were adopted for data collection with 12 District Education Officers (DEOs) from Punjab, an equal split of urban and rural contexts. After initial interviews, participants were re-interviewed in a semi-structured format as a follow up to investigate the DEOs views of the education accountability mechanisms from provincial disciplinary legislation for accountability in education. Using thematic analysis from Braun and Clarke's presented six stages, enabled the researcher to systematically uncover and analyze patterns and themes throughout the data. It enabled depth and nuance in rich descriptions in regards to the enactment of teacher accountability legislation as well as how the legislation exists in practice, and some helpful ideas of the implications for the ways to consider our possible response strategies for enacting the teacher legislation on teacher morale and autonomy, and the operational accountability factors associated to teacher accountability. It is important to note that the accountability pressures facing DEOs is forcing them hold teachers to greater accountability for the examination student outcomes in order to reach quality education targets. The study focused on the degree of accountability on teachers in connection with DEOs managing educational standards for the improvement of education in the districts. The results of the study confirm that ultimately, it is education safety officers that are ultimately accountable, in addition to teachers so therefore accountability to others should be reconsidered based on historical processes so as to create a better educational environment for both teacher and student in practice of educational excellence.The study provides useful insight for educational authorities to take pragmatic approach for implementation of accountability measures to ensure desired performance of teacher and commendable achievement of students.