Commission d évaluation de l enseignement collégial Evaluating the effectiveness of strategic plans in the Cegeps

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2 Commission d évaluation de l enseignement collégial Evaluating the effectiveness of strategic plans in the Cegeps Guidelines December 2007

3 This document was prepared and written by Jocelyne Bolduc, Projet Coordinator Secretariat : Nadine Desjardins This document is available on the Commission website : This document was adopted in its original French version, Évaluation de l efficacité des plans stratégiques des cégeps Document d orientation by the Commission d'évaluation de l'enseignement collégial at its 190 th meeting in Québec City on December 13, 2007 Legal Deposit 2008 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec National Library of Canada ISBN: (printed version) (PDF) Gouvernement du Québec

4 Table of Contents Introduction... 5 Results of the initial evaluation of the strategic plans in terms of overall compliance and potential effectiveness... 7 General framework of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategic plans... 9 For the Colleges... 9 For the Commission d évaluation de l enseignement collégial Conclusion... 11

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6 This document describes the orientations adopted by the Commission d évaluation de l enseignement collégial for evaluating the effectiveness of strategic plans in Québec Cegeps. Introduction Changes made in December 2002 to the General and Vocational Colleges Act and the Act respecting the Commission d évaluation de l enseignement collégial required all Cegeps to adopt multi-year strategic plans and submit them to the Commission for evaluation. The changes also made it mandatory for the Colleges to henceforth make updates on progress toward meeting the objectives in their strategic plans an integral part of their annual reports. These new legislative provisions were designed to contribute to the government s goal of improving services to the general public and modernizing Québec public administration, with special emphasis on results-based management practices, application of the principle of transparency and increased accountability. The development of strategic plans meant that the Colleges, after analyzing their own particular situations and the issues associated arising from them, were in an excellent position to choose orientations that best reflected their priorities and propose corresponding strategic objectives. The Commission recognizes the progress already made within the Colleges in terms of evaluation practices to support quality teaching and learning, and the increasingly integrated approaches they have adopted to reflect their particular institutional contexts. The Colleges now all have the instruments (policies, plans and practices) needed to ensure the quality and development of the education they provide. Their strategic plans represent one of the quality assurance components identified in the regulations, in addition to being a strategic management tool. They are also an instrument for strengthening the commitment of the various members of each institutional community to their particular College s strategic objectives. 5

7 The current operation is part of a continuum of actions carried out by the Commission. In the Analytical Framework for their strategic plans, distributed to the Colleges in 2005, the Commission stated that a follow-up process would be used to evaluate the effectiveness of both the strategic plans and the student success plans that are now an integral part of them, at the end of the target period established by each College or after five years if the period covered were to extend beyond that date. In evaluating the effectiveness of the Cegeps strategic plans, the Commission will be in a position not only to complete the evaluation process for the quality assurance components identified in the regulations but also to provide support to the Colleges in their work toward ongoing improvement of their processes and strategic tools. For the Colleges, an evaluation of the effectiveness of their strategic plans will constitute an opportunity both to reflect on the correspondence between the objectives specified in the plans and the results achieved and, at the same time, carry out a critical reassessment of their plans. Furthermore, the current strategic overview represents an indispensable tool for work by the Colleges on upcoming plans. 6

8 Results of the initial evaluation of the strategic plans in terms of overall compliance and potential effectiveness In October 2003, when the strategic plans were being evaluated, a letter was sent by the Commission to the Directors General of the Cegeps informing them that the evaluation of their strategic plans would focus on the different elements referred to in the Act, and that the Commission wished to be appraised of the follow-up and measurement mechanisms put in place to operationalize the plans. The Commission also forwarded to the Cegeps its Analytical Framework which stated that the assessment would cover both the overall compliance of plans with the provisions of the Act, and their potential effectiveness 1. Once the analysis of each plan was completed, the Commission forwarded a preliminary version of its evaluation report to the College involved. To proactively support the development of useful and effective plans, the Commission offered to meet with the College to discuss the conclusions contained in the report. These meetings gave the Cegeps the opportunity to provide further information and rework or even prepare new versions of their plans. In cases where additional information was submitted to the Commission, this was reflected in the final version of the Evaluation Report. In the conclusion of its Report on the Evaluation of the Cegeps strategic plans, the Commission noted that, on the whole, they had appropriately fulfilled their obligations. It also expressed the hope that, by distributing its Analytical Framework and its comments and positions (identification of possible actions, suggestions and recommendations) to the Colleges, it would help them enhance their strategic plans and thereby increase the potential effectiveness of the plans. The Commission pointed out that many of the comments and positions it formulated centred around two major aspects of the plans: plan objectives and their corresponding expected results should have been more precisely 1. The criteria used for evaluating the potential effectiveness of the strategic plans can be found in Appendix III of the Summary Report on the Evaluation of the Strategic Plans, available on the Commission website ( 7

9 defined, as should have been the case for the indicators identified as the instruments for assessing progress toward goals. The student success plans now included in the strategic plans did not represent a new operation for the Cegeps. The first of these success plans were developed in 2000, with a subsequent follow-up process and report on results. The Summary Report 2 concluded that, for the College system taken as a whole, the implementation of support plans for student success had resulted in improved student success in first-semester courses and reregistration in the third semester. The Commission also noted that Colleges with good results had chosen appropriate measures to address difficulties encountered by their students in achieving success and improving graduation figures, had implemented the activities identified in the plans and had put particular emphasis on regular monitoring of the application of their plans. The Commission also concluded that this experience would in all probability lead to the implementation of effective new student success plans. In its analysis of the strategic plans, the Commission s evaluation of the student success dimension paid particular attention to approaches used for updating student clientele profiles and barriers to success, in addition to the Cegeps choices of the means to be used to meet their objectives. The Commission also recognized that the experience developed within the Cegeps was reflected in the quality of the second generation of student success plans. 2. The Summary Report on the evaluation of the Colleges student success plans can be found on the Commission website ( 8

10 General framework of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategic plans For the Colleges Each College should assess the effectiveness of its particular strategic plan by comparing the results obtained with its initial objectives. Colleges should take a close critical look at their plans and the results achieved, taking into account both the context in which the plans were developed (from the initial analysis to the selection of performance indicators) and their actual implementation. These assessments should also enable each Cegep to analyze the extent to which indicators selected as tools for evaluating progress toward objectives were appropriate to needs. In some cases, the assessment should also allow them to determine the effectiveness of the means chosen to achieve these objectives. Every College should develop a process and methodology for this analysis that most appropriately reflects its own particular situation and the Commission s Analytical Framework. To ensure that their strategic assessments constitute an effective starting-point for the development of their subsequent plans, Colleges should establish a schedule that allows them to evaluate their plans and, at the same time, meet the deadlines set by the Commission. By adopting schedules for self-evaluation activities that take into account the timelines for their strategic plans, Cegeps will be able to draw on the results of their own assessments and different aspects of their conclusions as they prepare their subsequent plans. 9

11 For the Commission d évaluation de l enseignement collégial The Commission will participate in this exercise in the same way it normally does: it will review the College s self-evaluation report, visit the College and then adopt a preliminary report that covers the process followed within the institution and the effectiveness of the strategic plan. The report will then be sent to the College and the latter invited to react to it. The Commission will take the follow-up input from the College into account when preparing its final report. In the spring of 2008, the Commission d évaluation will make public the Analytical Framework and the criteria it will apply in evaluating the effectiveness of the strategic plans and in analyzing the reports from the Colleges. Furthermore, in keeping with its own goals and objectives, the Commission will organize information sessions and various other opportunities for feedback and discussion, as a way to provide guidance and support to the Colleges as they work through the evaluation process. Activities will be organized so that as many people as possible are reached; they will begin in April 2008 and continue until June

12 Conclusion The evaluation of the effectiveness of the Cegeps strategic plans is a crucial part of the vision the Commission d évaluation de l enseignement collégial strives to embody: achieving recognition for its particular contribution to the ongoing development of the quality, credibility and recognition of the importance of college-level education in Québec. This evaluation process enables the Commission to both monitor the implementation of strategic plans in the Colleges and pursue its evaluation of the effectiveness of the various quality assurance components stipulated in the regulations as being fundamental to the quality of the education given by institutions in the system. The process will also help the Colleges add to the quality of their strategic planning. For this operation, Cegeps should assess their results in relation to their specified objectives and, at the same time, carry out a critical analysis of their particular plans and their development, implementation, updating and monitoring. This process will give each College, as preparation for the development of its subsequent strategic plan, the opportunity to review its own particular situation, identify what it was able to accomplish and assess how it monitored the use of the strategic tools it selected to implement the plan. As is its usual practice, the Commission will work closely with the Colleges in carrying out this particular operation. 11

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