Global evaluation practice is making enormous strides on all fronts, stimulated to a considerable extent by the activities of the International Year of Evaluation 2015 and the Global Evaluation Agenda 2016-2020 that resulted from it. The third leg of the Global Evaluation Agenda, i.e. developing individual evaluator capacities, calls for more evaluation-related education and training. In particular, Voluntary Organizations of Professional Evaluators (VOPEs) may require support with developing suitable professionalization initiatives.
In pursuing such initiatives, the danger is that the Supply of evaluation-related education and training is appealing for Demand to come forward, and Demand is not steering the offering of Supply, as it should! It is a market place in which the sellers are competing for buyers, and the buyers are often confused about what they should buy in order best to meet their needs.
In addressing the third leg of the Global Evaluation Agenda 2016-2020, it would be to the advantage of the global evaluation community to determine, on a VOPE by VOPE basis, its precise local needs, and on the basis of these, to invite suppliers of education and training to respond to the specific demand for evaluation-related education and training.
The best time-honoured approach for defining required competencies in a profession, evaluation included, is the DACUM method developed by the Canadian Vocational Association (CVA). At the invitation of Brazil’s National Industrial Training Service (Serviço Nacional de Aprendizagem Industrial) I had the privilege between 1998 and 2002, in collaboration with the CVA, to use the DACUM method to define the skill competencies of about 300 out of about 500 occupational families in Brazil’s then new Classification of Occupations (Classificação Brasileira de Ocupações).
The fundamental aspect of the DACUM method is that it is bottom-up, not top-down, involving practitioners who thoroughly understand the local technical, educational and cultural context.
If individual VOPEs define their requirements using this common method, then the global evaluation community can readily identify common core competencies, as well as regional or country-specific variations or unique requirements, with a view to developing a global framework of evaluation competencies. Building on the defined competencies, training providers can then offer modular course work that fits specified demand.
An approach to evaluation capacity building using competency profiles would not only help public, private and educational entities in curricular planning, but the resulting profiles would also be useful to commissioners for evaluation services and service providers in gender-equitable personnel recruitment, training, performance assessment and the development of remuneration scales.
VOPEs, or other relevant entities, desiring further information on how to use the proposed method in defining their required evaluation competencies may direct their inquiries in confidence (in English, French or Spanish) to:
Gunter Rochow
Credentialed Evaluator (Canadian Evaluation Society)
(gunter@rochow.info)
Buscar versión Español aquí.
Gunter Rochow
Credentialed Evaluator (Canadian Evaluation Society)
(gunter@rochow.info)
Buscar versión Español aquí.
