Tshikululu’s Experience in Bursary Management

A sustainable, student centred approach is applied when conducting bursaries in Tshikululu;  this enables better pass rates and throughput rates. Tshikululu has a wide range of bursary management experience as follows:

Challenge:
After almost three years of funding a targeted education programme in Makhanda (Grahamstown), the Vestas Empowerment Trust wanted to review the extent to which the strategy had been effective to date, document lessons learnt and develop an understanding of how impact is achieved. Trustees had been regularly provided with ongoing monitoring data from the projects but wanted to understand how the programme had directly impacted the parents, learners and beneficiaries.

Opportunity:
The outcome of the evaluation would be to review opportunities for improving the programme strategy in future. Knowing Tshikululu’s evaluation expertise, as well as the information we had accumulated in designing, implementing and running the Vestas education programme, trustees requested Tshikululu to carry out the evaluation.

Role:
Upon the setting up of the Vestas Empowerment Trust, Tshikululu had conducted a needs assessment and situational analysis, as well as ensured that a monitoring and evaluation framework and theory of change were designed upfront. This meant that Tshikululu had not only thought of, and dealt conceptually with certain issues upfront, but that when it came to the evaluation, it would be possible to measure the programme against solid frameworks and indicators. 

Solution:
During the evaluation process, Tshikululu made use of a triangulated approach to data collection, which was also participatory in nature, with programme partners also providing input into the evaluation questions. Focus groups, revolving around the designed evaluation questions, were conducted across programme partners, their staff, teachers, principals, learners and parents. Programme documentation from Tshikululu and the programme partners was then analysed as part of the evaluation methodology. In addition to the large number of beneficiaries interviewed for data collection, the evaluation also involved spending significant amounts of time with the learners in order for Tshikululu to gain a comprehensive understanding about the way they worked and performed in a classroom.