Background: South Africa as a developing country is faced with the problem of insufficient resources that support learning in schools. This problem is mostly in schools from low income communities, whereby it contributes to the low academic performance observed in these schools. The iPads for Education Programme was implemented as a pilot study in Sentinel Primary School, Hout Bay, as a solution to low academic performance. The programme aimed to improve mathematics performance of grade five learners through the use of iPads as a teaching and learning device during school lessons. Objective: This dissertation reports a formative evaluation that was conducted on the iPads for Education Programme. Methods: The evaluation assessed the implementation of the programme and short-term outcomes for the learners using both qualitative and qualitative approaches. Results: The evaluation found the implementation of the programme to be weak and as such subsequent recommendations for improvement were made. Overall the research provides practical evidence of the importance of stakeholder engagement and buy-in for programme implementation.

In South Africa university under-preparedness, due to social, economic and cultural disadvantage, makes black students vulnerable to a complex set of problems when entering university. This negatively affects retention and graduation rates among non-traditional students. Universities must recognise these students' social, academic and economic struggles and implement interventions to support them. The Humanities Faculty Mentorship Programme (HFMP) provides psychosocial support through mentoring for students likely to be under-prepared to meet the demands of the University of Cape Town. This paper presents process and outcome evaluations of the HFMP. The process-level evaluation questions are divided into service utilisation, service delivery and organisational support categories. The outcome-level evaluation questions address the programme's intended outcomes; psychosocial adjustment, academic proficiency and university retention. Results indicate that mentor involvement was sufficient, mentees were generally satisfied with their mentoring experience as were mentors with mentor training. Psychosocial adjustment and academic proficiency were achieved. However, over-coverage, poor mentee attendance, and issues with staffing and programme monitoring could have affected the programme's implementation. In addition, the recurrence of academic problems among mentees warrants attention. Suggestions for improving the programme are presented as are recommendations for future evaluations to improve data quality and the assessment of programme effect.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-87). / Youths living in foster care homes within South Africa are required by law to leave these places of care when they reach the age of majority (18). To assist the successful integration of these youths into society, services that include mentorship, daily life skills training, housing support, job training, healthcare, counselling services and educational scholarships can be provided to these youths prior to their aging out of care. All these services fall under the field of youth development, whose main function is to empower youths by fostering self-direction and skills development through encouraging personal responsibility in the health and physical, personal and social, cognitive and creative, vocational and civic arenas (Hudson, 1997). To assist male foster care youths living at the Homestead Children's Home in Khayelitsha, Mamelani Projects established a youth development programme named Project Lungisela in 2005. The established programme aims to prepare male youths living at the foster care home aged between 16 and 17 to become independent, responsible and contributing members of society after they graduate out of care (Mamelani Projects Annual Report, 2009). The focus of this outcome evaluation was to determine whether the programme had contributed to the successful integration of these at-risk youths into society. The first phase of the outcome evaluation involved the description of the intervention's activities and the intended outcomes for the youths after programme participation. The programme's medium-term outcomes consisted of the youths gaining work experience through internships and finding suitable accommodation prior to their aging out of care. Long term outcomes consisted of the youths gaining full time employment and living healthy, independent lives after transitioning out of care.

D-Tree International's mission is "to develop and support electronic clinical protocols that enable health workers worldwide to deliver high quality care". They envision a world in which every person has access to high quality healthcare. To achieve this overarching goal D-Tree firstly, develops and validates clinical algorithms for use by health workers, secondly they design software for delivering these algorithms on mobile phones, and thirdly enable the effective use of these algorithms on a scalable basis. D-tree developed the electronic Community Case Management (eCCM) decision support tool for use by Health Surveillance Assistant's (HSAs) in Malawi for the care and treatment of acutely ill children under the age of five. This tool guides the HSAs through a clinical protocol to the correct diagnosis and subsequently treat, as such providing the HSA with a tool that can supplement lack of training, supervision and/or experience. The intervention they provide is supposed to lead to the following outcomes: (1) improved supervision of HSAs in the field, (2) accessible health records for HSAs, their supervisors and the Ministry of Health, (3) better follow up for the patients by HSAs due to accessible health records, (4) improved drug availability, and (5) improved protocol adherence by HSAs. The goals that D-Tree hopes to achieve by creating these outcomes are consistent provision of quality health care, and solidifying the trust between the people and their health care system. The final impact to be achieved are improved health outcomes. This is a formative evaluation aimed at the proximal outcomes of the D-Tree eCCM application.

This dissertation reports a process and outcome evaluation of an anonymised organisation's preparatory programme. The preparatory programme is an out-of-school time (OST) programme that aims to prepare the students that are selected for the scholarship programme, for high school. The programme has been implemented since 2008 and this dissertation will focus on the cohorts which received the programme in 2014 and 2015. The preparatory programme was investigated in terms of its plausibility and a theory of change was developed in consultation with the programme co-ordinator. Three questions related to the programme's process were posed. These questions related to whether the programme had been implemented as intended, whether the CAT instrument that the programme was using was a useful tool for informing selection, and which aspects of the programme the participants found most and least helpful. Five questions regarding outcomes were posed that enquired whether students who had received the programme improved their mathematics and English performance, their cognitive reasoning ability, and their self-efficacy; and whether students in each of the teaching streams had benefitted equally from the intervention. The evaluation used secondary data collected throughout 2015 and included student' term 2 and term 4 report cards, their performance on internal programme assessments, CAT scores, SEQ-C results, a focus group with the teachers who taught on the 2014 iteration of the programme, and interviews with the programme co-coordinator and students that had received the programme. Data analysis methods included the use of descriptive statistics, as well as parametric and non-parametric statistical tests for quantitative data. IBM Statistics 22 was used for the analysis of quantitative data and QSR NV ivo 10 was used for qualitative data. The results revealed that several minor changes were made to the planned structure of the programme in order to maintain the quality of the intervention. Students found the mathematics and English components of the programme useful, although how well they retained and applied the content from the programme varied. Students did not find the creative writing workshops or the study skills workshop particularly useful. The CAT instrument could potentially be a useful tool for informing selection, although it is not currently being used to its full potential. Students' mathematics aggregate s improved significantly, while English aggregates did not. There was no significant change in internal assessment scores for both mathematics and English. Students in the mid-stream appeared to benefit most from the preparatory programme. There was a significant improvement in student CAT scores, as well as on each of the CAT subscales (quantitative, verbal, and non-verbal). There was a significant increase in social self-efficacy scores and a significant decrease in academic self-efficacy scores. Total self-efficacy scores and emotional self-efficacy scores did not change significantly between the pre-and post-test. However, none of these observed effects could be attributed directly to participation in the preparatory programme due to the lack of a comparison group. It is possible that changes between repeated measures on participants were due to maturation effects, regression to the mean, or another historical event which influenced the outcomes of the programme participants.

This evaluation is an impact evaluation of the Chrysalis Academy (CA) Programme. The CA programme is geared to help youth in the Western Cape develop the skills and resilience needed to transcend the prevailing poverty, inequality, unemployment and crime in their communities. Chrysalis offers a 3-month residential and 5 year After-Care programme for NEET youth aged 18-25 that includes life and vocational skills training as well as counselling and community service. The programme also includes a 2-week outdoor/wilderness component that is deemed crucial to the success of the programme. The evaluation sought to respond to two overarching groups of questions. The first group of questions assessed the long-term impact of the programme with regards to education, employment, crime, drugs as well as family and community relationships. Considering that the outdoor component is regarded as the most crucial component of the programme, the second group of evaluation questions was geared to understand the causal mechanism of the CA outdoor component to assess whether it is consistent with the logic model of successful outdoor programmes and to understand the outcomes that can be expected from this phase. A quasi-experimental impact evaluation design was used to respond to the impact evaluation questions. A database of 14,614 past applicants from the Western Cape formed the basis of a sampling frame from which a random sample of 300 past applicants who received the programme and those not selected into the programme between 2014 and 2016 was drawn. Face-to-face interviews were scheduled with 35 contacted programme recipients and 35 contacted non-selected applicants and interviews were conducted using a structured questionnaire. A final sample of 32 programme applicants and 33 non-selected applicants was analyzed. Differences in the average outcome attainment between past participants versus non-participants were then assessed after Propensity Score Weighting was used to balance the treatment and control group on key variables related to the probability of being selected into the programme. To assess the causal mechanism of the outdoor component, in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with some success and non-success case graduates of the CA programme to assess their experience of the outdoor component and the outcomes that presented as a result. The findings of the evaluation show that the CA programme does not have long-term impact as those who did not receive the programme also attained similar positive outcomes. However, there is a possibility of short-term outcomes attainment from the outdoor component as its causal mechanism is similar to that of successful outdoor programmes. Moreover, participants, regardless of their long-term outcomes, are able to achieve the short-term outcomes expected from the outdoor component. Based on the results, CA should assess how the effect of the outdoor component and possibly other phases of the programme, can be sustained for long periods, possibly by intensifying the After-Care programme. CA should also assess the assumptions around outcomes attainment such as labor market favorability and financial sufficiency and assess how these can be addressed within the scope of the programme.

Includes summary. / Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation is a theory-driven process evaluation of a programme for street people. The programme is run by Living Grace, a faith-based organisation which aims to help clients leave a life on the street and reintegrate into mainstream society. The evaluation is intended to be formative in nature and the primary audience is the programme manager.

A formative evaluation of a workplace skills programme was undertaken to examine the programme theory, implementation fidelity and the expected outcomes. The programme targets disadvantaged youth selected from rural communities and provides them with vocational development knowledge and skills to enhance their prospects for employment. The programme theory was depicted as a Logic Model from information extracted during semi-structured interviews, programme documentation and the programme websites. Data for the implementation and outcomes evaluations was derived from existing programme records. The Logic model was assessed as being reasonably plausible at inculcating the desired individual behavioural change whilst the implementation and outcomes evaluation identified deficiencies in the monitoring records that precluded any evaluatory judgement. Recommendations related to developing a robust monitoring system and a proposal for the application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour questionnaire (Ajzen, 2005) to trace the antecedents to behavioural intent were raised.

Purpose The peer support programme as run by Helderberg Association for Persons with Disabilities (HAPD) uses people who have disabilities to support people with disabilities in their own community. The purpose of this formative evaluation is to explore the roles and responsibilities of peer supporters and the needs in the community. This evaluation would help HAPD explore which areas of the peer support programme could be improved. The evaluation explored the relationship between addressable and non-addressable needs, the types of disabilities and the needs identified of the people with disabilities. Exploring these relationships would allow HAPD to understand which needs they are more likely to address and which areas they could improve their support in. Problem In South Africa, community-based rehabilitation has been evaluated but there are no evaluations that focus on the roles and responsibilities of peer supporters and the relationship between the needs that are addressed. HAPD employs and assists in the training of local people with disabilities to support people within their own community, drawing from the resources already in the community. If the peer supporters’ roles and responsibilities are not well-defined to address the needs of the community, the programme would fail. The needs of the community need to be identified to understand the community and possibly addressed the needs by providing emotional support, information, and referring cases to other service providers in the community. The evaluation explores the types of disabilities identified, the needs of the people with disabilities in the community, as well as the number of needs addressed. This information would allow HAPD to have a better understanding of the variety of home visitations the peer supporter could face and would need to provide support in. Methods The evaluation used a descriptive research design, which mainly used quantitative methods to evaluate the programme. The evaluator used some qualitative methods to enhance the understanding of the programme, these methods include a focus group with peer supporters, collecting and analysing programme documents, and interviewing the chief operating officer. The evaluator explored the relationships between the types of disabilities and the needs that were identified in home visitations. The disability categories were: physical, sensory, intellectual, and psychiatric disabilities. The needs categories as grouped by HAPD were: Health & Wellness and Education & Employment and Transport & Housing and Family & Social needs. Results There were 608 usable entries for home visitations; 43% had more than one home visitation, 79% had a physical disability and 39% of the needs were related to Health & Wellness, and 73% of the needs were addressable. There was a significant relationship between having an addressable need and the type of need category identified but no relationship between disability categories. Education & Employment needs and Health & Wellness needs were more likely to be addressed than any other need. Needs related to Transport & Housing and Social & Family issues were not as likely to be addressed. Conclusion The formative evaluation of HAPD has found that the roles and responsibilities are well-defined if implemented with the WCAPD. There is a need to increase the training in counselling topics and to provide counselling to the peer supporters. The importance of creating of referral network based from an asset-based community development perspective was also recommended as it provides tangible and valuable information on the capacities, skills and services available in the community. The evaluation also highlighted some areas of improvement regarding the record keeping of training material, improvement of data collection, follow-up of home visitations, and clearer categorising of needs and disabilities. HAPD can consider evaluating the mechanism of support the peer supporters provide to the community and how the associate organisations form part of this process.

Includes summary. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-68). / This report presents the findings of a formative evaluation of the Silence The Violence (STV) programme, a school-based violence prevention initiative. The programme is implemented by an organisation known as Khulisa Services, which has service points in all nine provinces of South Africa. The main objective of the STV programme is to reduce verbal, emotional and physical violence in schools.