Evaluation in education refers to the systematic investigation of the worth or merit of an object (e.g. a programme, policy, project, instructional material) (The Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation, 1994) to assure quality. Following the nature of evaluation, evaluators look at the context and structure of the object to be evaluated, focusing on certain aspects of the input, process and/or outcomes (depending on the evaluation question). Assessment (in this context), is a specific (and thus narrower) form of evaluation aimed at measuring the performance of people, institutions or systems (for instance, assessing student achievement in certain domains, or assessing workers’ performance in the workplace).

Master's Degree

This course aims to educate academic professionals in the domain of evaluation and assessment by allowing students to develop in the field of evaluation and assessment through a learner-centred, knowledge-centred, assessment-centred, and community-centred approach which encourages students to participate fully.

Contact sessions are not aimed at conveying factual content, but at developing the learner’s critical thinking skills, problem-solving techniques, and practical application of the subject matter. It is expected that the student becomes actively involved with the process and with contextualising the learning content for each module. In order to benefit most from each module, the student is expected to attend and be prepared for the contact sessions where active participation in the class discussions is expected as this forms part of the assessment.

It is the mission of the academic staff to help develop professionals in research, in the field of educational evaluation and assessment and to improve the quality of education and building capacity among professionals in these areas.