Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao - Monitoring and Evaluation in BEAM

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Monitoring and Evaluation in BEAM

* A simple guide on exploring M & E page * Select any of the boxes on the diagram to take you to specific project information on our activities/inputs, outputs, outcomes and impact. Blue text are clickable and can lead you to another document or page about M & E. The BEAM Project has a strong focus on Monitoring and Evaluation (M and E). It drives all our activity and provides feedback for us to improve our performance. Our M and E approach is based on a detailed Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. This framework is based on an uncomplicated and easy to follow approach. We ask ourselves some simple questions to guide what we need to do. Where do we want to go? What the Project must achieve is clearly outlined in the Project Log Frame and in our Annual Plans: The Goal of BEAM is to improve the quality of, and access to, basic education in Mindanao thereby contributing to the attainment of peace and development in the Southern Philippines. The Purpose of the BEAM is to improve the teaching and learning of basic education in Regions XI, XII and ARMM and to implement strategies that will provide opportunities for all children in these three Regions to access quality education and develop key life skills. What do we do to get there? Our activities, outputs, outcomes and impact are all linked in a logical way so we understand what we must do to achieve our goal and purpose.
	Activities are the specific tasks (e.g. training programs) that we need to do to produce the required project outputs. Inputs refer to the resources required to undertake activities (e.g. personnel, equipment and materials) and to produce the outputs. These lead to OUTPUTS
	Outputs are the products and services which are directly produced by the BEAM project (e.g. percentage of total staff trained). They are the tangible result of applying inputs and undertaking activities. These lead to OUTCOMES
	Outcomes describe what we expect to achieve and have achieved. It adds a quality perspective to the output and is indicative of the total effect of the output (e.g. improvement in student outcomes). This leads to IMPACT
	Impact is the long term effects (positive and negative) of all that we have done (our interventions) whether intended or not (e.g. improvement in quality of education).
How will we know when we get there? So we know why we are here and what we do, but how do we know when we get to where we want to be (our purpose)? To understand this we measure what we do along the way (monitoring) as well as measure the impact we are making (evaluation). Look here for our approach to Monitoring and Evaluation. What do we need to measure? The sorts of things we need to know are: Is the project, its service providers and partner organizations delivering on their expected outputs and results? Has BEAM had a significant impact on the population? What conditions and what types of inputs have the highest success in improving the quality of education? What conditions and what types of inputs have the highest success in improving access to education? To what extent can service improvements be attributed to project activities? What unanticipated positive and negative outcomes did the project produce? To answer these sorts of questions we need to measure the effectiveness of the BEAM interventions. Because of the complexity of the BEAM project, its many activities and outputs under the four components, a limited number of Key Performance Indicators have been identified to provide enable management to focus on the ‘big picture’ issues.