MONITORING AND EVALUATION IN A SETA ENVIRONMENT

In March 2018 three research units within Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 (ELRC, NALSU and Community Engagement) were awarded a Research Chair to focus on Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) in a SETA Environment. To be rolled out over three years (August 2018 – March 2020), this research programme was an initiative of South Africa’s 21 Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) and strongly supported by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). It is funded in the first instance by the BANKSETA and ServicesSETA.

The programme addressed the fact that despite extensive monitoring and reporting already taking place in the national post-school education and training system, some important evaluative questions about our post-school education and training system and how to strengthen it, remained unanswered.

It explored innovative methods to address the need for evaluation at multiple levels: from single initiatives by individual SETAs, to a composite national picture. Both conceptual depth and practical feasibility are important, with due consideration of the kinds of M&E that SETAs and their research partners can realistically undertake.

A key consideration was to ensure that M&E processes in the national system actually support transformation agendas. Currently, drives to improve performance and accountability through managerialism and compliance control, threaten to swamp the transformative intent of the post-school education and training system. Performance management should serve transformation, not inundate it. Is a balance possible and if not, what is the alternative?

The answers to such fundamental questions need to inform M&E tools and design. M&E is not just a technical activity, it is deeply strategic, normative and ideological. Making sure that processes are aligned with intentions, may well be where the system’s capacity needs to grow, and where university-based research can play a significant role.

The research programme consists of nine individual projects, aimed at developing frameworks, methods, guidelines, tools and capacity for M&E of Sector Education and Training Authorities’ work and impacts. 

Read more about the 9 sub-projects