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Theses and dissertations (Management Sciences)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://ir-dev.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/14

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Subject: search.filters.subject.Monitoring and evaluation

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    Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms of community engagement initiatives in Universities of Technology in South Africa
    (2021) Ogunsanya, Olajumoke Folusho; Govender, Ivan Gunass
    The contemporary higher education institution realizes that the process of accomplishing their vision, mission and objectives involves multi-level interactions with diverse stakeholders within their external environment. Universities and other designations of higher education institutions are no longer walled off from society but required to assume a position of relevance to the society in all of their activities related to creation, transformation, transfer and distribution of knowledge. It is in this context that community engagement has emerged as a vehicle to broaden higher education’s direct participation in society’s development. The main roles of higher education institutions are adjudged to be research, teaching and learning, and community engagement. This study focused on community engagement in higher education in South Africa. The purpose of the study was to examine the nature of community engagement and its institutionalization in universities of technology in South Africa. Furthermore, another central purpose of the study was to examine how community engagement initiatives are currently being monitored and evaluated in universities of technology in South Africa. The choice of universities of technology as the focus of the study was to provide an understanding into the development, growth, direction and activities pertaining to community engagement in this typology of higher education institution, and more importantly, the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms used in the process. Guided by a constructivist paradigm, the research study was undertaken using a qualitative methodology, exploratory and multiple case study design. Purposive sampling was applied to select six universities of technology as case studies for the research. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to obtain data from key informants in the institutional case studies. Key informants or interviewees were made up of university officials in charge of the institutions’ community engagement portfolio and managers of community engagement projects or initiatives in the institutions. Also, additional data was obtained from university documents. Documentary evidence was critical to this study because university documents supplemented data obtained from the semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was carried out using qualitative thematic content analysis in order to make sense of the qualitative data and make interpretations and inferences. Primary findings from this study showed that the practice of community engagement in universities of technology in South Africa is highly contextual. Each institution undertakes community engagement in their own context and unique positioning influenced by factors such as institutional history, geographical location, institutional definition of community and community engagement, focus area, amongst others. In terms of the particular degree to which community engagement is institutionalized, the study found that community engagement does not receive the same level of emphasis as teaching and learning and research in universities of technology in South Africa. Although organizational structures for the institutionalization of community engagement are in place in most of the universities, the actual practice of community engagement requires improvement in order for it to be deeper in the institutional fabric of the universities of technology. Additional findings indicate that monitoring and evaluation of community engagement initiatives occurs in universities of technology, albeit informally, in most of them with improvised approaches and methodologies which differ among projects and from institution to institution. Hence, monitoring and evaluation is not consistently applied to community engagement projects in the institutions. Such inconsistency was evident in non-enforcement of monitoring and evaluation as a practice in management of community engagement projects, lack of standardized monitoring and evaluation tools in majority of the institutions, and unequal weightings for community engagement in staff performance management. Therefore, the study concludes that monitoring and evaluation of community engagement lacks depth in universities of technology in South Africa. The study’s recommendations were, amongst others, to propose a systems model for the practice of community engagement; a model for the form of community engagement; as well as a model for monitoring and evaluation of community engagement initiatives. The monitoring and evaluation framework emphasizes the integration of community engagement projects into the academic curriculum at every point either through research or through teaching and learning. Universities express community engagement based on their own individual contexts. This research study places institutional context of the university as the platform from and on which the monitoring and evaluation model functions, and uses curriculum integration as the grounding for institutionalization of community engagement in the core of university activities. In addition to providing feedback on project performance, the proposed monitoring and evaluation model focuses on emphasizing engaged scholarship in indicators at each level of the model. This contribution to knowledge provides direction on how to put community engagement projects together in a manner that promotes meaningful and practical scholarship.
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    Monitoring and evaluation and its impact on the performance of the Sizakala Customer Services department employees at eThekwini Municipality
    (2021) Dlamini, Nonkululeko Nonjabulo; Mabila, Ndiphethe Olive
    The need to meet the organization’s objectives, to meet the set targets, to detect problems at an early stage is the reason Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) should be executed in the organizations. The objectives of this study were to determine the understanding of M&E on the Sizakala Customer Services department employees and its practice in the municipality, to ascertain the impact of M&E on the performance of the employees in the Sizakala department, to determine how M&E contributes to the attainment of the objectives in the department and lastly, to identify challenges and to make recommendations to overcome the challenges facing M&E within the department. The study is demarcated at the Sizakala Customer Care department under the Sizakala Customer Services unit at the eThekwini municipality. The Sizakala department aims to help the community to obtain equal access to the services rendered by the municipality and other spheres of government. The program forms part of the eThekwini Municipality’s Integrated Development Plan (IDP). The program is to show the municipality’s obligation in keeping up with service delivery and an improved quality of life for all eThekwini citizens. There are (35) Sizakala Customer Service centres. The aim of the Sizakala centres is to bring services closer to all residents. Self-administered questionnaires were given to the total number of 41 participants at the Sizakala departments across the North, South, West and Central offices of the eThekwini Municipality, inclusive of Principal clerks and semi-structured interviews were rendered to cumulate data from 2 Monitoring practitioners, 2 Evaluation practitioners and 1 Sizakala manager. Probability sampling was employed in this study and the stratified sampling technique was used to conduct the research. A total of 31 questionnaires were returned from the participants which yielded a response rate of 76%. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 was used to do the quantitative analysis of data and the qualitative data was converted into the Excel spreadsheet to do the analysis. The study unfolded that the greater number of the respondents have an understanding of M&E and the majority are positive that employee M&E findings are fully implemented at Sizakala department. M&E helps employees to improve on their performance at Sizakala department. The study also unfolded that there are obstacles facing M&E at Sizakala department, which includes not having enough funding for M&E at Sizakala department. Subsequently, the Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (PME) unit has not conducted any evaluation for the Sizakala unit and is lacking experienced M&E staff and does not conduct walk-ins to monitor the unit. There is no internal M&E department at Sizakala Customer Services unit. The PME unit is an external unit that is responsible for M&E in the eThekwini municipality collectively. The researcher recommended that the Sizakala department needs to get more funding and resources for the M&E initiatives. The Sizakala department needs to establish its internal M&E department. In conclusion, this study can be seen as a contribution to the M&E philosophy.