The discussion about the nature of a final programme report, its format, audience, general content, and the people who are to be responsible for its preparation is best done during the preliminary planning phases of any programme. Educators have a responsibility to their organisation, the electoral authority, donors or sponsors, and the general public to report on the programme once completed.
There are examples of electoral legislation that set time limits on the preparation of post election reports, and such deadlines will also apply to educational programmes sponsored by or organized on behalf of the electoral authority.
Once It's Over, It's Too Late
The worst time to consider the report is after the educational programme has concluded. By this time, the motivation for the report is low, information required is not always readily available, and staff whose comments are required have departed and are now difficult to reach. In addition, while those conducting face-to-face programmes or engaged in advertising may have built in post-meeting reaction or assessment systems, or ongoing audience assessment, the relationship between these and the final report will be unclear. A mass of information, of which only some might be relevant to the concerns of the final report, will have to be digested, and this takes additional time and energy.
Preparing for the Report
Having determined at an early stage that a report will be required, staff will be allocated to its preparation and will begin to block out the necessary areas for collecting information and reporting. They will also be discussing with those for whom the report is required precisely their expectations of the report and the manner in which it will be used or made available to the public.
The purpose of the report will have to be clear from the start. Is it to be a history of the programme, for example, a day-by-day journal, an overview of highlights, or a thoughtful opinion by an outsider? In some cases, there may be some inclination to leave the report to those conducting external evaluations: but the best scenario would be for such evaluators to have the internal report as part of their documentation.
For the purposes of system learning, reports should be sufficiently anecdotal and descriptive to enable future educators to understand the context within which the programme took place, and to provide the necessary experiential information that can be analysed for the development of general lessons.
Type of Report
There have been a number of fine reports that make the programme review itself an educational and communication exercize. They use a range of voices to provide different perspectives on the programme, quotations and reflections from participants, local educators, planners and administrators. The compendium report enables the reader to reflect on the programme and serves as a public record of some distinction.
Reports need not be entirely written. Alternative forms of record keeping and narrative have been used; and these have some advantages in capturing the emotion and humanity of the programme and conveying this to the public in ways that are perhaps more accessible and persuasive.
Photographic documentaries, video and audio productions, and the publication of special magazine issues all provide a record that can be used in conjunction with the more technical narrative that may be required by statute or by agreement with a funder.
Reports will cover at least the following aspects of the programme:
Reports that are prepared after the event, and that are delayed because of the lack of staff, information or access to the relevant parties, may be useful in preserving a record of the event but are unlikely to have the formative impact of reports prepared more expeditiously. It can be argued that such a report benefits from the necessary hindsight that only comes with time. But such reports become rather academic exercizes at that stage with all the disadvantages of such an exercize.
And they rely quite heavily on contemporaneous records - minutes, journals, interim and daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly reports. If these have not been prepared, even the delayed substantive report is at a loss, and the more it is delayed the more difficult it becomes to convey an accurate record.
Public Accessibility and Transparency
Whichever way the report is conceived - even as a collation of different reports - it is essential that reports of educational programmes be made available to all stakeholders. A discussion of the manner for release should be conducted at the same time as the planning of the report so that a commitment can be made that is not broken by a sudden fear of the content of the report.
If there is a belief that the reports have confidential matters that cannot be shared with the general public, then there are a number of options open to educators. A public report can be prepared together with a confidential briefing document for the primary stakeholders. The report can be separated into a closed technical report and an anecdotal and generally available one. The report may include an annex which addresses confidential matters, but which is removed prior to its public release. Or, the report can have a date by which it will be made available so that it can first be considered confidentially. Finally, the primary stakeholders for whom the report has been commissioned may choose to release it without their endorsement or with a disclaimer as an addendum.
All the above are compromises that at least enable the public to have access to reports that are, after all, in the public interest and about them to a large extent. Hopefully such compromises may not be necessary. But, in the end, they are better than outright proscription of reports that occasionally happens when reports contain critical information. The word "critical" itself conveys the meaning that makes this such an unfortunate occurrence. These reports often provide the most important lessons for the general public and for educators at large.
