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This paper provides the first published account of how bilingual programs in Aboriginal Community schools have been evaluated in the Northern Territory of Australia from their inception in 1973 to the present day. It comprises five main sections: (1) an introductory review of the literature on the evaluation of bilingual education; (2) a brief account of the first phase of evaluation in the NT, 1973 to 1978, when advice from technical experts was actively sought; (3) a report on the second phase, the accreditation of programs by central-office staff, 1979 to 1987, when groups of students from selected schools were comparatively assessed; (4) an analysis of the third phase, community-based appraisal, which commenced in 1988, and (5) some reflections and a conclusion. It is noted that this three-phase shift over the last two decades — from centralized decisionmaking reliant on outside technical advice, to an ambitious assessment and accreditation model, to community-based school appraisal — is in line with trends reported elsewhere by Fitzpatrick (1988) and Sanders (1988).
