The Parental/Family Support Programme (PFSP)
Gauteng Department of Education

A. Problem Analysis

 1. What was the problem before the implementation of the initiative?
When the PFSP was launched to enhance parental involvement in education in 2011/12 Financial Year, it was aimed at supporting the vision and mission of the Gauteng Department of Education as well as to respond to the four strategic goals of the organisation. The GDE vision speaks poignantly of the need to ensure that every learner not only does well at school and but leaves our teaching and learning institutions with the values, knowledge, skills and qualifications that will give them the best chance of success in adult life. The GDE mission further reiterates the need to deliver quality learning and teaching in the classroom to every learner without fail each and every day. It is in this context that the parental programme introduced by the GDE was conceived. The four GDE strategic goals incorporates the need to: ensure that Gauteng has effective schools and learning institutions, that the various levels of the system provide relevant, co-ordinated and effective support, amplify the importance of supporting the transition from school and the world of work or further study and to strengthen GDE partnerships with all stakeholders to promote education as a societal priority. The four strategic goals are clearly interrelated and have a very direct role in the enhancement of learner achievement and outcomes. The Parental/Family Support Programme (P/FSP) attempted to respond more directly to Strategic Goal 4 that involved the strengthening of GDE partnerships with all stakeholders and making education a societal priority. The Parental Involvement Programme, the brainchild of the MEC of the Gauteng Department of Education, adopted the following primary objectives: • To ensure that Gauteng has effective schools and learning institutions • To ensure that parents, families and communities in general are the main pillars of support for children in schools • To ensure that parents, educators and learners collectively identify and resolve schools’ and education challenges that impact negatively on the achievement of a better education for our children. • To empower parents for greater participation in the school governance structure. • To build effective partnerships between parents, school administration and learners for the creation of a better society and country. Given the above programme objectives, it is patently clear that the parental programme is completely aligned with the broader GDE strategic objectives and goals. It stresses the importance of the role of parents in promoting schooling excellence and sees education in the widest possible terms.

B. Strategic Approach

 2. What was the solution?
The Parental/Family Support Programme was introduced over the 2011-12 financial period. The overall objective of the programme was to empower parents to become more active change agents in the overall teaching and learning process. Implicit in this strategy was the view that increased parental involvement in resource deficient environments would contribute significantly to the improvement of school and learner performance. In its inception year (2011), the Parenting Programme was titled the ‘Parental Support’ or the ‘Parental Involvement’ Programme and focussed only on a workshop programme for parents at all underperforming schools in the province. In 2011, the Gauteng Department of Education declared a total of 1183 schools (391 secondary and 792 primary schools) as underperforming. The goal of the Parental workshop programme was to arrange and deliver a consultative meeting/workshop with parents in the 1183 targeted schools. Given the pre-existing Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP) and its necessary engagement with parents, the 2011-12 parental programme focussed only on the delivery of a parenting workshop in the 792 underperforming primary schools. In that year, the parental programme reached a total of 84773 parents. Following its initial success, during the 2012-13 roll out the programme was widened to include all underperforming secondary schools. Thus the volume of schools virtually doubled with 1282 underperforming primary and secondary schools targeted for involvement in year 2. The programme thus graduated towards directly targeting the involvement of approximately 300 000 parents in this category of schools. Furthermore, the programme widened its brief towards accommodating not only parents but entire family communities so that the participatory and contributory roles that families play to achieve the vision of ensuring that all learners do well in school was foregrounded. To this end, the 2012-13 Programme adopted a new more inclusive title, namely, The Parental/Family Support Programme (P/FSP) and this was coupled with key revisions to the formal programme delivered in the 2011-12 financial period. One major revision to the roll-out strategy involved steering away from centralised mass-based engagements with parents/families from a number of schools to the delivery of an onsite school-based workshop programme for each participating school. Given the wide scope of delivery over a compressed period (9 weeks), over 500 facilitators were deployed to over 140 schools each weekend to deliver a consistent parenting message during the 2012-13 roll-out. More importantly, the workshops were presented by facilitators that were largely recruited on the strength of their facilitation skill and strong community and/or school governance experience. The workshop programme material was fundamentally revised to accommodate delivery in the 5 most widely spoken local languages but the material was also customised to accommodate all literacy levels prevalent within the participant cohort. To this end, the material was developed in a finely balanced manner to accommodate text but coupled with pictorial descriptions in poster format. The most critical intervention that followed the key learning from the year 1 experience involved the provision of a 75 school on-site support programme for high priority schools. The 75 school onsite intervention fundamentally accommodated a whole school approach to school change and the parental workshop programme represented only one of a whole number of much wider set of interventions that were designed to transform the targeted schools. Given these substantial revisions, it was no surprise that the 2012-13 Parenting programme reached 101 966 parents in the way of the parental workshop programme.

 3. How did the initiative solve the problem and improve people’s lives?
The 2012-13 Parental/Family Support Programme was marked by a series of broad innovations that were notably absent from the 2011-12 roll-out. The revised and updated 2012-13 Parenting Programme isolated 75 High Priority Schools, 5 from each district identified by the relevant Districts, and provided these targeted schools with a year-long onsite support programme to enhance their school governance effectiveness. The intention of the onsite programme was to provide additional, focused support over 12 months to participating schools experiencing specific social challenges. The focus of this additional support was based on a Whole-School approach incorporating the combined contributions of parents, learners, educators, community organisations and structures, School Governing Bodies and School Management Teams. The year-long on-site intervention that the targeted schools were taken through empowered them to develop and begin utilising the necessary tools, templates, systems and processes to ensure continued school effectiveness. At the conclusion of the on-site support programme the performance of the targeted schools revealed significant improvements on key school governance indicators. Furthermore, concrete sustainable approaches in response to the major social challenges experienced by the individual schools as highlighted above were introduced. In this regard participating schools reported that interaction and cooperation between and amongst School Management Teams and School Governing Body Members had improved and this has created the necessary platform for addressing the much deeper teaching and learning and social challenges impacting the school. The materials development component involved the development and circulation of all training materials in 5 local languages English, Afrikaans, IsiZulu, Sesotho and Sepedi. The materials took full cognisance of the language proficiency levels of the parent cohort and were developed in a graphical, easy-to-read poster format that was accompanied by a resource parenting handbook for each participant to utilise as a take-home resource following the training. The materials also attempted to reflect the material reality of Gauteng-based families with pictorial illustrations of family-life in socially disadvantaged contexts. The teaching and learning methodology adopted for the delivery of the parenting workshops deviated from the mass-based lecture styled delivery to the more inclusive small class approach. Mediation of the material was undertaken through the creation of small, manageable class groupings no larger than 40 led by a fully oriented and experienced facilitator. This enabled and encouraged increased parental engagement on core issues that required greater interrogation and discussion.

C. Execution and Implementation

 4. In which ways is the initiative creative and innovative?
The primary component of the 2012-13 Parental/Family Support Programme involved the delivery of an on-site, Parenting Workshop at each of the targeted schools involved in the programme. The delivery of this component was underpinned by the management of a multitude of logistical components, the least of which involved the deployment of approximately 500 facilitators on a weekly basis to over 130 schools over 9 weeks. The selection of the facilitators for the workshop programme mirrored the language and contextual needs of the 3 regions (Tshwaga, Ekudibeng and Johannesburg) that constitute the full education service delivery environment in the Gauteng province. Facilitators were recruited through a formal recruitment process and were representative of the diverse demographic range in the province in terms of race, gender, age, spoken language. In addition, facilitators were also recruited and deployed in terms of their place of residence and had to show some evidence of having provided some level of community service that may have included voluntary or formal service in a School Governing Body. This level of priority recruitment based on the targeted demographic status of the beneficiaries ensured that the interaction between the parent and facilitator was enhanced. The development of appropriate content for the workshop programme also contributed to the overall effectiveness of the exercise. The materials development component involved the development and circulation of all training materials in 5 local languages English, Afrikaans, IsiZulu, Sesotho and Sepedi. The materials took full cognisance of the language proficiency levels of the parent cohort and were developed in a graphical, easy-to-read poster format that was accompanied by a resource parenting handbook for each participant to utilise as a take-home resource following the training. The materials also attempted to reflect the material reality of Gauteng-based families with pictorial illustrations of family-life in socially disadvantaged contexts. The teaching and learning methodology adopted for the delivery of the parenting workshops deviated from the mass-based lecture styled delivery to the more inclusive small class approach. Mediation of the material was undertaken through the creation of small, manageable class groupings no larger than 40 led by a fully oriented and experienced facilitator. This enabled and encouraged increased parental engagement on core issues that required greater interrogation and discussion. The intention of the onsite programme was to provide additional, focused support over 12 months to participating schools experiencing specific social challenges. The focus of this additional support was based on a Whole-School approach incorporating the combined contributions of parents, learners, educators, community organisations and structures, School Governing Bodies and School Management Teams. The onsite support intervention to address the key challenges listed above was undertaken with the support of nine experienced specialist service providers. The specialist support offered to each of the participating schools over a 12-month period enabled them to identify key operational and social challenges, prioritise and plan interventions to address those challenges that resided within their competence range and begin the task of introducing effective monitoring and evaluation processes to independently manage their schools. The year-long on-site intervention that the targeted schools were taken through empowered them to develop and begin utilising the necessary tools, templates, systems and processes to ensure continued school effectiveness. At the conclusion of the on-site support programme the performance of the targeted schools revealed significant improvements on key school governance indicators. Furthermore, concrete sustainable approaches in response to the major social challenges experienced by the individual schools as highlighted above were introduced. In this regard participating schools reported that interaction and cooperation between and amongst School Management Teams and School Governing Body Members had improved and this has created the necessary platform for addressing the much deeper teaching and learning and social challenges impacting the school.

 5. Who implemented the initiative and what is the size of the population affected by this initiative?
The GDE Parental/Family Support Programme was led and managed at two discrete levels. At the strategic management level the project was led by an officially appointed and mandated Project Manager in collaboration with senior line functionaries and specialists from both the GDE and the agencies attached to the department. Thus the Project Management Team (PMT) that developed, endorsed and approved the overall Project Plan and maintained continued oversight and strategic reporting for the project was composed of key education, finance, communications and seasoned programme and project managers from both the GDE and MGSLG. This team met fortnightly to measure progress and review implementation so that issues of cost and quality were perfectly aligned with overall programme objectives and outcomes. The Project Management Team comprising of 15 officials were ably led by a strong Project Manager (Chief Director: Districts) and assisted by the CEO of MGSLG provided the necessary direction to deliver this project. At the operational level the implementation of the project was led and overseen by officially mandated district parenting teams led by senior Policy & Planning District officials accompanied by a district transversal team involving school governance, monitoring and support officials all under the guidance of their respective District Directors. From a coordination perspective, the implementation team aggregated into a Provincial Implementation Team comprising of all 15 districts that make up the GDE. This broad implementation team led by the relevant Programme head represented at the PMT, convened after each PMT meeting to engage on matters of key operational concern, consolidate all operational gains, incorporate district and school-based best practices and align all projects activities for the activities ahead. The smooth running of the project in a seamless manner also relied on the district implementation team that mobilised all available resources including school principals to ensure that delivery continued in an uninterrupted manner. It should become clear that while key strategic and operational structures have been listed as fundamental to the delivery of the programme, the leadership shown not only by the heads of these structures but the active engagement by representatives at all levels of the value chain contributed to the inculcation of a culture of excellence in the Parenting Programme. The primary external stakeholders in the context of the parental programme involved the general parent community in the targeted schools, the school management team, the school governing body and the Quality Learning & Teaching Committees located within each schooling community. The external stakeholders were fundamentally engaged at two different levels, namely, within the organised parent (SGB Associations) and QLTC formations and through regional and district-based roadshows where each participating school (principal and SGB Chairperson) were engaged around the objectives, roll-out and requirements of the Programme. In addition, these engagements were backed by a signed memorandum from the relevant executive head within the GDE to each targeted school and district around the nature of the programme and the expectations of the GDE. In terms of the internal stakeholders that required information, the inclusive nature of the PMT and PIT structures proved adequate to inform the GDE and all relevant district officials about the rollout of the programme its core objectives and expected outcomes. A broad-based communication strategy was adopted and approved by the PMT that involved the use of print media, local community radio stations, the use of flyers and loud hailing, engagements with Faith-Based Organisations, targeted proforma invitations to all parents in targeted schools and posters and bill boards to advocate the programme. Further communication initiatives involving the effective use of social media and chat groups enabled and facilitate effective communication In sum therefore, the implementation strategy emphasised the central authority of the GDE Head Office and the primacy of the Curriculum Management and Education Support Directorates. District directors constituted the next level of leadership given their responsibility for directing all delivery-related activities at the district level. The Education Operations Support (EOS) and the Circuit Managers were next in line to manage delivery within the newly devised circuit and clusterstructures. On a complementary basis, MGSLG directed all its training and support services to manage the in-class and out-of-class logistical and financial management components of the strategy.
 6. How was the strategy implemented and what resources were mobilized?
The Parental Programme has been wholly funded by the GDE and over the three cycles of delivery the total cost investment by the GDE has amounted to R70 million. The Parental Programme was managed by a cross-cutting Project Management Team (PMT) comprising of both GDE and MGSLG executive line managers, communication and advocacy specialists, school governance and stakeholder management experts, finance, curriculum and programme managers. This specialist PMT took overall management responsibility for the strategic and operational elements of the project. At the strategic level, the PMT ensured that the programme responded directly to the GDE strategic goals and objectives and yielded the anticipated outcomes established for the programme at the outset. On the operational front, the PMT tracked project progress across the time, cost and quality variables and met regularly to ensure that project not only remained within budget but was delivered comprehensively and to the required quality. On the time and cost scale, the project was scheduled in a sequenced manner that accommodated all the targeted schools over a compressed period that ensured that key school milestones viz. examinations were not interfered with. Furthermore, schools were also allowed to select their preferred workshop dates so that localised school level buy-in was sought to prevent the unnecessary wastage of resources. All school financial allotments for catering provision was norm-based so that schools were pre-funded and could claim back additional sums where the attendance norm was exceeded. These transfers were tracked and attendance registers scrutinised to ensure that only legitimate claims were processed and settled. Thus cost containment and budget control was exercised at both a strategic (PMT) level as well as the operational (school and district level). Management of the budget at the centralised level allowed for increased efficiencies and for maximising economies of scale gains in respect of facilitation, catering and the production of printed materials. In terms of quality, all elements of the programme were carefully quality assured. All workshop materials were developed following wide consultation and through the inclusion of key specialists to vet and confirm the appropriateness and relevance thereof. All facilitators deployed in the programme were carefully screened, interviewed and tested before being sent into the field. Where doubts were expressed about the quality of a facilitator was raised, they were paired with an experience facilitator. All schools were invited to assume a primary role in securing catering services for the participants or undertaking the exercise independently. This gave the schools ownership of a key component of any workshop programme and limited the number of concerns about inappropriate catering. Summaries of evaluation/feedback reports aggregated at the participant and monitor level were utilised to measure the quality of the programme. The highlights or major concerns emanating from this exercise are reported upon at the PMT and PIT level so that key concerns are addressed in process as opposed to the end of the programme through an evaluation.

 7. Who were the stakeholders involved in the design of the initiative and in its implementation?
a) Wide scope of coverage of the programme - Over the 2011-13 period of delivery, a total of 190 562 parents were engaged in the parenting workshops. The 2012-13 Parenting programme reached 1107 of the 1183 targeted schools and 100228 parents from the 1107 schools attended the training. Over the 2013-14 period a total of 1400 schools and 140000 were targeted for the programme. Of this total, 1284 schools successfully hosted the programme. While the formal programme will only conclude in March 2014, at the current time, a total 106543 parents(76% of the target) have attended the face to face workshops. To this end, the scope of coverage of the programme has been considerable in that on average 100000 parents per annum have been taken through an onsite workshop on a pertinent parenting issue. b) Development of a pool of experiencedMGSLG parenting facilitators – given the three year delivery cycle MGSLG has developed a diverse group of over 500 experienced facilitators that are readily deployable to deliver a parenting programme throughout the province on an ongoing basis. c) Adapted, focused and customised training material – Each year of delivery has resulted in major improvements to the training materials. The materials have become issue-specific but have retained their core parenting skills focus. To this end, the materials have served a dual purpose to enlightened parents on the major social issues of the day but equally to empower them to become better parents of school-going children. Given the wide translation of the materials, they now serve as a useful resource for parents form diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. d) The establishment of programme management structures for the delivery of the parenting programme. These are described elsewhere but have become institutionalised to the extent that a Project Management Team (PMT) and Provincial Implementation Team (PIT) are now defined structures in the manner in which MGSLG manages programmes in partnership with the GDE.

 8. What were the most successful outputs and why was the initiative effective?
The monitoring and evaluation of the Parental Programme was located at a number of different levels. Given the strategic management and oversight role played by the PMT, the overall monitoring of the project at a macro level was undertaken by the PMT. This monitoring was reinforced at an operational level by the Provincial Implementation Team (PIT) and the District Parenting Teams at the more localised School level. A primary institutional monitoring strategy adopted by the PMT and operationalised within MGSLG involved the appointment of onsite monitors to support each site and provide details in respect of attendance, comments around logistical arrangements and inputs in respect of the quality of the materials and facilitation. This site level monitoring provided the project with sufficient information to rapidly respond to immediate issues as they emerged on the ground. A further innovation introduced within the project to support the immediate feedback of potential constraints was the creation of a centralised Call Centre that supported the efforts of the onsite monitors and enabled them to deploy resources to areas of need expeditiously. The onsite monitors presented weekly reports over the duration of the roll-out and this strengthened the capacity of the PMT to shift course strategically in light of feedback provided from the ground. The evaluation of the programme from a participant perspective was obtained through the completion of a post-training evaluation form by each participant on a voluntary basis. Feedback from the participants in the 2011 roll-out facilitated the extension of the workshop programme in 2012 to include 75 High Priority schools that required dedicated support to enhance their performance status. In addition, facilitator reports were scrutinised on a weekly basis to inform all project interventions to improve the quality of the facilitation to parents. These reports were validated against PIT reports from district based monitors so that the perspectives of a significant number of stakeholders were accommodated into the wider monitoring and evaluation framework adopted for the programme. At the concrete project management level, an in-house MGSLG project team comprising of the School Governance staff compiled bi-weekly project reports in advance of any PMT and PIT meetings. These reports consolidated the inputs of the Call Centre and Project Administrators utilised to deliver this programme effectively. All localised MGSLG project staff developed issue logs that focussed on all project anomalies across the operational spectrum so that these could be attended to effectively.

 9. What were the main obstacles encountered and how were they overcome?
a) Programme Advocacy - In previous rounds of the programme it was prevalent that advocacy for the parenting programme appeared ineffective. During the final round of delivery wide spanning road shows incorporating all relevant school and district stakeholders were convened. These road shows brought MGSLG and GDE into direct contact with principals, School Governing Body Chairpersons and district support officials around a common table to meet and engage around the roll-out of the programme. While not particularly successful in raising parental attendance at the workshops the engagements strengthened project coordination. b) Project Coordination – the success of the parenting programme relied heavily on the participation of district parenting team members in the Provincial Implementation Team (PIT). However, participation in the PIT was impacted by the realignment strategy adopted by the GDE to improve its support to schools. The GDE realignment programme tended to shift the functional roles of district staff and resulted in the irregular attendance of district members to the PIT meetings. While formal meetings were impacted, communication channels were reinforced through regular email and mobile contact. Thus the absence of the PIT members was suitably mitigated by strengthening all communication with targeted recipients. c) Workshop Over and Under-subscription – Workshop attendance per school by parents proved difficult to predict. To facilitate the more efficient delivery of the programme each school was prefunded up to an expected norm of 100 parents per school. Parental attendance was dependent on the relative effectiveness of principals in advocating for the programme. This meant a reliance on estimated figures and contributed to project management challenges. All schools that exceeded the 100 parent norm needed to be recompensed for their catering expenses. These payments could only be made subject to the presentation of a verifiable register submitted by the facilitator. While no serious challenges were experienced in the recording and verification of the attendance at the workshops, timeous transfers to schools was often compromised. d) Workshop postponements tended to prove quite a disruptive feature of the roll-out. Schools were prescheduled to deliver the workshops. However, opportunities were opened to them to select a more convenient date to host the workshops. Schools often postponed at the eleventh hour. Despite these late notice postponements, it became incumbent on schools to reschedule once a transfer for catering was made. In some ways, such postponements assisted in that timeous transfers were made to schools to prepare for the workshops and it was certain that a workshop would be held to account for the transfer already made. e) Allocating sufficient time for material development to accommodate the school calendar and MGSLG internal procurement processes. The timing of the parenting workshops need to coincide more comfortably with the planning and budgeting cycle of government. The transfer of expected funds timeously supports effective delivery.

D. Impact and Sustainability

 10. What were the key benefits resulting from this initiative?
The Parental Programme focussed on delivering the key parenting messages to facilitate improved teaching and learning support for children in environments away from the classroom. The objective of engaging parents in the direct manner on site was designed to empower parents to begin asking the right types of questions so that their stake in the education process is reiterated and enhanced. Given this approach, the feedback received from all participants and structures in the delivery chain revealed the following: • Schools felt suitably equipped to independently utilise the tools that they have been provided with to engage critically in improving the social and community barriers to learning. • District officials also felt more empowered to effectively implement and monitor programmatic changes at the district level. • The enforcement of reporting tools to promote increased accountability became a critical part of the broader reporting systems of the school and district. • The delivery of a Parental Workshop Programme at an onsite level was imbibed by schools as a routines operational requirement of conventionally accepted school-based best practice. • All direct and indirect participants in the delivery chain conveyed a renewed commitment to stay close to the schools even beyond the project life span • The Parental Involvement model proposed and utilised in the Programme has begun to infiltrate all other GDE Interventions such as the Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP) and the Gauteng Provincial Literacy and Mathematics Strategy (GPLMS) such that the combined inputs from these various interventions are beginning to take much deeper root into the wider GDE operational systems and within schools at large • The Parenting Programme database of support structures to assist schools in dealing with the wider social, educational and community barriers to effective learning have been activated and mobilised and will continue to provide support to schools on an ongoing basis. • It is widely recognised that the parent participants in the Workshop Programmes have internalised the concept of parental involvement and remain committed and confident in facilitating independent discussion with their children and school managers to overcome teaching and learning issues as they emerge. It needs to be noted that although the Parental programme was not focussed on developing pure parenting skills, the participating parents indicated that the inputs at the Workshops had assisted them in becoming better parents. The parents also indicated that the workshop engagements assisted them in balancing home and school activities so that their children were more content when completing their homework. Overall however, it is clear that the impact of the programme exceeded the home terrain and, as importantly, contributed in aggregate terms to improving the overall performance of learners from underperforming schools in the Grade 12 exit level examination.

 11. Did the initiative improve integrity and/or accountability in public service? (If applicable)
A key feature of the benefit accrued to underperforming schools involved the collective contribution of various GDE intervention programmes to whole school improvement and improved learner success. Over the two cycles of delivery, the combined inputs of the SSIP and P/FSP interventions contributed in no small measure to the overall improvement of the Grade 12 results in the underperforming schooling sector. Illustrated below is the tangible improvement of Grade 12 learners from underperforming schools in the National Senior Certificate Examinations in 6 Gateway subjects viz. Accounting, Business Studies, Economics, English FAL, Geography and History over the period 2010-12. This aggregate pass rate improvement can almost certainly be attributed to the collective contributions of all major interventions introduced by the GDE, such as the SSIP and Parental Programme, to shift underperforming schools towards improved academic performance. Change management and continuous and systems improvement is an imperative for our education system to deliver quality education to all our children. Most schools have acknowledged the positive contribution that the Parenting programme has had in the 2012 National Senior Certificate Examinations success and are yearning for continued support. Over the two cycles of delivery a solid foundation has been laid to build and transform our underperforming schools and the system at large. The Parental/Family Support Programme certainly appears to be a sought after intervention. Parent feedback following the two cycles of delivery has indicated that parents would prefer the onsite workshops to continue on a quarterly basis. From this feedback, it is clear that the programme has boosted parent confidence in terms of supporting their children at school. Participating schools have also obtained a clear picture of the substance and essence of the need for regular and intensive parental engagement. This has boosted the participating schools confidence to incorporate regular parenting engagements into their annual programmes. While this will certainly strengthen the sustainability of the programme it has also contributed to a given level of skills transfer where schools are amending their existing practices to widen parent engagement on key schooling issues. All schools (institutions) that formed a part of the programme were provided with an onsite workshop experience. This provided all the relevant school-based stakeholders with the opportunity to participate fully in the roll-out of the parental workshop programme without the inconvenience of having to travel to a distant location to obtain the required skills and knowledge around effective parenting. The primary tools and instruments that were utilised to deliver the Workshop, namely, the training materials, were made available to the schools in additional quantities for the schools to utilise on an ongoing basis with their parent and wider stakeholder communities after the onsite workshop. The training materials have been written in a user-friendly manner with supporting poster based resources that do not require the efforts of a qualified facilitator to lead any engagement with the targeted parent communities. To this end, the educators, school governing body members and parent community at a school with a Grade 12 qualification or equivalent could meaningfully deliver the parenting workshop at a school level. On a wider project management basis, the skills required for a school to facilitate the required workshop engagement would require no more effort or competence than that required to convene a general parent meeting and engage all attendees on relevant parenting concerns. To this end, with the surplus training resources left at the school following the workshop programme, all schools would be in position to deliver the workshop independently.

 12. Were special measures put in place to ensure that the initiative benefits women and girls and improves the situation of the poorest and most vulnerable? (If applicable)
The Parental/Family Support Programme has become one of the most sought-after GDE programmes when perceived from the standpoint of parents in the Gauteng Province. Feedback reports from parents revealed that 78% of the Gauteng Parent population that attended the programme were extremely satisfied about the programme and wish all the parents should make time to attend in the next roll out. Some reports reflected that parents would like to be engaged in such like dialogues on a quarterly basis. Parents acknowledged that the programme shared some light regarding the GDE intervention programmes and enlightened them as to how to support their school going children. Post training evaluation reports revealed that parents viewed the programme as a vehicle for improving home-to-school and parent-child communication. Parents indicated that with the knowledge obtained from the workshops, they had begun to communicate with their children better as they now had a fully-fledged background of what was happening in their schools. Parents were enlightened about the holistic GDE Intervention Programmes and this knowledge assisted them in deepening their understanding about those areas to support their school-going children in. Feedback from Parents indicated that they would prefer to have P/FSP booklets to be written in African languages spoken in their schools. This challenged was addressed through the presentation of the materials in 5 different local languages. However, the minority language groupings are not appropriately catered for in this regard. Perhaps the material needs a wider translation spectrum and the accessing of the substantive programme content can be accommodated on a low cost technology platform. Coordination and planning of the project could be enhanced through widening the communication platforms and undertaking the road show vehicle much earlier. Timing the road shows appropriately and targeting the right stakeholders would improve the overall objectives of the parenting programme roll-out. Principals attended the Road Shows that preceded the programme roll-out were better prepared for the hosting of the workshops. The revision of the parenting programme should focus on motivating the school principal, teachers and SGB members to both attend and host the programme. Where the School staff members are seen to be operating as team, in partnership with the principal, district officials and facilitators’, attendance at the workshops proved satisfactory.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Gauteng Department of Education
Institution Type:   Government Department  
Contact Person:   David Makhado
Title:   Directr:Education Research and KM  
Telephone/ Fax:   +27 11355 0560/ +27 86 219 8568
Institution's / Project's Website:  
E-mail:   faith.tshabalala@gauteng.gov.za  
Address:   P.O.Box 7710
Postal Code:   2000
City:   Johannesburg
State/Province:   Gauteng
Country:  

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