The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive Framework for monitoring inclusive education in Serbia.  Inclusive education is a new education policy, introduced nationwide in 2010, and amply supported by legal documents, new national, local and school based support structures, trainings of teachers and school staff, school grants, peer networks, manuals and public events. However, monitoring of the effectiveness of these developments is lagging behind, due to several contextual challenges (e.g. dysfunctional education data collection system,   not yet fully developed external education evaluation system, etc.).  The Framework is developed   to respond to these contextual challenges and build on contextual strengths, and provide a meaningful development tool for the new, increasingly important, inclusive education policy in Serbia. 

The Framework for monitoring inclusive education is multilayered and multifunctional. The basic structure of the Framework consists of a matrix of   indicators developed for each level of education management (school, municipal, national) and for each of the stages of implementation of inclusive education (for each level input, process and outcome indicators are differentiated). The logic underlying the  decision to structure the Framework in this way is that the effects of inclusive education (outcome indicators) occur as a result of  successful organization  of the educational process (process indicators), which, in turn, arise as a consequence of well designed inputs (captured by the input indicators). Therefore, monitoring in the first few years of introduction of inclusive education should best focus on input indicators, register whether all the intended measures consistently reached the users, and only then focus on the process indicators, while monitoring the outcomes could be most meaningful only after several years. The input-process-outcome dimension of the Framework thus provides a dynamic view of the time perspective entailed in bringing about different aspects of education changes.  

Two other features of the Framework and its matrix structure need to be highlighted.

Firstly the Framework allows consistency in monitoring the implementation processes    registering the dynamics of implementation across different levels and through different institutional structures, thus also drawing conclusions about the sources of potential problems from the monitoring results. Since national education policy becomes functional only when local levels adopt their policy documents and adapt institutional processes and cultures in order to achieve the national goals, ‘implementation gaps’ can occur in many facets. The new policy might not be fully developed at the higher levels, not accompanied by appropriate actions/mechanisms to ensure reaching lower levels, it might not be appropriately implemented at the level of particular municipalities, or schools. The consistency of the Framework allows to detect such delays, enabling rapid system reaction. 

Secondly, the matrix structure of the Framework facilitates consistency and relevance in  collecting information throughout the education system, and in particular, regulates due data processing from lower to higher levels. Although data is collected at the lowest, school, class, and individual level, it becomes useful for monitoring the new policy only when   aggregated and transferred to the higher education management levels for further analysis. The most commonly witnessed problems arise when the school data source fails, i.e. if what is needed is not recorded, if what is recorded is not what can be used, if data aggregation is faulty or if the record is unreliable. In all of these cases the municipal and national levels are left without valid data, and policies are not monitored and cannot be upgraded or improved.

The network of indicators in the Framework matrix, their alignment at all three levels and across input, process and outcome contributes to overcoming the problem areas of public policy described above. 

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