Ph.D. candidate Douglas Grane carried out fieldwork for his doctoral dissertation in Kenya.  His work investigated the development of data systems to evaluate joint donor and Kenyan government investments in free primary education in Kenya. He received a U.S. National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Award, a David L. Boren Graduate Fellowship,  T. Anne Cleary International Dissertation Fellowship from The University of Iowa Graduate College and in-kind donations from the East African Book Trust and the Aga Khan Foundation East Africa to carry out his studies. Doug examined competing donor, Kenyan government, local administration, and citizen interests at stake in attempts to measure progress toward achieving free and compulsory education.

Doug’s research analyzed several key efforts to measure and to evaluate these investments.  Of particular interest, his research investigated a Geographic Information System (GIS) based school mapping project in the context of boundary and jurisdictional changes in the provision of education in Kenya.  The research also examined the role of ‘open data’ movements to bring the measurement of development aid to the beneficiaries of that aid.

He carried out field work in local schools throughout Kenya, the Kenyan Ministry of Education and related government offices, major donor agencies such as the World Bank, and other major stakeholders in Kenya’s education sector. He took photographs of field sites in Garissa in northeast Kenya, Nyamira in Kenya’s far west, and the Mount Kenya region in the center of Kenya.

As Doug conducted his field research, he made periodic presentations on preliminary findings at the University of Nairobi’s Institute of Development Studies (IDS) where he served as a visiting research associate.  He had also been receiving instruction in Kiswahili, Kenya’s national language, from the David L. Boren Graduate Fellowship since June 2011.  Doug began at UI as a student of the late Professor Rex Honey and completed his dissertation under the guidance of Gerry Rushton.  Doug successfully defended his dissertation titled ““Indicatorism”: The Context, Politics, And Effects Of Monitoring And Evaluation (M&E) In The Kenya Education Sector Support Program (Kessp)” on August 29th.