What we do - Edufundi

Rationale

The most important resource in any school – the one that makes the biggest difference – is its teachers. To invest in teacher effectiveness is to invest in the lifeblood of education.

Edufundi works with teachers in primary schools because this is where we believe there is the greatest chance of making a meaningful long-term impact on learners. Every child deserves to learn from a masterful teacher in order to unlock their personal potential, but the challenges are great – especially in disadvantaged communities.

At present, most teachers do not have sufficient support to help them manage their environments or develop and improve their professional skills. The general expectation is that they will just ‘get on with it’ and learn through trial and error. If teachers are going to succeed in shaping our country’s future leaders, then they need far more support than the system currently provides.

As an organisation, Edufundi is proud to play a role in filling this gap by providing educators with meaningful on-the-job mentoring and support. Our aim is to enable them to perform their roles with confidence and skill, to the benefit of all their learners for years to come.

Methodology

The key to our success, and what sets Edufundi apart, is our focus on mentoring. Regular guidance in the context of a trusting relationship has been proven to be the most effective way to bring about long-term change.

While workshops and training sessions form part of our overall programme, our most important work takes place when the mentor and mentee work side-by-side.

Our well-trained mentors partner with teachers and school leaders to provide real-time, on-the-job guidance and support that is not only relevant, but also immediately beneficial.

Over a three-year period our partner schools participate in three related programmes.

Champion Programme breakdown and duration

These three ‘Champion’ programmes are all based on international best practice coupled with research from South African education specialists. They work together to create a sustainable model for ongoing excellence in teaching and learning.

Edufundi is committed to the collection of robust M&E data. This has proven invaluable when it comes to informing our Programme design and implementation, and assessing the impact of our work.

We use a refined logic model and data collection tools to measure our programme outputs and outcomes. We have also developed a detailed M&E data management and reporting plan to guide our M&E processes.

Qualitative data is also collected to add insight into the progress of each mentee, and add context to quantitative results.

Automated reporting dashboards have been developed to enable programme staff, management and donors to track programme reach, outputs and outcomes in real time.  We also provide our project schools and donors with regular reports in order to share our M&E results. Thanks to this well-crafted monitoring and evaluation system, all interested parties have immediate access to the data and information required to track progress and make strategic decisions.