Educational programmes set standards for themselves or have these standards set for them by the sponsors of the programme. When certification is a component of the programme, this acts as a benchmark. When there is no certification, a combination of staff qualifications, learner results, available educational plant and materials, support staff, and programme are considered.
In monitoring non-formal educational programmes (for more detailed evaluation suggestions, see Monitoring and Evaluation), two benchmarks that must be considered are process and outputs.
Process
Education programmes require certain processes. These may be the conduct of a calendar of education radio slots and television advertising , or a set of educational events, with each of these having its own internal processes.
Education organisers should attend to the processes that are under way and ensure the intended quality is being maintained, through a set of monitoring activities, staff assessments, and peer evaluations.
Outputs
Outputs require monitoring only in order to ensure that they are happening. The assumption is that the objectives have been set correctly and that if certain outputs can be seen and measured, the programme is attaining its planned quality. This is the "if it works, don't fix it" approach to quality management.
Of course, it may be that in addition to the expected outputs, there are some unintended outputs that may, over time, begin to affect the quality of the programme.
Such outputs can include perceptions of the education organisation, impressions about the manner in which business should be conducted, and even attitudes toward other learners.
Regular Programme Assessment
Uncovering these outputs and considering process questions can be difficult unless there is a regular programme assessment forum in which programme staff meet with team leaders or managers and go through a checklist of the intended staff behaviour and educational objectives. Progress can be assessed by asking: "How are we doing it?", and outputs: "What is happening as a result of the programme?"
Such checklist-based assessment should be backed up with data from external sources. This data can be provided by a monitoring and evaluation body, or can be collected by managers participating in actual events or behaving as clients of their own services.
