DDP 761. Conrad Wesley Snyder, Jr., John R. Kuglin, Alex Philp, and Meriwether Beatty "Using the Internet as Counterpoint in Monitoring and Evaluation for Ghana Education." June 2000. 31 pp.

Monitoring and evaluation are reflective procedures for systemic and program reform. They prompt relevant questions, create perspectives on current practices and possibilities, offer remedial advice, invite new visions and activities, and value our efforts in terms of overall intentions. As a gauge of reform, particularly in Ghana and other LIC countries, their readings have been disappointing, and most reform, even though well-financed, has disappeared without contributing to quality schooling. With limited conceptions of schooling, much of what can be done within the traditional school is done somewhere. Success accompanies credentialed teachers and adequately cared for and nurtured children, within resource-rich learning environments. Because these are not universal conditions, and rarely found within Ghana, serious educational pathologies are noted in most monitoring and evaluation analyses with disturbing regularity. Through three notable philosophical investigators we look for essential criteria for quality education, then review what the Internet provides as exemplars and support for schooling. Armed with criteria and intervention and information search mechanisms, we are able to set up a counterpoint to current practices through Internet resources. The Internet cuts through the constraints of Ghana’s systemic problems, erodes excuses of inadequacy from practical examples in other systems, and invites debate and critique within an otherwise debilitated system.

Keywords: monitoring and evaluation, quality schooling, educational reform

JEL Codes: I20

Wes Snyder is Faculty Associate of HIID, field team leader of the monitoring and evaluation project in Ghana, and Professor at the University of Montana.

John R. Kuglin is Executive Director of the Earth Observing System education project at the University of Montana.

Alex Philp is a Ph.D. candidate in interdisciplinary studies at the University of Montana and Assistant Director of the EOS education project.

Meriwether Beatty has Masters from Harvard’s GSE and John Hopkins and is currently Research Associate at JSI.