16th Meeting of Senior Fellowships Officers of the ... - Development

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16th Meeting of Senior Fellowships Officers of the United Nations System and Host Country Agencies
cies and training provider institutions should include a provision on the evaluation
of the training activity. More monitoring and evaluation staff on simplified training
evaluation from planning to reporting should be trained. Simplified materials on training
evaluation that could be used as supplement to the training of monitoring and
evaluation staff in training institutions should be disseminated. Training monitoring
and evaluation mechanisms should use tested and simplified monitoring and evaluation
systems and tools that monitor at least the major project inputs and outputs of key
activities and evaluate the key expected effects of programmes and projects.
R. Presentation on Monitoring and Evaluation, by Mr. Beer
Schroder, the Netherlands Organization for International
Co-operation in Higher Education and Research (NUFFIC)
183. Mr. Schroder took the floor to present NUFFIC’s framework on monitoring and evaluation
based on NUFFIC’s experience and current practices. He recalled that NUFFIC
was an independent nonprofit organization, founded in 1952 by Dutch Universities.
The organization fostered international co-operation in higher education and research
and supported the Dutch Government, the European Commission as well as other
Governments and International Organizations. When NUFFIC was founded it had
a strong focus on developing and transition countries. It was financed by the Dutch
Government and used to provide free services to UN agencies. Due to a new policy
that required NUFFIC to operate cost-effectively that was no longer possible.
184. Mr. Schroder introduced the topic of monitoring and evaluation by asking four basic
questions: Why? What? When? and How? Monitoring and evaluation were necessary
in order to control the quality of programmes, especially since education had become
a kind of commodity that was offered for increasing fees by academic institutions.
Programmes had to be effective and efficient. With regard to students from developing
countries, programmes had to guarantee sustainability. Agreements with governments
requested that programmes and NUFFIC itself complied with established
policies. Monitoring and evaluation allowed staying in touch with innovations and
improvements, not only in the academic research, but also with regard to managing
programmes and developing new policies. NUFFIC was handling public money and
therefore was accountable to the Lower House and the House of Parliament.
185. NUFFIC was not in a position to judge the academic value per se of a programme but
could judge on how well the training of an academic institution matched the needs
of the receiving country. The quality control of academic performance was under the
authority of the Dutch Ministry of Education. In the process of the Bologna Reform,
the Netherlands and Flanders–that share the same language across national boundaries–set
up the Netherlands Flemish Accreditation Organization (nederlands-vlaamse
accreditaie organisatie–NVAO) with its seat at The Hague. NVAO checked all Master’s
degree programmes in Flanders and the Netherlands in close collaboration with
the universities. Programmes were screened every four years against an international