A monitoring and evaluation system for South African higher education: conceptual, methodological and practical concerns

Abstract

This article is based on research done at the Council on Higher Education to produce a framework for the monitoring and evaluation of the achievement of higher education policy objectives in South Africa. The article situates monitoring and evaluation systems within the context of the rise of the evaluative state and argues that for monitoring and evaluation to have a function beyond mere accountability and resource allocation they have to transcend the generation of baseline data and venture into the more complicated and contested terrain of explanation. For this to happen, monitoring and evaluation systems need to be deeply embedded in the socio-political dynamics of the societies in which they operate both at the conceptual and the design level.



(South African Journal of Higher Education: 2003 17 (3): 82-89)