Quality indicators for SNE - Iceland

According to legislation and regulations on pre-primary education, the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture is responsible for carrying out a comprehensive evaluation of pre-schools, i.e. their general educational performance with regard to the national objectives and the schools own educational plans.

The legislation on compulsory education and upper secondary education stipulates that all compulsory and upper secondary schools are to adopt methods of evaluating school activities, including instruction and administrative practices, internal communication and external relations. For the primary schools the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture sets an agenda for three years at a time regarding surveys and assessments that aim at providing information on implementation of the Act. For the upper secondary schools the Ministry is to investigate the self-evaluation methods used by the schools with no less than five-year intervals.

The Ministry is responsible for carrying out evaluation of compulsory and upper secondary schools and their activities to ensure that schooling complies with provisions of the law on compulsory education and the National Curriculum Guidelines.
In line with the law on higher education, a regulation no 666/2003 is in force regarding quality control of university instruction, which requires universities to set up a formal internal quality evaluation system. The Ministry takes the initiative to conduct an external evaluation of higher education programmes or institutions and is responsible for approving new degrees.