In March 2018 Rhodes University (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 is 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 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. These projects are:
Project 1: Overall M&E framework for SETAs
Project 2: Tools for evaluating skills for enterprise development in a township economy
Project 3: Performance standards for SETAs
Project 4: Cost-benefit analysis tool for evaluating work-based learning
Project 5: Tracer study guidelines for work-based learning
Project 6: Framework for M&E in relation to the Discretionary Grant
Project 7: Framework for M&E in relation to the Mandatory Grant
Project 8: Evaluating SETA governance
Project 9: Capacity building
The programme will address 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, remain unanswered.
It will explore 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 is 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 Chair in M&E in a SETA Environment is held by Prof Eureta Rosenberg of the ELRC. A number of project leads and researchers have already been appointed, although staffing has not yet been completed. Prof Mike Rogan (NALSU) leads Project 5 and Dr Glenda Raven, a post-doc scholar at the ELRC, leads Project 4. Mike Ward, PhD student at the ELRC, is the first researcher to be appointed in the programme, and Danel Janse van Rensburg is the project manager. Consultations, interviews and policy reviews are underway. The National Skills Authority has asked that the interim findings of this research be shared in one or more colloquia during 2019. Until then, interested parties are welcome to contact us at Rhodes University.
Last Modified: Tue, 23 Oct 2018 10:09:04 SAST