Learning from logframes: reflections on three educational development projects in East and Southern Africa

ISSN： 1469-3623

Source： Compare, Vol.35, Iss.1, 2005-03, pp. : 27-42

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Abstract

Against a backdrop of the importance of project evaluation in Africa, and the centrality of the project logical framework (logframes) to project evaluation, this paper reflects on experiences arising from evaluations of three educational development projects in East and Southern Africa. Each of these projects had a strong teacher development component. The evidence shows while the logframe brings purpose and clarity to project management, this very strength, in the form of technical rationality, brings attendant limitations to an understanding of real outcomes and processes leading to such outcomes. Inherent logframe limitations may be masked by the settled and stable conditions enjoyed by developed countries. In developing African countries, however, conditions and contexts are very different, and in each of the three cases reviewed a particular set of contextual factors led to the logframe being played out in different ways. Inferences drawn from the three cases support the historical move towards more qualitative evaluation approaches. However, it is argued that further benefits would accrue from the repositioning of project evaluation from its relative isolation back into the ambit of broader research endeavour. In this way, project evaluation stands to benefit from reviews and meta-narratives; and the literature on educational and teacher development would be considerably enriched.