Evaluation of Education Program

Absenteeism is a habitual tendency of an individual to be away from the place of work or studying without a good reason. Absenteeism is a common phenomenon among students in different kinds of learning institutions. In many educational establishments, the management has tried to devise different measures to curb this vice, but there are no concrete gains in different methods used. To fully understand the main causes of absenteeism in schools, this paper identifies and evaluates some factors that lead to absenteeism.

Primary Goals of Evaluation

Evaluation of the progress within learning institutions plays a crucial role in helping the management and the other stakeholders to curb the vice of absenteeism. The three primary goals of the evaluation will be centered on students, their parents, and management of the institutions. The first important aspect of evaluation will be to determine the reason why students have a tendency for missing classes without any good reason. To fully get a clear feedback on this matter, the evaluators will involve students, who are the main culprits, through conducting questionnaires, interviews, and adopting any other method suitable that will help in data collection (Carroll, 2012). The evaluation will seek to determine why parents or guardians of student who truant do not take appropriate measures to discourage them. In this case, the parents and the guardians will be involved in the conversation by the evaluators to establish why they do not play their part in discouraging student from truancy. The third goal of this evaluation is to determine the role of the school management in reducing the high rate of absenteeism in their learning institutions. The management of the school is engaged in conversation with the aim of understanding the mechanism implemented in order to curb absenteeism both in students and staff members.

Political Hindrances to the Evaluation

The evaluation activity will face numerous hindrances, since people detest constant review of their activities, and, in this case, the evaluators will face political constraints in their work. First, among the examples of the political issues that are likely to arise is cost-benefit analysis of the exercise. In this case, the financiers may fail to support the activity, since they may consider it not useful due to ideological differences. Second, the head of the institutions where the exercise will take place may feel unease, since they do not want their unethical activities exposed to the public, and thus, they may fail to corporate with the evaluators, hence difficult to work effectively. Third, the evaluators may receive bribes from the school management to prevent them from exposing the ill state of management within school. To fully overcome the aforementioned problems, the evaluators must inform all the parties involved on the importance of the exercise. Sensitization or creating awareness is an important aspect as it helps to remove any misunderstanding that may lead to one party feeling compromised, and hence may hoard useful information. To fully determine the benefit of the evaluation, all the costs to be incurred must be well evaluated to determine if they are necessary (Genao, 2013).

Role of Evaluators in the Exercise

The role of evaluators in the development of the school program is crucial, because they help in the collection of data that is used to develop sound programs that curb absenteeism and the other unethical issues in school. The evaluators also offer a platform to different education stakeholders on how to improve the quality of education within the institutions of learning. The evaluators act as a medium of connecting students and school management, since their main aim is to understand the problem affecting both parties. Evaluators are neutral parties that have no personal interest in the scheduling of the program, and thus they can give comprehensive recommendations.

Techniques Used to Collect Information

The evaluation process requires much information to adopt conclusive recommendations and direction on the way towards the school program. Acquiring enough information requires the evaluators to select suitable methods that facilitate gathering of relevant information at institutional levels. Some of the most effective and efficient methods that have been used to collect data include interviews, questionnaires, observation, and secondary sources. In this case, the method to be used will involve interviewing of the students one on one by the evaluators. Interviewing will enable the evaluators to clarify any information that they feel needs to be explained. Interviews offer a platform through which both parties are in good position to interact with ease, and, as a result, enough clear data is availed. Interviews enable the evaluator to acquire both the formal and informal feedbacks from the respondents. In the interview, the evaluators will seek to identify the reasons why students are absent most of the time during their academic year. Questionnaires will also be used to collect information on the issue affecting students and their learning environment in general (Kearney, 2014).The questions will be open-ended in order to make the procedure less time-consuming and make it easier for students to answer. Questionnaires are crucial due to their simplicity, and hence the evaluators will be in a position to easily analyze. The sampling procedure will be used to get a presentation of the whole population, because it is not possible to sample them all. Simple sampling procedure will be the most effective method to determine the sample to be used. In this process, the evaluators will pick individuals randomly without any specific sequence. It is a simple technique to use, and time is not wasted on choosing the criteria to pick the sample.