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KBM / Communal Educational Monitoring

Conceptualising and Establishing a Governance Instrument at the Community Level

Educational monitoring can be understood as a continuous, largely data-based process of observing and analysing an education system in its entirety as well as its individual components, for the purpose of informing educational policy and the public regarding framework conditions, process characteristics, outcomes and benefits of educational processes.
The project “Kommunales Bildungsmonitoring“ (Educational Monitoring in the Community, KBM) constitutes an autonomous field of action, i.e. a part project, within the BMBF programme “Lernen vor Ort“ (Learning in the Community, LvO) which was launched for a period of initially three years (2009-2012). At the DIPF, the project team supports 40 participating local authorities in implementing an analytic, indicator-based educational monitoring (since November 2011 39 municipalities, owing to a district reform in Mecklenburg- Western Pommerania), by offering process-related scientific advice and customised further training and expert conferences:

Based on the characteristics of biographies and respective educational pathways, the project team supports the communities in solving problems and defining objectives, developing community-specific concepts considering available data in selecting a product type (conceptualising phase).
Furthermore, the communities receive advice and support in implementing educational monitoring; this phase generally includes the production of a report on educational monitoring in the respective local authority. (implementation phase).
Finally, the project team also supports the participating municipalities in putting the monitoring products to a practical use (presentation and usage phase).
By systematising and evaluating experiences gained, the project team will subsequently develop transfer recommendations and make them available (accounting phase).

The products generated by the communities within the framework of educational monitoring are meant to identify general problems and offer an empirical foundation for the information on educational processes in the communities, thus providing valid governance knowledge for a holistic, coherent educational management regarding education across the lifespan – as well as contributing to improving the quality of education at community level.

Setting

The programme "Lernen vor Ort" is a joint initiative by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and German foundations; it receives funding from the BMBF and the European Social Fund (ESF). At the community level, work mainly focuses on four areas of action: education management, educational monitoring, educational advice and transitions in education. The project manager at the German Aerospace Center (PT-DLR) of the Helmholz-Association manages the programme on behalf of the BMBF. PT-DLR and the office of the Stifterverband jointly co-ordinate all of the programme’s activities.

Participating communities receive counselling and support from the consortium “Kommunales Bildungsmonitoring“. The consortium is et up by the German Institute for International Educational Research (DIPF), the Federal Statistical Office, the Statistical Office of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the German Institute for Adult Education (DIE) and Syncwork AG/Robotron Datenbank-Software GmbH.