Primary education improvement project evaluation report

Special evaluation covers the period 10/82-5/84 and is based on site visits and interviews with teachers and University of Botswana (UB), Ministry of Education (MOE), and USAID/B personnel. The project has been very successful. Some 1,000 teachers from over 100 schools have received inservice training (IT) in 12 workshops. During the remainder of the project, IT will focus on 60 schools - teachers trained at 30 Target One schools will train teachers at 30 Target Two schools, who will eventually become trainers in turn. Although both Education Centers and Teacher Training Centers (TTC's) are involved in IT, the latter are neither committed to nor organized to deliver IT. However, the nearly-completed Tlokweng TTC, which will include an IT facility, is intended to be a model of its kind for the other TTC's. Teacher preparation programs at UB's Department of Primary Education are fully functioning. A teacher training curriculum has been devised and is being tested and modified. The student completion rate is nearly 100%; 10 diploma students graduated in 1983 and 9 in 1984, with 10 diploma and 20 B.Ed. students expected to finish in 1985. UB assistance to TTC's and to the IT program has increased markedly since 1982; a policy handbook for TTC-UB affiliations has been drawn up. Project staff have also: helped prepare a new primary school curriculum which is being taught in IT and UB programs; conducted administrative workshops for Education Center officers; and helped the MOE develop a plan for continuing formative evaluation of IT activities. Out-of-country trainees are being monitored by UB and will serve as lecturers in the Department of Primary Education when they return. Although primary education reform, with the project's help, has progressed in remarkably smooth fashion in Botswana, the MOE's planned extension of basic education to include 3 years of secondary education will present great challenges to the educational system as a whole. A second phase of the project, to begin in 1986 and continue for 5 years, is recommended. Detailed recommendations are also made regarding the remainder of Phase I.