Eureka! Institutional Repository

In the last years, the issue of teacher evaluation and their educational work has generally become a field of ineffective dialogue with a great deal of reaction mainly on the part of teachers, thus rendering necessary to further look into the very concept of evaluation, within the context it is each time integrated, the aims and objectives set by a legislative framework or a law that relates to the particular issue. The view that the evaluation and assessment of the educational work is necessary, is evident in all educational theorists who, like the majority of active teachers, support something similar, though everyone has their doubts and objections. Still, they all believe that it is an extremely important process, essential and indispensable so as to identify the problems that arise in the educational process and that evaluation is a way to improve the quality of education, contributing to a total quality management, the fruits of which will benefit everyone involved. Teachers will track the causes of the issues that have arisen in recent years in the educational process (Piclas, 2011), students will become better thinking citizens (Xochellis 2005) and through evaluation, which is considered to be prerequisite, the upgrading of education will be feasible (Georgogiannis, 2013). In a society where all employees in all occupations are evaluated annually and consistently, education and employees are perhaps the only field whose stakeholders are not evaluated despite so many laws that have been enacted, even though they have not been implemented for the last forty years. What is more, Greece is the only EU country in which the educational work of general public education is not evaluated. In this respect the present study was conducted to examine the views of primary school teachers in the prefecture of Evros regarding their attitudes towards assessment and whether they believe it contributes to the total quality management in education. The results show that teachers want the existence of a reliable assessment system based on the most appropriate method that will not cause any surprise to those assessed and will ensure that their pay and grades stay at the level they currently are. The most suitable method for them is to combine evaluation by a body of scientifically trained external evaluators with teacher self-assessment. It will aim at upgrading the quality of education by pinpointing any weaknesses and enhancing the advantages of the teachers and the school unit they serve.