Directing programme evaluation towards the Field Worker: an Experiment in adult Education.

Abstract

Although there is now a more widosproad attempt to carry out systematic, evolution studies of development programmes and project by external agencies, the user of these studies continue to be the elite management group of policy makers and planners and international agencies. The lower levels of the developments bureaucracy in the district and in the block seldom have to evolution reports, despite having their work studies for purpose of evolution by social science researchers and consultants. This paper argues for a wider use of evolution efforts by the involvement of programme implementers and field workers in the process of (1) debating the nature and content of evolution (2) using the feedback from evalution for further planning at their levels and (3) initiating follow up action. An experiment of eliciting such involvement through an intensive two day workshop during the evalution study of the National Adult Education Programme (NAEP) is discussed in the paper. The reaction of the field workers to the evalution study and an exercise on action planning designed on the basis of the study are described. The paper concludes with the author observation on the experiment and a plea for less mechanistic uses of evaluation of large scale development programmes.