Evaluation report of Development in Kofale and Education and basic life skills in Arsi

Background

Given the long-term commitments of HCoGE of removing hindrances to education for children, evaluation is an important ingredient in the relealization of the success of its developmet intervention as it serves as a tool for assessing whether its efforts are bearing fruit, and helps identify problems and solutions which, in turn, provide inputs to design better and more effective interventions.

Purpose/objective

Mid term evaluation for the project. We wanted to maximize the outcome and thus implement the findings in the last two years plans.

Methodology

The evaluation process included gathering, analysis and interpretation of information drawn from document review, field observation and interview of selected stakeholders.

• Reviewing the HCoGE’s organizational structure and procedures;
• Reviewing relevant documents of the project, including government laws and regulations related to the project, background papers and implementation reports;
• Visiting project sites, the schools and related offices;
• Holding interviews with a sample of local officials, parents and teachers;
• Conducting tests in English and Arithmetic for randomly selected pupils in HCoGE and Government Schools;
• Analyzing data collected through the methodology listed hereinabove; 
• Formulating findings and writing the report.

Key findings

The main conclusions were as follows: Relevance:  The evaluation led to the conclusion of the evaluators that the HCoGE Project is indeed relevant and useful to the community it serves. And that the HCoGE project activities can be taken as effectively accomplished. Impact: Assessing the impact, 85% respondents have said that the improvement of access to education for poor children was high, 11% saying that the impact in this regard was medium, 3% saying that it was low and the remaining 1% saying that there was no impact in this regard.

The high score was given on awareness of girls education, contribution to poverty reduction and gender equality, (between 81% and  57% answered “high impact”)  while in regard to environmental protection only 36% answered “high impact”.

Sustainability: The HCoGE School in Kofale was able to cover its annual operating expenses from its internally generated income during the 2014/2015 school year. This is an important progress towards financial sustainability.  However, due to the high level of poverty prevailing in most of HCoGE’s intervention areas, it will take some time before all other HCoGE Schools will collect school fees sufficient to cover all their operating expenses.

Recommendations

Financial sustainability: The evaluators think that HCoGE should find ways mobilize sustainable resources in order to ensure the continuity of the school network that it has successfully established to date. In addition to an appropriate school fee mechanism, other income generating schemes activities need to be initiated.

Key statistics: Some information such as school statistics, (e.g. enrollment figures, dropout rates, etc.) were not readily available for reference. It is, therefore, recommended that building designs, bill of quantities and important school statistical figures be maintained and be readily available when needed for reference both on site and at the headquarters levels.

Staff training: Operational staff should be enhanced through pre-service and in-service training on project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation;

Networking: Although there are positive remarks from most local administration officials regarding the cordial relations between HCOGE and the local administrations, there are still a few key officials who thought the relations were far from desirable.  Given this observation, albeit from a minority of the respondents, it is recommended that HCOGE should follow a more open and regular communication path with local officials, and also seek to find ways the wereda Education Offices can make improved contributions in terms of the fulfillment of the required school materials.

Conflict sensitivity: There has been no serious challenges due to religious differences, except for a mild disturbances that occurred in Jengella during the initial phase of the construction of the school. It is very important to continue to harmonize relations with other religions and to include religious tolerance and respect in the teachings.

Infrastructure: A solid fencing should be built separating the Kofale Harvest School from the Church so religious practice is conducted in separation from school activities. This was a suggestion made by the Kofale local administration officials during the field visit of this evaluation.

Comments from the organisation, if any

The evaluation shows that the project is successful in both providing needed education but also removing hindrances and changing people’s attitude. This is very encouraging. The lower rate of girls in the project’s government operated schools has rised the focus on ownership and has given a new commitment to enlarge the impact of the efforts to increase girls education.

The evaluation could have been performed with more interaction with the project staff to ensure better learning. We will have further talks together with the local partner to identify areas which hold potential learning and/or should be included in a process to improve the next evaluation.