Analysis Standard 4: Evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation are key to achieving the goals and objectives of education programmes. Monitoring is an ongoing process that regularly measures progress towards goals and objectives of education programmes. It allows education programme staff to make changes during the programme or project cycle to ensure that they stay on track for achieving their goals and objectives.

Evaluation is less frequent, usually conducted in the middle of or at the end of a programme or project cycle and carried out by external or independent actors. It measures outcomes and evaluates whether expected results have been achieved. Evaluations can also address whether activities were relevant to stated priorities, policies and legal instruments and whether programmes were implemented in an efficient manner.

Evaluations of education response activities should use approaches and methods that produce timely and credible evidence of programme outcomes and impacts that can inform future action. ‘Impact’ is the measurable change that the programme has caused in people’s lives. Both qualitative and quantitative data disaggregated by sex and age are important. Quantitative data are about things that can be counted. They measure outcomes such as enrolment, attendance, drop-out and achievement. Qualitative data are about things that cannot be measured with numbers. They help to understand processes and explain results. Examples of qualitative data include information on what happens in schools or other learning spaces, and the reasons behind enrolment, attendance and drop-out rates.

The evaluation budget should cover capacity-building workshops for relevant stakeholders, including education authorities, community representatives and learners. These can introduce and explain the evaluation, develop evaluation plans in a participatory and transparent way, and allow stakeholders to review and interpret findings together. Learners, teachers and other education personnel should be involved in the evaluation process to improve the accuracy of data collection and support the development of recommendations that can realistically be implemented. For example, teachers and other education personnel may add insights into practical difficulties resulting from proposed recommendations.

Key findings in evaluation reports, particularly recommendations and lessons learned, should be shared in a form understandable to all, including community members. They should inform future work. Sensitive data need to be handled carefully to avoid contributing to the emergency or conflict and/or to avoid putting informants who contributed anonymous or sensitive information at risk.