Monitoring and evaluation for telecentre networks

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Nassali on June 30, 2009 at 8:49am

Hi Kemly, never mind about the delay; its normaly said that '' better late than never'' :-). As regards monitoring and evaluation of telecentre networks, i have a few cents to share.

According to the The Community Telecentre Cookbook for Africa, with the Evaluation of Telecentre services you will need to assure readers of the Business Plan that you have made plans to evaluate whether the Telecentre is meeting its objectives. You will need to describe these evaluation methods in detail, and they could include:

• Signing in/signing out procedures that give a record of who uses the Telecentre and for how long.
• Teacher/instructor logs which include plans for classes as well as follow-up notes.
• Volunteer logs to record tasks undertaken by volunteers, difficulties encountered and suggestions for improvements.
• A comments box for Telecentre users to place their comments, suggestions and criticisms.
• Plans for regular meetings with representatives of key user groups, volunteers and staff in which people can express their needs and their concerns.
• Appointing a representative of a key Telecentre user group to the Steering Committee so that he or she can directly feed back concerns to the highest decision-making structure.

Possible problems and solutions
You need to be clear about your concerns and reservations. It is always better to be open so that the reader of the Business Plan knows that you have considered that some things could go wrong and that you have prepared contingency plans to deal with potential problems. Here is a list of potential problems:

• Hardware breakdown or malfunction. Unreliable technical assistance.
• Not enough participants/customers, or too many.
• The schedule is not appropriate to meet the needs of key user groups.
• Anticipated funds may be delayed or may not be forthcoming at all.
• Volunteers might be unreliable.
• The Telecentre premises may be too small, too hot or too cold.
• There may not be sufficient staff to sustain all the Telecentre’s programmes.
• Telecentre staff may not be skilled in dealing with customers.
• Telecommunications connections are unreliable.
• Students may refuse to obey the rules.

From your list of potential problems, choose two or three to describe in detail. For example:
The problem
There is a ‘wild’ group of high school students in the community. We are concerned that these students will break the rules by making too much noise and eating and drinking on the Telecentre premises. This will disturb other users and could even damage the Telecentre equipment. We could loose customers if we can’t control this group.

Possible solution
The Telecentre Co-ordinator will have to be very firm about enforcing the Telecentre rules. If the behaviour of these students does not improve, it might be necessary to approach the principal of the school and ask for his assistance. If there is still no improvement, this group of students will have to be denied entry to the Telecentre.

This way, evaluation and monitoring of your telecentre wouldn't be a big problem.
Cheers!

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Permalink Reply by Seuwandi Yapa on July 1, 2009 at 7:50am

Hello Kemly,
Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka, who is taking care of Nenasala (telecentre) network, has given a great priority to M & E operations. Basically ICTA has hired a "Regional Impact Team"s (RITs) for this purpose. RITs are assigned with specific duties and responsibilities to be fulfilled. Hope this RIT concept has a great importance in monitaring and evalution of telecentre network.... recently i posted a blog post on RITs role in Nenasala network... I think this RIT concept that that ICTA employed would be very useful as they address most of the important issues with reference to M & E. I would like you to follow up my blog post on RITs here.
regards :)

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