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External Evaluation of the “For Safe and Enabling School Environment” Project in Croatia

The project “For Safe and Enabling School Environment” is designed, implemented and managed by the UNICEF Office for Croatia. It was launched in 2003 and it is implemented in partnership with the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport (MoSES) and Education and Teacher Training Agency (ETTA). The project consists of two parts: the public campaign and the school project. UNICEF has commissioned the evaluation of the project in order to review and assess the implementation of the project and evaluate the role, contribution and impact of every component of the project on the prevention and reduction of peer violence in schools and creation of safe and enabling school environment as well as to make recommendations regarding project improvement, adjustment for the institutionalization process and the future of the project. The UNICEF Office for Croatia specified the objectives of the evaluation according to the internationally accepted evaluation standards. The main objectives of the external evaluation of the project were to assess the functionality, impact, effectiveness, efficiency and cost-benefit, relevance and sustainability of the project. The evaluation study was based on a post-test design, in which project and control schools were compared at a single point in time. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches was used. Firstly, a sample of 10 project schools with the VFS certificate was selected. Secondly, a control sample of 10 non-project schools was selected. To ensure comparability, control schools were selected to represent matched pairs to the project schools with respect to several relevant variables. In the quantitative study, a total of 568 teachers, 1196 pupils and 1329 parents from project and control schools, as well as 43 mentors from project schools, completed comprehensive questionnaires examining different aspects of behaviour, knowledge, skills, competencies and attitudes regarding violence and the project itself. In the qualitative study, a total of 12 focus group discussions with members of the local community, pupils and parents were conducted in two elected project and two elected control schools. A total of 16 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with principals, school coordinators, MoSES and ETTA representatives as well as representatives of the UNICEF Office in Croatia. Evaluation design and its implementation were in full compliance with the ethical principles and guidelines of the Ethical Codex of the Ethics Committee in Science and Higher Education, and the Ethical Codex for Research Involving Children. Based on the data collected in the evaluation study the functionality, impact, effectiveness, efficiency and cost-benefit, relevance and sustainability of the project were assessed and discussed in the report. Recommendations based on the results of the evaluation study were given and they focus on three areas: restructuring of project content, improvement of project implementation and increasing its relevance and sustainability.

external evaluation; peer violence; primary school

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