Teachers give each other high scores in nat`l evaluations

Teachers have been found to be more generous than students or parents in assessing their colleagues in the country’s first national evaluation of teachers.

The Dong-A Ilbo acquired Monday analysis data on the results of the evaluation conducted by the Education, Science and Technology Ministry. The data suggested that the average score given by teachers to their colleagues was higher than those from students and parents in all categories.

A discrepancy of up to 1.85 times characterized the evaluation scores of teachers and students and up to 2.54 times between those awarded by teachers and parents.

The data is based on analysis of evaluations of 87.3 percent of 402,000 teachers, 79.8 percent of 5.7 million students, and 53.8 percent of 6.6 million parents who participated in the assessment.

In teaching strategy development, the average score teachers gave their colleagues was 4.46 out of a possible 5 points, higher than the 2.78 awarded by students and 3.09 by parents. In education of democratic civic ethics, teachers gave an average score of 4.4 points to their colleagues, higher than 3.09 from students and 1.73 from parents.

The average score given to teachers by their colleagues ranged from 4.09 to 4.53 points in all categories, higher than those granted by students (2.78 to 3.68) and parents (1.73 to 4.14 points).

Jeon Je-sang, an education professor at Gyeongju University who conducted a joint study with the regional education research center at Chungbuk National University, said, “Efforts are urgently needed to correct the practice of teachers granting high scores to their colleagues due to sympathy,” adding, “After supplementing the data, we’ll submit the final report to the Education Ministry by year’s end.”

sm@donga.com