Aotearoa New Zealand national evaluation conference.
Author | Schumacher, Joseph |
The third annual Aotearoa New Zealand National Evaluation Conference, sponsored by the Auckland Evaluation Group and held in Taupo from 31 July to 2 August 2006, attracted over 50 participants from throughout New Zealand. Its theme was Evaluation and Social Change--What Are the Links? and there was particular interest in exploring bicultural and kaupapa Maori models of community and evaluation work.
The purpose of the conference was to bring professional evaluation practitioners together to share experiences, ideas and ways of working. Most of the participants at the first conference were evaluation contractors, but since then increasing numbers of evaluators from the state sector have been attending. The previous two conferences explored the desirability and feasibility of establishing a New Zealand-based professional evaluation association. This discussion--and the sustained efforts of a dedicated working group--led to the official launch of the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association, or anzea, at this year's conference. Anzea will also be the official host of the next conference, planned for mid-2007.
The open forum at the end of the conference gave participants an opportunity to discuss the conference's highlights and suggest themes and priorities for the next one. There was widespread endorsement of the longer sessions at this year's conference because they allowed sufficient time for questions and discussion. Participants liked the interactive nature of the sessions and felt the conferences helped create a sense of community--a community of evaluation practice.
Over the conference's three days, which included three keynote addresses and a dozen workshops, seminars and group discussions, participants explored the role of evaluation in social change. A range of issues and questions were raised, including:
* Do evaluators have a role as agents of social change?
* What are the values that determine the various roles evaluators undertake?
* How do we make connections and weave together the interests of different sectors?
* What is the role of the evaluator as contract provider within a purchaser/provider relationship?
* How can evaluators exert influence and is that appropriate?
* How do we build capacity for social change in evaluation?
CASE STUDIES
Karen Sewell (CEO, Education Review Office and Secretary for Education), in the conference's first keynote address, focused on the role of the Education Review Office (ERO) as an agent for social change. She argued that ERO, an independent government department, facilitates social change through evaluating the quality of pre-tertiary education in New Zealand; informing schools, parents, communities and policymakers in the government of its evaluation findings; highlighting the need to evaluate education in an indigenous context (taking the...
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