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Evaluations of USAID-Funded Education Projects: Quality Review and Synthesis of Findings (2-part panel, first part)

Wed, March 28, 11:30am to 1:00pm, Hilton Reforma, Floor: 2nd Floor, Don Diego 3

Group Submission Type: Panel Session

Proposal

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Education Strategy for 2011-2015 (recently extended until 2017) led to substantial changes to education programming, among which included an increase in investment in evaluations and, in turn, a rise in the number of USAID-funded evaluation reports conducted each year in the education sector. After over five years of instituting the Education Strategy, and with over 100 evaluations reports published, the Office of Education in USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and Environment has commissioned a two-fold study: (i) an assessment of the quality of the USAID-funded evaluations and; (ii) a synthesis of findings and lessons learned on topics of relevance for the Education Strategy, based on those evaluation reports that met minimum evaluation quality criteria. This is the first session in the double panel and will look at the first part of the study: a quality assessment of USAID-funded evaluations in the education sector.
The field of evaluation in the U.S. education sector has well-established guidance documents from organizations such as What Works Clearinghouse, that provide the standards by which evidence is vetted, and from organizations like the Institute of Education Sciences, that provide guidance on the metrics by which evaluations in education sector can be assessed. However, when it comes to international education, USAID operating units can only partially draw upon these standards because of the differences between settings in the U.S. and those where USAID operates. Establishing clear standards of quality of evaluation work in the education sector in international development is methodologically challenging because of the great diversity of USAID education portfolio and the contexts where work is conducted. This session will present standards developed during the study and engage audience in the discussion of the processes, tools and results that are being achieved.
This first session in the double panel will discuss:
1. The process used by the USAID Office of Education to collaboratively develop an evaluation quality assessment tool that sets evidence quality standards and crowdsources the quality review of evaluations. The tool is responsive to USAID’s cross-sector guidance on evaluations but is sector-specific to education evaluations. This discussion will also touch upon other stakeholder-appropriate strategies aimed at improving the education sector’s capacity to conduct high quality evaluations and ultimately strengthening the evidence base used for international education programming;
2. The overall results from the quality assessment of 92 evaluations and how these can be used to identify areas of strength and weakness in the evaluations funded by USAID in the education sector, as well as how these results are being used to enhance the protocol for appraising the quality of individual evaluation reports;
3. Specific results from the evaluation quality assessment, the application of the minimum quality criteria for inclusion in the second phase of this study and the strength of the resulting body of evidence.
The second session in the double panel will present results from a synthesis of findings and lessons learned on topics of relevance for the Education Strategy, based on those evaluation reports that met minimum evaluation quality criteria.

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