Evaluating ICT for Education in Africa - Royal Holloway, University of ...

The experience of interacting with these participants demonstrated to methat I had previously maintained an overly optimistic perspective regardingthe overall levels of consciousness concerning these issues within the ICT foreducation arena in Africa. I reflected upon the implications of this at length inmy research diary (20/02/08):„Up to now I have been thinking that producing a useful thesisrequires interacting with experts in monitoring andevaluation of ICT for education in Africa in order to get thebest possible input and advice. The problem is that this givesan overly optimistic perspective that ignores what the averagepractitioner is thinking and doing. Through interactions withworkshop participants here it is slowly dawning on me,through repeated blank faces when I mention it in interviews,that monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment is simplynot a priority for most practitioners. My “nice” eLearningAfrica workshop, although useful, gave me a skewedperspective regarding the level of consciousness of detailedmonitoring and evaluation issues. I subconsciously assumedthat those 60 people in the eLearning Africa workshop weresomehow representative for all the programmes in Africa andwere roughly reflective of the general level of understanding.In retrospect this is clearly not the case and I probably had 60of the most accomplished practitioners on the continent in thatroom.‟4.5.3 Marginalising impact assessmentThere was widespread recognition from participants regarding the value ofmonitoring and evaluation and impact assessment. However, this wasfrequently accompanied by an acknowledgement that factors such asenthusiasm for projects, limited time and money, and a focus on technologyoften caused it to be marginalised.147