FROM RHETORIC TO ACTION: STUDENT EVALUATION OF TEACHERS

In many parts of the world, student evaluation of teachers is a commonplace occurrence. Teachers know throughout their course that yes, they are teaching and assessing their students’ levels in many ways. But they also know that there are those evaluations in the end, where students exercise the most fundamental of rights, which is the ability to evaluate their teachers. This is the rule of the game. Much depends on those evaluations: tenure, promotion, prestige on the one hand, and the looming prospect of being terminated or at least being stuck in a certain rank much longer than usual.
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In some parts of the world, such as the University of Sfax, action is being taken to put this process of evaluation in motion. Not that it doesn’t informally exist. By all accounts, students have their teacher heroes. They vote for a teacher by choosing to attend that teacher’s class in big numbers. A different kind of punishment (read evaluation) is meted against those who are not popular. Students know, almost intuitively that X is awful while Y is sweet, or tough, or friendly, or irresponsible. Swamping a lecture hall is not necessarily an indication of universal approval; students too are pragmatic and know which side their bread is buttered and that attendance c0unts, but that is another story.
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Informal evaluations are therefore the rule, and no one can stop them, but they don’t represent a systematic account of the abilities of a teacher. I tend to believe that the teacher gains must have a lot of truth behind it, but it still is unofficial and informal. One argument may hear is that students are not qualified enough or mature enough to evaluate a teacher, and from then, it can be argued that teachers are not qualified to evaluate administrators and high-ranking college or university officials. If we believe this argument, it will turn out in the end that there is no use evaluating anyone, because the claim will be simply made that the evaluators are not competent or knowledgeable to issue a statement about their evaluees. A well-designed evaluation form, though, when administered to the totality of students taking a specific course, can yield a very representative and balanced, collective, judgment.
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It should be clear that this judgment, when negative on the whole, is not necessarily a condemnation of the teacher’s practice; I would like to think that a teacher stands to gain much from such evaluations, whichever way they go. When these are positive, the teacher’s approval rating will boost their confidence that they are doing a good job. Where the ‘verdict’ is negative overall, a teacher will know that they have to review their teaching philosophy, daily classroom practice, and possibly their assessment tools. This is no less positive, because it is telling someone that instead of carrying with teaching methods that create boredom and do not produce learning, they should rethink their tools, enrich them, and try new ways. Obviously, this is more like a win-win situation.
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At any rate, with the prospect of institutional accreditation looming larger and larger in the horizon, student evaluation of teachers will soon be instituted, regardless of any lingering opposition. And there should no qualms about that. Performance evaluation is almost a reflex. In its strongest defence, we will say that it’s second nature: as patrons in any service-institution, we rush to say that so and so has not served me well, has wasted my time, has procrastinated; has bluffed me, hasn’t given me the specific piece of information I need, hasn’t responded to my telephone call, has ignored my email message, etc. etc, and, we’re all entitled to our views on how we are served anywhere, by anyone. This feeling should simply be extended into the area of teacher evaluation.