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

improve and build capacity. Similarly, the potential of monitoring andevaluation as a tool for increasing motivation regarding the programme wasdemonstrated in conversation with teachers at Mbinzi (15/11/07) where onereported how the expectation of sustained monitoring visits served toincrease student attentiveness:„Knowing that you will come again and ask the children morequestions will make them more attentive: they will all belistening now. The ones who did not get a chance to talk to youtoday were not happy.‟This demonstrates how monitoring and evaluation visits had become anevent welcomed by teachers rather than being viewed as an externalimposition because they served as an incentive for the children to workharder in class. Instead of simply attempting to „lighten the load‟ ofmonitoring and evaluation for the recipients, monitoring and evaluation cancease to be a burden, however heavy or light, and instead be viewed as auseful tool that assists in facilitating the development of the programmeconcerned (Alexander 2008).The intention in highlighting the capacity development aspect of monitoringand evaluation is not to negate the necessary accountability mechanisms thatremain central to assessing such development programmes. Nor is it todownplay the frequent challenge of conflicted interest between donor andrecipient. Instead it is to demonstrate how, within and alongside the processof programme assessment, it is possible to create a culture wherestakeholders welcome external input and assessment exercises are structuredso as to leave room for the application of lessons learnt in makingappropriate adjustments throughout the process of the programme lifecyclerather than only at its conclusion (Kozma and Wagner 2005, Watson 2006).This is particularly pertinent within contexts such as my field research inMalawi and Ethiopia, where the monitoring and evaluation was conducted inconjunction with the implementation process. In such instances the datacollated, alongside being useful for a final report, provided continualfeedback to shape and refine the ongoing implementation process. This leads211