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

monitoring and evaluation (Chapter 3). Recognising the importance ofpositionality and subjectivity enables movement away from the presumedrationality of a solely results-based approach (OECD 2002). However,recognising the necessity for moving away from a logical results-basedorthodoxy is still largely marginalised within monitoring and evaluation inthe arenas of both theoretical reflection and practical implementation.2.4.5 The place of critical realismCritical realism provides a critique of the confident epistemology ofmodernism, whilst maintaining a normative aspiration to instigate positivechange through effective monitoring and evaluation. This provides a pathwaybetween the objective and the relative, in acknowledging the role of bothobserver and subject and the formative influence of both (Wright 1992). Thedevelopment of contemporary critical realism within the social sciences(Bhaskar 1975) emphasises human involvement in processes and theinfluence of social conditions and structures, assuming „open systems and agenerative model of causation in which the outcomes of the activation ofmechanisms always depends on specific contexts‟ (Sayer 2000 p.23).Relativism is acknowledged alongside maintaining an optimistic perspectiveregarding the potential of human interaction with the world consciously toreflect upon, engage with and alter reality.The notion that truth, although existing, is never fully or objectivelyobserved, has profound implications for both the theory and practice ofmonitoring and evaluating. It leads to a recognition that overly prescriptiveapproaches can result in unintended disempowerment both generically andin specific reference to ICT for education. Linking to wider conceptions ofdevelopment, George (2008 p.31) notes that monitoring has a „significantrole to play in the unfolding of the subject‟s freedom and empowerment … anoppressive strategy cannot be employed while striving to free the oppressed‟.Acknowledging that monitoring in itself can constitute a potential tool forcapacity enhancement and development necessitates a dynamic relationshipbetween subject and observer. In turn, this facilitates an appreciation of44