Module 3: Monitoring, Evaluating and Reporting on the Project

Major Assumptions

In accordance with my aim to improve the quality of education given to students in public schools, I have a few assumptions about my project

*Students in public schools are often from families who know little about the use of Education, and therefore don’t get much help from their household, and often times are not encouraged to continue their education

*Many Students who attend these schools come from country sides to get education, they come learning to learn starting from 1st grade, these students don’t have any experience learning in pre-school, hence have more difficulty in understanding and absorbing the lesson content quickly

*Often time’s students who have the interest in learning don’t have the place where they can study and do their home works, they don’t have anyone to help them with their home works as well

*As a result students have a lot of problems understanding their lessons, and hence don’t do well in their examinations

*I want to learn more about how lessons are conducted in public schools, so that I could see what kind of challenges that students’ experience every day while they are in school

Staff ****The staff has a total of 11 members. Project Manager 1. vice Project Manager 2. Secretary 3. Project Evaluation supervisor *4. Credit Hour officer *5. Student progress officer 6. Public Relations officer vice public relations officer *7. vice public relations officer *8. Community relations supervisor 9. Finance Officer *10. Budget Manager and Reporter *Shows that staff members are under other staff members(they report to them)

Project Title: Opening up tutoring programs for public school students from grades 1-4 to teach them fundamental skills in English and Mathematics

Project Manager: Bethlehem Seifu Belianeh

Back ground to Project: The project first targets 100 students from grades 1-4 to teach them fundamental skills in English and Mathematics. It is within the view of lack of quality education dispensed to majority of students in public schools. It hopes to cultivate the students skills in learning media ( i.e. English and Mathematics), by giving tutoring lessons. The project is planned to operate in a unique approach by using the 5 to 1 method, every volunteer is responsible for teaching 5 students, in such a way more students are benefited. The project hopes to start with 25 volunteers that will be allocated to 4 classes (1st -4th grade). If things keep going smoothly and more volunteers are added, teacher to student ratio could be reduced to 1 to 1, that will be the ultimate goal, “One volunteer for one student…”. As a result it hopes to maximize impact, by making sure that sufficient attention is paid to every student enrolling.

Purpose of Evaluation:

The purpose of my project evaluation is to share with Y.W.C.A(partner and funder), and other affiliated sponsors the outcomes and impact of the project, and to keep them up to date with regards to how the money and technical support we ask from them was used. Through evaluation I also want to learn more about the needs of the students in public schools and also identify other problems in the society that prevents students from succeeding in their education. The evaluation will also give me results in to how effective my project has been, by assigning a person to evaluate the students’ and by assigning another person to evaluate volunteer performance, I hope I can get to the bottom of what make a project successful enough to impact its surroundings. In doing the evaluation I also want to review what approaches worked, and which didn’t so I can improve my project management skills.

Involvement of stake holders: The following members will be involved in the evaluation.

I. Students in the tutoring programs: Students will be monitored periodically by Student progress officer, and will be interviewed after the end of the project about the difference the tutoring program had for them.

II. Project Evaluation Supervisor: The project Evaluation supervisor’s main responsibility is to monitor the evaluation of the project. The credit hour officer and student progress officer report to the project evaluation supervisor. The project Evaluation officer reports weekly, about the volunteer’s and students performances. The project evaluation supervisor reports to the project manager.

III. Credit hour officer: The credit hour officer monitors volunteers’ activity and is in charge of handling the credit hour system. In which the officer records any absents, or late comings that the volunteers might show while on the project. The credit hour officer reports to the Project manager and the Project Evaluation Supervisor.

IV. Student Progress officer: the students progress officer has a main job of monitoring daily students progress, this officer is in charge of monitoring any student absents or late comings as well. The student progress officer is required to submit daily reports to the project evaluation supervisor about students’ performances. The students’ progress officer is also in charge of monitoring, and recording students performances after the course has finished, by visiting the public schools that the students attend. The student progress officer reports to the Project manager and the Project Evaluation Supervisor.

Indicators of Achievement:

Objectives

Objective I: Estimated amount of 100 students have gained fundamental skills in English and Mathematics, enabling them to proceed to their future studies with more understanding.

Indicators:

*The number of students who do well in classroom quizzes and examinations.

*The number of students who show progress in their studies and academic records, as a result of the tutoring program.

Evidence Required	How often	Obtained from
1. Number of students who start the tutoring program	At start	Project Evaluation supervisor
2. Number of Students who successfully complete the tutoring program	At the End of the Project	Project Evaluation Supervisor
3. Written and recorded Evaluations on the progress of students	Throughout the project	Student Progress officer
4. Volunteer Evaluation	Throughout the project	Credit hour officer
5. Photographs of the students and volunteers in the tutoring program	Throughout the project	Credit hour officer
6. Statements from students about the project how it has helped them	1-2 months after Academic year had started	Student progress officer
7. Statements/ Quote from the school teachers on how the students are doing after the classes	After 1-2 months after Academic year had started	Student progress officer

Objective II: After the lessons students have better understanding of the medium of Education (i.e Maths and English) and are doing better in their Classroom performances.

Indicators:

*Examination results from schools after the tutoring programs

*Students who were involved in the tutoring program passing with better grades than before

Evidence Required	How often	Obtained from
1.Follow up on the students in Saturday classes that will be conducted in the next academic year	2-3 months after the end of summer classes	Project evaluation officer
2.Collect data by retesting students when they attend the Saturday classes	At the start of next year	Student progress officer
3.Quizzes and oral examinations	Throughout the project	Project evaluation officer
4.Individual sessions to ask students about any problems they might have following the lesson material	Throughout the project	Community relations supervisor
5.Interviewing community members and parents about the support system at home	1-2 months after the start of Saturday class program	community relations supervisor
6.Written reports about students performance in the Saturday classes	Weekly	Credit hour officer
7.Over all annual report on the performance of students and volunteers	At end	The staff

After accomplishing the above objectives, this project further aims to empower the youth who will be volunteering to teach at the tutoring programs. It’s with the hope that through the tutoring programs, student volunteers are able to become positive agents of change in their communities.

Indicators:

*Volunteer performance throughout the tutoring lessons

*Number of Volunteers who pass the minimum credit hour and who have good evaluation results

Evaluation Tools and techniques to be used: There is a specific staff member assigned to lead the project evaluation and to ensure that it produces an accurate result. The staff member assigned is the Project evaluation supervisor, under which the two staff members, the credit hour officer and the student progress officer work. The two officers are responsible for evaluating volunteers and students respectively. The credit hour system is one technique that is used for evaluation of volunteers’ performance, as it is very important to consider in this project. The other technique is monitoring the students’ progress with the consent of time done by the Student progress officer.

Baseline information required:

In the community that I am working on there are two public schools, both of which have elementary schools. At present there is insignificant support system from the community to these students. It is with hope that this project is a pioneer in having both the youth and students participate in something that benefits the community. Contacting and partnering with the public schools is in progress, as it is key in finding the students that need to be in the tutoring program. It will also be useful to collect information in the societies views on Education, and whether or not they would let their children enroll in the class rooms.

Logistical & resource considerations:

Time- There will be a written and recorded report made to Y.W.C.A and other sponsors at the end of the summer tutoring program. The evaluation will be held timely and will be reviewed weekly by the Project Manager and the staff.

Money- Main costs are for buying Pens and Exercise books, purchasing/Collecting teaching aids and materials. Additional costs are for conducting the closing ceremony, and buying sodas and refreshments for Volunteers and Students at the middle of the program.

People- I will be responsible for managing the project along with my staff, who will be assigned into specific tasks of the project. I will get assistance from Y.W.C.A staff and trained volunteers, as well as new ones.

Approach the analysis of information:

Reports that are made weekly will be reviewed and analysis on what approaches worked and what did not will be analyzed every month with a wider discussion by the staff. The staff will discuss with the students after gathering them up, and take note on their comments and suggestions. We will continue until the end of the lessons, improving and implementing changes along the way. Conclusive reports will be submitted at the end of the project, after the staff and the project manager had decided up on it.

Reporting and communication of outcomes/learning:

The final conclusive report will be submitted at the end of the project and will be produced to Y.W.C.A and other sponsors. We will regard it as a learning model that will help us in the implementation of the same project in another part of Addis Ababa, or it could also be useful to Y.W.C.A volunteers to guide them through the different approaches we used in our project. We will communicate timely with Y.W.C.A and other sponsors with our Public relations officer to further share the results of the project, and also exchange ideas with other organizations.

Module 2: Role of the Project Manager

My Role as A project Manager

As a project manager I hope to establish organization and structure in my team. I think the best assets any project can have are its team members. From my previous experience in assuming the role of project manager, I can confidently say that a project manager’s role is as good as the team’s organization. If the team is lacking organization, it means that the project manager is not fulfilling his/her duties, Therefore I hope to lead my team by first building an organizational structure that will assist the team in carrying out planned projects successfully.

I know that being a project manager you face many challenges, one of which is maintaining authority in your team. Working with your colleagues you need to carry out a persona that says that you are a part of a team but also a manager. I plan to do this by keeping a close eye on circumstances, and monitoring my team closely. I do this to increase the level of control I have over my team, by this I plan distribute my team members over cases that need my attention. And finally I will have the team report back to me, together with my team I will make decisions in accordance with their reports. This way I still maintain my authority and still participate as a member. The other important factor is having respect in your team, any disputes or misunderstandings between team members will be dealt with in a team discussion, which will be conducted at least once a week in a fixed date. This will keep the respect and understanding between team members.

Time line for My project including major tasks and milestones

In Accordance with my SMART objectives...

1. Find 10 volunteers that will help me launch the program

2. Contact 2 local government schools to initiate the tutoring programs.

3. Organize a charity event to collect 20 more volunteers that will start the first tutoring program.

The start of A project ...Summer Tutoring Classes 2011

***All Dates are in 2011

Time line	Major Tasks	Conducted by
June 27th – June 29th	Orientation program for the 10 volunteers that will become staff members	Orientation given by my colleagues and I
July 1st-July 3rd	*Finalize Accommodations for the tutoring programs in public schools *Finish Gathering the list of students who will be participating in the program	*Staff, Colleagues and my self
July 4th – July 8th	Carry out Charity events and Campaigns to collect up to 20 volunteers	Volunteers, staff,and my self
July 9th – July 11th	Give lessons on tutoring and layout ground rules for volunteers	Staff, myself
Milestones	Trained volunteers may be found at Y.W.C.A. Volunteers that live around the vicinity will be contacted
Training Sessions	(Still in progression) will be conducted by volunteer workers from the organizations affliated with Y.W.C.A and possibly others who are willing to work with us.

Project Execution
TIME LINE	Major Tasks	Conducted by
July 12th	Placement Examinations for students to test their skills in English and Mathematics	Set by staff
July 13th	Students will be identified as Advanced, Medium or Lower according to the examinations	*Exams will be checked by volunteers and staff
July 14th	Volunteers will be assigned to students	Staff
July 15th – July 17th	Tutoring Materials and student lists will be prepared	Staff, Volunteers
July 18th	Classes are officially open
July 18th- August 19th	Summer Classes will be closed
August 19th	Closing Ceremony for students	Staff, volunteers, and myself
August 22	Volunteer-Assessment program	*Staff , myself
*Volunteers will be assessed on level of Activism & Tardiness *Credit hours for volunteers will be Assessed Accordingly
August 25th – 26th	Letter of Appreciation for volunteers

Finances for the project, basic principles for managing funds

For the Finances part, from my staff of 10 members, I would allocate 2 people to be in charge of handling finances and budget. The basic principles for managing the funds will be to first plan out our expenses then to allocate budget to finance our expenses. The two people will be in charge of submitting a report every week on our expenses, and final decisions will be made on them as a team. Therefore the person in charge will be allocated to record our expenses using cashbook and ledger entries. The two people allocated in this criterion will be chosen in such a way that there will be a check and balance in their work. For this I plan on working closely with them, so as to prevent any faults or dishonesty.

Basic Principles of Managing people

I hope to establish basic principles for managing volunteers along with my staff. I believe for a successful project to be carried one should first establish basic norms and values that will be followed throughout the project. From my experience as a Coordinating volunteer, it’s not always easy for things to go smoothly and carry out your task. Most of the problems with volunteers are showing up late, missing important days of work, not showing up at all, and quitting too early in the process. I acknowledge that these situations could happen to the volunteers that I will be working with. And I am prepared to take on these challenges as a leader. For this I will adapt a credit hour system, and allocate one staff member to closely monitor the volunteers. The credit hour system, is basically a system that is designed to manage volunteers, it includes all the work that each volunteer has ever contributed to the project, along with how much time. It includes when the volunteer punches in and punches out (enters and leaves) work. Volunteers will be notified of this system, so that they will be more serious in their work. The credit hour system will be reviewed every week along with our meetings; it will finally be put to practice in the volunteer assessment program, which will be conducted at the end of the project.

Steps that should be taken to monitor the effectiveness of specific project team members

The Credit hour system and the volunteer evaluation unit is part of my staff that will be responsible to monitor the effectiveness of specific project team members. Even though volunteer participants have a staff member to monitor them. There will be a punch in and punch out set for my staff also. I will check if the staffs are carrying out their tasks appropriately, and our weekly team meetings will demand their participation in the project.

As for the volunteers, I will have already allocated 2 people for this also. One is for managing the credit hour system, and the other one is for the volunteer evaluation. Together they will be in charge of determining the real credit hours of volunteers, including recording Minimum Credit hour.

Minimum Credit hour is credit hour that will be determined by the staff to identify volunteers that are not putting in much effort, in carrying out their tasks effectively. After such volunteers are identified, they will be contacted by our public relations staff, and will be notified that they are running under minimum credit hour. Minimum credit hour means that a volunteer won’t be getting any credit for his/her work.

Rewards for volunteers in the project team

The credit hour system, along with volunteer evaluation will aid greatly in determining who works the hardest, it will also be a good incentive, and motivation for others to keep up their good work. Accordingly, volunteers with the highest credit hours will be rewarded. Rewards include esteemed recommendation letters, Recognition Awards, eligibility for other opportunities in Y.W.C.A and affiliated organizations.

Level of Effectiveness

I predict that the level of effectiveness will be great since being a volunteer you are not looking for wages or salary, but inner satisfaction in your work. In some way or another you are changing people’s lives; to be recognized in such a respectable work is an honour itself.

Sample Job description

Key Areas in my project: Volunteer coordinator, Public Relations officer

VIVA, Vision for Integrated Voluntarism Association is a youth led non- profit that works towards improving the quality of education in local public schools by mobilizing youth to become positive agents of change in their communities.

VIVA is currently organizing a summer program that will be tutoring students from two local public schools. Through this program VIVA aims to:

1) Help students improve fundamental skills in English and Mathematics

2) Increase the level of Participation of youth in their communities

3) To change the perspectives of the society to implement future projects

The Public Relations Officer is responsible for

1) Meeting with Y.W.C.A* staff and other organizations to deliver reports and to collect volunteers

2) Working with local Public schools with regards to accommodations for the tutoring programs

3) Over seeing the public status of VIVA within aspect of Press releases, and public statements.

The Public Relations officer will report to the project manager.

The Public Relations Officer is expected to contribute 8-10 hours of work a week

The public Relations officer should posses

*A good working habit, and interpersonal skills

* Excellent written and oral communication skills

*Leadership Qualities

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*Young women's Christian Association Ethiopia

Project management E-course Assingment: Exersice 1B

What would be different in my community..

Children in public schools will be getting help in their studies and having access to libraries in their communities.

Back ground summary

My Target groups: Students from grades 1-4 in Public schools

Partners for the project : Y.W.C.A tutoring program staff, volunteers

Their views: Supportive groups, joining hands to make a difference.

Strengths and weaknesses: Strengths are in the already established Y.W.C.A tutoring program staff, there will be access to many volunteers who might be able to work on the project. Weaknesses are in the case of the community libraries, there might be some delay in getting the books on time because of the time that will be taken to find a sponsor, or willing people to donate books to the libraries.

Main activities: tutoring programs for children from grades 1-4 on Saturdays. Providing Library service to children who would like to do their homework and studying in.

Social dimensions: Changing the attitude of the society towards education, motivating parents to send their children to school.

Economic dimensions: By Capacity building increasing the amount of students that pass the national examinations, hence in elevating the amount of literacy among the society.

Cultural Dimensions: Motivating the number of girls going to school hence redefining cultural aspects in not sending young girls to educational facilities.

Educational Dimensions: Improving the a viability of quality education among public schools, ensuring that every student will have equal chance of getting more education in the future.
Needs satisfied: Recognizing Educational problems that need to be addressed among public schools, which will help in fulfilling the needs of children who are malnourished of sufficient education at a young age.

Motivation of the participants: In volunteering for this project, participants are helping to make a difference in children’s lives. They are helping create a better future for every child they help read, or write properly. They are changing the young’s life. It would be enough to impact one student among the many, for it would mean that their existence helped make a brighter future for at least a child.

Aims and Objectives:

Aims:

*To engage the youth in humanitarian activities in the community.
*To help curb the lack of quality of education in public schools

Objectives:

In starting this project I have made 3 objectives to accomplish before fully launching the program. It is with the hope that after accomplishing these objectives I will be able to have more organization and focus to carry on the project successfully.

1. Find 10 volunteers that will help me launch the program

2. Contact 2 local government schools to initiate the tutoring programs.

3. Organize a charity event to collect 20 more volunteers that will start the first tutoring program.

Funding options:
Work in partnerships with Y.W.C.A tutoring program, local public schools, Host a charity event in schools to collect funds by means of volunteers.

The social context of the project lies on young children in public schools. It is meant to help them succeed by providing them with support to pursue their studies. As in the case of the the situation of the participants, they are volunteers who will like to give back to the society. It is anticipated that their are students, who are willing to bestow their time to the tutoring programs that will be stretched out to help these children. There is no particular reason to focus on a geographic location. However It would be continent for both the volunteers and the students to decide on a location that is nearby (like a local public school).

Time frame

The time frame for the project is short term; it will engage both volunteers and students in a short term program (i.e 6 months). After the tutoring programs have ended we hope to make a lasting effect on the communities. If we continue to build this chain around communities in Addis Ababa, we can carry on to our next target public schools in country sides. The only resource we need to keep is the inspiration and motivation of volunteers.
It matches the flow of activities in the community, in a mild way. Because initiatives such as these where not implemented before in my community, there might be some challenges ahead. For example parents might be reluctant to send their child to a Saturday tutoring class, but over time and through perseverance, we shall succeed in letting our community know that education is important.

Implementation of the Project

The project will be implemented through primarily on networking, advertising, and partnerships. Young people who have the initiatives of helping out in their community will have the chance to make a difference in their community. In order for the project to be launched, we must ask for cooperation from public schools so they could accommodate for us to use their spare class rooms for tutoring programs, to let us have access to libraries in Saturday’s. We will also work to put more books in these libraries provided that the students will be able to use them in tutoring programs.

The experience, knowledge, skills and ideas of the participants and also volunteers is very important in developing the project. The participants and the volunteers are the back bones of this project. More experienced participants will be put on monitoring posts to evaluate and watch through the project, they will be like watch dogs, they will anticipate problems, and if any occur will unite to solve them. They will also engage themselves into forming a check and balance system, to ensure that every volunteer is doing their job accordingly. They will also decide on actions taken against misconducts from either volunteers or students.

My Objectives in the SMART technique...

1. In September 2010, I will campaign to find 10 volunteers, and give them orientations on how to run the project.

2. In 2010 we will contact 2 local government schools to initiate the tutoring programs, and library service.

3. In 2010 we will organize a charity event to collect 20 volunteers that will start the first tutoring program.


Challenges and Risks

From my experience as a coordinating volunteer in tutoring programs, I was able to observe some challenges that any project-manager might face. Having a project that capitalizes volunteers as prime resources things always don’t go smoothly. I have seen many volunteers lose focus, and not do their tasks appropriately. Some of them don’t show up to the tutoring classes, some are late. Some just quit at the middle of the program, and not show up until the end of the program. The other challenge beside volunteers are partnering with the public schools. As I mentioned earlier these kinds of initiatives were not practiced before in my community, therefore I might experience some problems with the full cooperation of the public schools to let us use their learning space, and libraries.

The risks are to invest money in the charity events, for they might not go as planned. In order to tackle these risks, I propose to fully advertise the event personally by the use of volunteers in my community. It is with the aim to inspire the community, especially parents to come to the event and see what we are planning. This will also help us in getting their cooperation to let their children come to the tutoring programs.