Evaluation is now universally recognized as an essential part of any effective education and training system. An important aim of recent government policy has been to introduce more systematic approaches to evaluation in LEAs and their institutions. A major task of the Technical and Enterprise Councils in the training field is to ensure that their programs are subject to assessment within an overall evaluation strategy. The two major problems of implementation, however, are lack of time and a perceived lack among middle and senior managers of the special skills necessary for an evaluation to have external validity.

Time Constrained Evaluation provides a solution to both problems. It offers evaluation processes which accept time limitations and work within them and it strips away the mystique of evaluation to describe methods and procedures which will enable educational and training staff at all levels to organize and carry out useful evaluations. Administrators, teachers and trainers as well as the staff of local and national inspectorates will welcome its cogent and realistic guidance.