The plans of improvement: a key for the quality of educational institutions

Abstract

The article talks about the relationship between “plans of improvement and educational organizations that learn”, and about how the quality in education does not make sense, at the moment, without their symbiosis.

On the other hand, the paradoxical situation generated by the approach of Education to business and quality management models, is solved when the plans of improvement are based on the educational institution, at school as a unit, but also on the teacher as the axis of the process of change. The innovations to be developed should begin at the classroom, but they should affect every level of the organization. No school improvement will exist without clear decisions on the development and the maintenance of the process. A balance between change and stability should be aimed to, or in other words, to make decisions on which changes to carry out and how to relate them to each other, maintaining the good and positive things at school without quitting to respond to innovation.

The success of school improvement implies to adapt external changes to internal purposes. Thus, it is proved that those schools that recognize the consonance between internal priorities (belonging to the center) and external demands (more characteristic of the social/cultural contexts) respond better to educational reforms.