The Performance Evaluation of 
USAID/Ethiopia-Funded International 
Foundation for Education and Self￾Help Capacity Building in Teacher 
Education Program 
This evalu ation repor t was prod uced for r eview by USAID as part of an evaluation 
conducted for Performance Evaluation of the USAID/Ethiopia funded Internationa l 
Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFES H) Capacity Building in Teacher Education 
Program (CBTEP) under the Contract Agreement Order No. AID-663-O-11-00009 and REQ￾663-11-000022. It was prepared by PRIN Intern ational Consultancy & Research Services 
PLC. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID.
February 2012 
Addis Ababa, 
Ethiopia
1
Contents
Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... 4
List of Acronyms ......................................................................................................................... 5
Executive Summary .................................................................................................................... 6
1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………. 7 
1.1. Background ................................................................................................................... 10
1.2. Objectives of the Evaluation ........................................................................................ 12
1.3. Scope of the Assessment .............................................................................................. 13
2. Technical Approach/Methodology ...................................................................................... 13
3. Limitations of the Evaluation .............................................................................................. 15
4. Major Findings ..................................................................................................................... 15
4.1. The Project: Initiation, Relevance, Partnership, and Support ..................................... 15
4.2. Assessment of Interventions: Practices, Achievements and Innovations ..................... 20
4.2.1. English language improvements ........................................................................... 20
4.2.2. Teaching and systems improvements .................................................................... 21
4.2.3. Educational resources solicitation and utilization ................................................. 25
4.2.4. Community services and cross-cutting issues ....................................................... 25
4.3. Summary of Emerging Impacts of the Program ........................................................... 27
4.4. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Challenges ................................................ 28
4.4.1. Strengths ................................................................................................................ 28
4.4.2. Weaknesses ........................................................................................................... 29
4.4.3. Opportunities ......................................................................................................... 29
4.4.4. Challenges ............................................................................................................. 30
4.5. Best Practices and Lessons Learnt ............................................................................... 31
4.6. Sustainability ................................................................................................................ 31
5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 32
6. Recommendations................................................................................................................. 32
Annex I: People Contacted/Interviewed .................................................................................... 35
Annex II: Key Informant Interview Guide ................................................................................ 38
Annex III: List of Major Documents Reviewed ....................................................................... 42
Annex IV: List of Volunteers List of IFESH Volunteers under CBTEP 2003/2004 - 2011/2012 
A/Y ......................................................................................................................................... 43
Annex V: IFESH/ETHIOPIA Volunteers Present at IFESH Mid-Year Conference for Focus 
group discussion at Bishale Hotel, Addis Ababa, December 2011 ........................................ 46
Annex VI: IFESH-Ethiopia CBTEP Fund/Grant from July 2002 through July 2012 ................ 47
Annex VII: Table 6 CBTEP beneficiaries per year ................................................................... 32
Annex VIII: Statement of Work for Evaluation of the International Foundation for Education 
and Self-Help (IFESH) Capacity Building in Teacher Education Project (CBTEP) in 
Ethiopia .................................................................................................................................. 33
Annex IX: Addressing Cross-Cutting Issues at Hosanna TEC ................................................... 40
2
List of Tables 
Table 1: Education Indicators …............................................................................................ 10 
Table 2: Type and number of trainees at BDU for the training delivered by AV, 2011/12… 21 
Table 3: In-service training by local volunteers with the support of AV at BDU, 2010/11….24 
Table 4: Training and workshop organized by volunteers at HCTE, 2010/11 ……………… 24 
Table 5: Resources mobilized by volunteers ………………………………………………… 25 
3
List of Figures 
Figure 1: No. of students attending English Language Tutorial Sessions in BDU, 2011/12 … 20 
Figure 2: CBTEP beneficiaries per training areas at BDU, 2010/11 ………………………… 24 
4
Acknowledgements
The Consultant firm acknowledges that this evaluation report is a product of the concerted 
efforts of various organizations and individuals that were directly and indirectly involved at 
various levels whose names could not all be listed here. Thus, the Consultant would like to 
extend its heartfelt appreciation to those who contributed their part for the accomplishment of 
this report. Particularly, the Consultant is very grateful to the State Minister of General 
Education, the Director for Teachers and School Leaders Development Directorate, Director 
for Planning and Resource Mobilization Directorate, and concerned experts from MoE; 
Presidents/Vice-Presidents/Deans/Department Heads/Coordinators, instructors, and students 
from HLIs; principals and teachers from primary and secondary schools; Country 
representative and program director from IFESH/Ethiopia; and the current IFESH volunteers 
as well as ex-volunteers for lending their scarce time and for their willingness to share their 
deep knowledge regarding IFESH voluntarism in Ethiopia. 
The Consultant is also highly indebted to USAID/Ethiopia and its high calibre experts for 
building trust on the capacity of the firm in carrying out the job and giving it clear and concise 
direction to undertake the assignment. Finally and most importantly, the Consultant firm is very 
thankful to the members of the consulting team for their high sense of responsibility, 
dedication, cooperation and uncompromising stand for quality delivery of the outputs right 
from the beginning to the end of the project. 
5
List of Acronyms 
AVs American Volunteers 
AVT American Volunteer Teachers 
BDU Bahir Dar University 
CBTEP Capacity Building in Teacher Education Program 
CPD Continuous Professional Development 
CPDP Continuous Professional Development Plan 
KTC Kotebe Teachers College 
CTEs College of Teacher Education 
DBCTE Debre Birhan College of Teachers Education 
DBU Debre Birhan University 
ELIC English Language Improvement Centre 
ELIP English Language Improvement Program 
ELTIP English Language Training and Improvement Program 
FGD Focus Group Discussion
GEQIP General Education Quality Improvement Program 
GER Gross Enrolment Rate 
GOE Government of Ethiopia 
GPI Gender Parity Index 
GU Gondar University 
HCTE Hossana College of Teachers Education 
HDP Higher Diploma Program 
HIs Higher Institutes 
HLI Higher Learning Institute 
HTC Hossana Teachers College 
HU Haramaya University 
IFESH International Foundation for Education and Self-Help 
LV Local Volunteers 
MOE Ministry of Education
NER Net Enrolment Rate 
NGO Non-Governmental Organization. 
PGHET Post graduate Higher Education Training 
SBCPD School Based Continuous Professional Development 
SIP School Improvement Program 
STDs Sexually Transmitted Diseases
TDP Teachers Development Program 
TEIs Teacher Education Institutions 
TTC Teachers Training College
TTI Teachers Training Institute 
USAID United States Agency for International Development 
VSO Volunteer Services Overseas 
6
Executive Summary 
A century has gone since modern Western education was introduced to Ethiopia and decades 
have elapsed since some kind of teacher education started to produce local teachers for the 
schools/colleges. Ever since then there has been concerns with regard to the adequacy and 
quality of the teacher education sub-system. In all times, there have been efforts to support 
local initiatives with inputs from experts (volunteers or advisors) deployed by partner countries 
and/or organizations. One of the biggest partners that have been supporting MoE’s education 
strategy by deploying experienced American volunteers (AVs) is USAID/IFESH. It has been 
operating since 1996 by deploying 216 AVs who worked in various Universities, CTEs, or 
community schools. In order to see whether the program was successful or not in the last 10 
years, USAID/Ethiopia commissioned PRIN International Consultancy & Research Services 
PLC to evaluate the Performance of the program with the ultimate purpose of determining the 
future direction in the strategies of USAID/Ethiopia’s Basic Education Office and the MoE for 
enhancing the quality of teacher education programs. PRIN constituting a team of four (4) 
experienced experts has started the work after the conclusion of formal contract agreement 
with USAID. 
As it has been clearly stipulated in the statement of work (SOW), the performance evaluation 
was conducted to achieve the following specific objectives: 
 To examine and verify the results and effectiveness (output and outcome) of the 
program since its inception guided by the project agreement, goal, objectives, and 
targets. 
 To examine whether the program activities, outputs, and outcomes have been integrated 
as appropriate into the initiatives of the host government and teacher training 
institutions. 
 To determine the level of satisfaction of the MOE, CTEs, universities, and 
USAID/Ethiopia. 
 To identify lessons learned including innovations. 
 To identify the opportunities and challenges of program implementation and how they 
have been addressed, including recommendations for appropriately addressing those 
that have not yet been sufficiently addressed.
 To determine if the program is still relevant and desirable, and suggest options for 
future directions and sustainability beyond the end of the current grant period (July 31, 
2012)
In realizing the objectives of the Evaluation, the team started the Performance Evaluation with 
solid description of the project and conducted a comprehensive appraisal of the performance of 
the program at output and outcome levels as well as ascertaining the sustainability of the 
project in terms of continuity of the benefits associated with changes brought by the project. 
The team has also tried to examine the emerging impacts envisaged as the longer-lasting 
change(s) to individuals or institutions as a result of the project. This was carried out based on 
participatory approach involving all concerned stakeholders. In particular, the evaluation 
method used facilitated validation of the data collected through triangulation of the sources 
and methods. The team considered 9 HLIs as the institutional sample for the purpose of this 
Performance Evaluation. These were Debreberhan University (DBU), Debreberhan College of 
Teacher Education (DBCTE), Hossana College of Teacher Education (HCTE), Kotebe College 
7
of Teacher Education (KCTE), Bahir Dar University (BDU), Haromaya University (HU), 
Gondar University (GU), Gondar College of Teacher Education (GCTE), and St. Mary’s 
University College (SMUC). 
The primary sources of data were two respondents from IFESH Country Office (the country 
representative and the program officer), 18 volunteers currently on duty, 6 ex-volunteers, State 
Minister of General Education (Federal Ministry of Education), Director of Teachers and 
Educational Leaders Development Directorate; Director of Planning and Resource 
Mobilization Directorate; two experts of teachers (and English Language) education (Federal 
Ministry of Education), Officials in host higher education institutions (Presidents, Vice￾Presidents, Deans; Department Heads and HDP/TDP coordinators as well as Assistant 
coordinators, Gender Officers). Besides, teachers and directors of local schools, graduating 
class students and HDP trainees who have significantly benefitted from the volunteers’ 
activities had served as sources of data (list of respondents is provided in Annex I). 
Though the plan assumed that an adequate number of volunteers would be actively working at 
the selected Universities/CTEs, it was observed that only one volunteer was actively employed 
in most of the institutions visited and there were places where no one was found (e.g., Adama 
University, KCTE, St. Mary’s University College). The plan also assumed that the assignment 
of volunteers was limited mainly to teacher education institutions and English language areas. 
However, there were instances where the assignment of volunteers was made to areas less 
directly related to these two core fields based on the requests from the universities (e.g. health 
and arts at Haromaya; health and technical Assistance at Adama). The respective respondents 
in each HLI were selected using simple random sampling, purposive sampling, availability 
sampling, and snowball sampling methods by considering their position in connection to the 
volunteers’ management and their activities. Snow-ball sampling was particularly useful when 
studying about the activities of the early volunteers during which someone who got interviewed 
first is requested to mention if he/she knows anybody who has worked with the volunteers. This 
has helped to overcome the problem of lack of adequate documentation about the activities of 
the volunteers and the ‘swift’ turn-over of officials at the host institutes. 
The secondary sources of data included project documents of IFESH, report of volunteers, 
ELIC centres and other materials produced by the volunteers or by those who have got 
guidance from the volunteers. The team was guided by an Evaluation framework including field 
report format, planned activity schedule, and data collection tools pertinent to the nature of the 
Evaluation. Project documents and sample materials produced by the volunteers as well as 
publications were reviewed. The team had also clustered the HLIs based on their geographical 
location and visited the entire sampled HLIs. Apart from meeting all the eighteen current 
volunteers for FGD at Beshale Hotel during the mid-year review meeting in Addis Ababa, the 
team also approached eleven (11) ex-volunteers through their e-mail addresses and got 
prompt responses from six (6) of them. Document review, key informants interview, FGD and 
observation were the data collection tools used for the evaluation. Data generated through 
these tools were analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The findings of the 
Evaluation are itemised according to relevant themes as per the SOW. 
The results of the analyses revealed that IFESH had mobilized 82 volunteers in diverse areas of 
expertise in the last 10 years (2002/03—2011/12) with a grant released by USAID. The 
volunteers were assigned as pre-service and in-service teachers, trainers, mentors, coaches, 
policy advisors, and technocrats of various occupations in about 49 host institutions. It was 
observed that more than 40,000 personalities (instructors, school teachers, students, education 
8
practitioners & others) have benefited from the value-adding services of IFESH volunteers 
since 2002/03. As whole, in running this program, 3,628,605 USD has been allocated (see 
Annex VI for details on this). 
 In line with the ultimate purpose of the program, some emerging impacts were noted. Among 
these are, professional competence of teacher educators or instructors has improved over time 
which is reflected in classroom interactions and communications with their students which, in 
turn, is hoped to contribute to improvement of the quality of education in the institutions. 
Female students are actively participating in clubs, ELIC, and networks. Some encouraging 
signs are being observed regarding internal or local voluntarism and are being strengthened in 
order to ensure sustainability. Similarly, the work of the volunteers provided the locals with 
experiential learning and skills in preparing programs for workshops, seminars, reporting of 
learning events, development of proposals, follow up on observations and feedback, 
communication and interactions for sharing experiences and lessons. Co-workers also 
indicated that they have acquired such values as commitment to one’s purpose, punctuality and 
seriousness from the volunteers. 
Further, the results of the Evaluation had indicated that the Ministry and other hosting 
institutions have been quite satisfied with the performances of IFESH volunteers and the 
demand for their services is still surging. The Ministry is still desirable to have many more 
volunteers who are experts of English language and subject area pedagogy. Thus, based on the 
evidences it gathered so far, the consulting team had safely concluded that IFESH/USAID 
volunteerism program in Ethiopia has been highly successful. Such encouraging performances 
have been credited to the concerted efforts of highly committed and experienced volunteers, a 
great deal of cooperation and support by management and work colleagues in host institutions, 
a strong leadership from IFESH/Ethiopia country office, a high level support from the Ministry 
of Education and USAID/Ethiopia. 
It was also observed that though the program is facilitated by volunteers, it has entertained 
several challenges that might hinder its pace. The most pertinent and pressing ones include 
bureaucratic management on the part of some host institutions, language barriers, lack of 
clear-cut schedules (for the volunteers) to get started which resulted sometimes in excessive 
idling, and a tendency for the co-workers to leave everything to the volunteers instead of 
working closely and learning from them in the process. A huge gap between what the Ministry 
demands and what IFESH supplies also happens to be one of critical challenges of the 
program. IFESH was unable to meet the demands of the Ministry due to cost and other factors. 
There are several best practices and lessons of the programme that can be considered for 
further interventions. Some of the prominent practices that are recommended for the purpose of 
replication (scaling up) are the establishment of Active ELIC centre , frequent moderation of 
free talk, weekly debates, reading e-books, participating in “You Go Girls Club” and 
“Celebrating English Day” for the purpose of English language improvement, organizing of 
several training on essay writings for female university students and supporting primary 
school teachers, trying to make females active in IHL, the implementation of HDP for 
capacitating teachers and introducing them with reflective methods of teaching. 
The program is strongly aligned with the education policy & strategies of the country with its 
critical relevance particularly to both the general education quality education improvement 
program and the English Language Improvement Program. The program has also manifested 
9
much strength that contributed for its success like the deployment of highly qualified and 
experienced volunteers, existence of strong IFESH country office to support the volunteers, 
system of placing volunteers based on the need of host institutes, and a culture of developing 
handover notes to successors to ensure continuity of activities. In general, the program was 
found to be highly successful and the team suggests that the program deserves continuation 
with practical emphasis and inclination on capacity building for the host institutions and co￾workers. 
The Performance Evaluation resulted in several recommendations for future interventions. 
These include the need for effective and efficient volunteer management system to be practiced 
at host institutions. This requires the need for well-organized ‘on-arrival orientation’ for 
volunteers to establish early familiarity with HLIs staff, the need for preparing clear job 
description and defining focus areas for the volunteers, the need to focus on subject area 
pedagogy and not limited to generic teaching methods. There is also a need to focus on 
capacity building rather than problem solving (service giving) on the part of the volunteers. To 
this end, it is recommended that the volunteers as well as their co-workers at host institutions 
should be adequately capacitated. The volunteers have to be encouraged to engage themselves 
in innovative projects through appropriate level of funding from USAID and host institutions. 
The MoE, USAID, and IFESH have to devise appropriate strategy to encourage and mobilize 
local volunteers efficiently and effectively. Finally, the MoE and/or the host institutions have to 
work hard towards creating a robust knowledge management system so that cherished wisdom 
and wealth of expertise from volunteers can be generated, stored, disseminated, retrieved, and 
transferred to relevant job incumbents. Best practices (outstanding performances) of volunteers 
need to be documented systematically and shared among host institutions as well as newly 
recruited volunteers. 
10
1. Introduction 
1.1. Background 
A century has gone since modern Western education was introduced to Ethiopia and decades 
have elapsed since some kind of teacher education started to produce local teachers for the 
schools/colleges. Ever since then there has been concerns with regard to the adequacy and 
quality of the teacher education sub-system. In all times, there have been efforts to support 
local initiatives with inputs from experts (volunteers or advisors) deployed by partner countries 
and/or organizations. One of the biggest partners that have been supporting MoE’s education 
strategy by deploying experienced American volunteers is USAID/IFESH. IFESH is a United 
States-based private, voluntary, non-profit and non-governmental organization (NGO). It was
Rev. Sullivan who founded IFESH in 1981 being the author of Sullivan Principles, which was 
built on the principle of "self-help", endowing people with the tools to help themselves in 
overcoming barriers of poverty and oppression. As cited in the IFESH ‘The Bridge Newsletter’
(volume 8, issue 2, 2008), Rev. Dr. Leon H. Sullivan put his vision as, “I envision a bridge 
from America to Africa over which one day we will move from one side to the other and back 
again . . .” 
IFESH/Ethiopia established an Ethiopian office in 1996 based on an agreement between IFESH 
and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education. IFESH is currently operating in Ethiopia with a 
License No. 0898. It has been supporting the education sector in Ethiopia by deploying highly 
qualified professionals and experienced American Volunteer Teachers (AVT) to various 
teacher education and other higher education institutions (HEIs) with funds from 
USAID/Ethiopia. 
Since 2002/03, IFESH has been supporting the Government’s effort to improve the quality of 
education by supporting teacher’s capacity building program. The Ministry of Education 
conducted a study on the ‘Quality and Effectiveness of Teacher Education in Ethiopia’ in 2002. 
Based on the recommendations and indicative action plan presented in the study report, a task 
force was established to produce the ‘National Framework for the Teacher Education System 
Overhaul (TESO) Programme’. TESO consists of five priority programmes that have been 
implemented since 2003. These include: 
 PP1: Teacher Educators 
 PP2: Pre-service Teacher Training 
 PP3: In-service Teacher Training 
 PP4: Teacher Education System 
 PP5: Leadership and Management Programme 
(LAMP) 
 PP6: English Language Improvement Programme 
(ELIP) 
Starting in 2003-2004, a group of donors are jointly 
funding the activities related to teacher education under a 
Teacher Development Programme (TDP) that includes the 
components of the TESO, the English Language 
Improvement Programme (ELIP), and the Leadership and 
Management Programme (LAMP). USAID is one of the 
major donors that support the program. 
Table 1: Education Indicators (MOE , 
2010/11 Annual Abstract 
Kindergarten GER 5.2% 
Net enrolment primary 
education 
85.3% 
GPI at Primary Level (1-8) 0.94 
Primary Pupil Teacher Ratios 
(Grades 1-8) 51:1 
Qualified Primary 
Teachers(diploma) 
`1-4s
 5-8 
20.1% 
83.3% 
primary Repetition Rate (1-8) 8.5% 
Drop-out Rate of Primary 
(Grades 1-8) 
13.1% 
Water: 34.4% 
Libraries: 41.0% 
NER of Secondary First Cycle 
(Grades 9-10) 
16.3% 
Population below poverty line 
(less than US$1 per day) 
39% (2005) 
# of CTE 32 
Enrolment in CTE 164,501(41% Females) 
Graduates of CTE 26802(40.3% Female 
Enrolment in Higher 
11
In July 2002, USAID/Ethiopia awarded IFESH with the Capacity Building in Teacher 
Education Program (CBTEP) under grant number 663–G–00–02–00360-00 for a five-year 
period (from July 24, 2002 through July 31, 2007). Based on its satisfactory performance, 
continued relevance, and the need expressed by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE), the grant 
was extended in July 2007 for one year (from August 1, 2007 through July 31, 2008) under a 
bridge funding mechanism to deploy 10 volunteers in Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs). In 
2008, IFESH was granted an extension of the program for another four years from August 22, 
2008 through July 31, 2012 to bring additional 40 volunteers. 
Originally, the overall goal of the CBTEP was to help improve the quality of education through 
capacity building of teacher education institutions and in training teacher Colleges in alignment 
with the Ministry of Education’s teacher development program initiative with the following 
objectives: 
1. To improve teaching of the English language; 
2. To provide assistance to TTIs, TTCs and the Ministry of Education in order to improve 
the quality of primary education, especially as related to Teaching of the English 
language; and 
3. To provide English language books, reference materials and other resource materials 
for schools and resource centres. 
In the second phase of CBTEP, the objectives were revised and explained in greater detail 
while maintaining the original goal as point of reference without any significant paradigm shift 
in its strategies. 
 Thus, the objectives of CBTEP II (2009 - 2012) were: 
1. To work toward the attainment of the UN Millennium Development Goals, particularly 
achieving universal primary education and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other 
diseases. 
2. To assist the Ministry of Education in implementing its initiative in GEQIP, especially 
the Teacher Development Program (TDP), by providing technical assistance to the 
Ministry of Education faculties who train teacher trainers and teachers of TEIs, in 
order to improve the quality of education; 
3. To assist in the establishment of Special Needs Education in the TEIs; 
4. To assist the Ministry with strategic planning for its School Improvement Program 
(SIP); 
5. To improve teaching of the English Language in teacher education institutions; and, 
6. To initiate and implement HIV/AIDS education programs by integrating them with 
gender equality promotion, preventing harmful traditional practices and STDs 
In realizing these objectives, IFESH/CBTEP recruited and assigned well-qualified, experienced 
American Volunteers (AVs) to CTEs, education faculties in the universities and the MoE to 
improve the quality of education through capacity building of pre- and in-service teachers as 
well as educational administrators. The volunteers worked with Ethiopian counterparts under 
the Higher Diploma Program (HDP), served as advisors, and performed other teaching tasks. 
Some volunteer educators facilitated HIV/AIDS education and gender mainstreaming efforts 
and improved the teaching of English language in teacher training institutions and improved 
democracy and good governance through peace education; and fostering social and cultural 
relations between Africans and Americans regardless of race, colour, faith, or sex. IFESH was
required to provide a total of 32 volunteers between 2002/3 and 2007, another 10 volunteers in 
12
2007/2008, and 40 volunteers in the four years between 2008/9 and 2011/12, totalling 82 
volunteers during the life of the project (i.e. an average of 10 volunteers annually). To facilitate 
the deployment of AVs in Ethiopia, USAID/Ethiopia had allocated about $3,628,605 (Three 
million six hundred twenty-eight thousand and six hundred five dollars) (See Annex VI for 
details on this). The contribution from the side of the Ethiopian Government, which is mainly 
in kind is not included into this amount. 
IFESH CBPTE programme has been implemented on the basis of collaboration and agreements 
between IFESH and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the 
Government of Ethiopia/Ministry of Education. 
1.2. Objectives of the Evaluation 
The main purpose of this evaluation was to assess the performance of the USAID/Ethiopia￾funded CBTEP implemented by IFESH and thereby provide USAID/Ethiopia and the 
Ethiopian MoE useful information and data for determining the future direction in the strategies 
of USAID/Ethiopia’s Basic Education Office and the MoE for enhancing the quality of teacher 
education programs. More specifically, the performance evaluation was conducted to achieve 
the following objectives: 
 To examine and verify the results and effectiveness (output and outcome) of the 
program since its inception guided by the project agreement, goal, objectives, and 
targets. 
 To examine whether the program activities, outputs, and outcomes have been integrated 
as appropriate into the initiatives of the host government and teacher training 
institutions. 
 To determine the level of satisfaction of the MOE, CTEs, universities, and 
USAID/Ethiopia. 
 To identify lessons learned including innovations. 
 To identify the opportunities and challenges of program implementation and how they 
have been addressed, including recommendations for appropriately addressing those 
that have not yet been sufficiently addressed. 
 To determine if the program is still relevant and desirable, and suggest options for 
future directions and sustainability beyond the end of the current grant period (July 31, 
2012). 
In order to facilitate effective data collection and assessment, the consulting team identified the 
following themes: 
 Project initiation, partnership, relevance and support 
 Assessment of interventions: practices, achievements, and innovations 
 Beneficiaries’ satisfaction with the English language enhancement, general teaching and 
learning process improvement, educational resource solicitation and distribution, as 
well as system introduction and improvement activities carried out by the volunteers. 
 The emerging results of the program and significant changes observed in English 
Department, situation of colleges/universities, capacity of teachers and institutes. 
 Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges observed during program 
implementation. 
 Sustainability of the volunteers’ activities and outcomes of the intervention in the 
absence of the volunteers. 
13
1.3. Scope of the Assessment 
The evaluation started with solid description of the project and conducted a comprehensive 
analysis of the project output, outcome and sustainability. The output and outcome are 
conceived as continuum of changes brought about the value additions of the program. It has 
also tried to see the emerging results of the project as envisaged longer-lasting change(s) to 
individuals or institutions. 
In general, the assessment covered very broad areas while trying to look into the results of the 
project which includes project inputs, strategies applied, efficiency, effectiveness, and 
sustainability. In addressing these key issues, the consulting team adopted indicators for 
measuring the outputs and outcomes of the program under consideration. Some of the key 
issues considered included ways that the project changed/transformed the understanding, 
attitudes and professional practices of the teacher educators and education experts, ways that 
the activities of the project transformed the institutional culture and introduced professionalism 
in teacher education, changes in understanding, disposition and practices created on the part of 
the teacher educators and education experts, how the volunteers were received by hosting 
institutions, institutional factors that promote/constrain the maximum use of the volunteers and 
challenges the volunteers faced during their assignment. The evaluation was carried out from 
November 21, 2011 to January 13, 2012. 
2. Technical Approach/Methodology 
The evaluation was done based on participatory approach in which all concerned stakeholders 
were involved and they were free to comment on the program. Suitable evaluation tools were 
devised to collect data from the identified primary and secondary sources for the evaluation. 
The method of evaluation was designed with in-built mechanisms for the validation of 
qualitative data through triangulation. 
The primary sources of data were two respondents from IFESH Country Office (the country 
representative and the program manager), 18 volunteers currently on duty, 6 ex-volunteers, 
State Minister of General Education (Federal Ministry of Education), Director of Planning and 
Resource Mobilization Directorate, Director of Teachers and Leaders Professional 
Development Directorate; two experts of teachers (and English Language) education (federal 
Ministry of Education), officials of the hosting higher education institutions (viz., Presidents, 
Vice-Presidents, Deans; Department Heads; HDP/TDP coordinators & Assistant coordinators; 
Gender officers; & local counterparts of AVs). Besides, senior university students as well as 
teachers and directors of local schools who have significantly benefitted from the volunteers’ 
activities had served as sources of data (list of respondents is provided in Annex I). 
Though the plan assumed that an adequate number of volunteers would be actively working at 
the selected Universities/CTEs, it was observed that only one volunteer was actively employed 
in most of the institutes visited and there were places where none were found (e.g., Adama 
University and KCTE). The plan also assumed that the assignment of volunteers was limited 
mainly to teacher education institutions and English language areas. However, there were 
instances where the assignment of volunteers was made to areas less directly related to these 
two core fields based on the requests from the universities (e.g. health and arts at Haramaya; 
Health and Technical Assistance at Adama). 
14
The secondary sources of data were the project documents (master documents, action plans, 
annual narrative reports of IFESH, report of volunteers, evaluation reports of HLIs about the 
volunteers’ performances, ELIC centres and other materials produced (see Annex III for list of 
the documents reviewed). It was realised that there is neither baselines nor clear indicators of 
performance in the project documents. For instance, the documents talk about improving 
English language skills. Yet there were no measurable indicators as to what improvements in 
language skills of the beneficiaries should be. Similarly, even though the project document 
mentions improving the teaching methods applied by the teacher educators, there was no 
indicators of targets and measurable indicators. Thus, considering the facilitating roles of the 
volunteers and through an open discussion of the most significant changes in areas related to 
the volunteers’ activities, attempt has been made to deduce the emerging results. 
In facilitating the performance evaluation, the team prepared an evaluation framework 
including field report format, data collection tools pertinent to the nature of the evaluation, 
reviewed the project documents, and sample materials produced by the volunteers and 
publications/newsletters from IFESH/Ethiopia country office. The evaluation team had also 
grouped itself to sample HLIs based on their geographical location and visited sample HLIs 
that have benefited from the program. 
Based on the discussions and decision reached with USAID, the team considered 6 Universities 
and 4 CTEs as samples of the study. This included Debreberhan College of Teacher Education 
(DBCTE), Hossana CTE, Kotebe CTE, Debreberhan University, Bahir Dar University, Adama 
University, Haramaya University, Gondar University, Gondar College of Teacher Education 
(GCTE), and St. Mary’s University College. Accordingly, data have been collected from MoE, 
hosting institutions and schools, beneficiaries (students, teachers, & administrative support 
staff), IFESH country office, volunteers and Ex-volunteers. Finally, the team collected the 
information from all officers and ex-officers whom the volunteers had/have worked with. Such 
respondents, depending on the specific situation of the HLI, included the Presidents of the 
Universities; Heads of the CTEs, Directors of Academic Programs; Deans of the 
Faculties/Schools of Education; Coordinators/leaders of HDP/TDP; Assistant Coordinators of 
HDP/TDP; VSO volunteers (co-workers); Head of University Clinic; Coordinator of 
HIV/AIDS Prevention Office; Heads of Gender Offices; Community service directors, 
teachers, ELIC coordinators and members. The respective respondents in each HLI were 
selected using purposive, availability (plus snow-ball) and simple random sampling methods by 
considering their position in connection to the volunteers’ management and their activities. 
Snow-ball sampling was particularly useful when studying about the activities of the early 
volunteers during which someone who got interviewed first is requested to mention if he/she 
knows anybody who has worked with the volunteers. This has helped to overcome the problem 
of lack of adequate documentation about the activities of the volunteers and the ‘swift’ turn￾over of officials at the host institutes. 
In this evaluation, both quantitative and qualitative data collection tools were employed. These 
included document review (which focused on analysis of relevant documents), key informants 
interview, FGD with students and eighteen volunteers (see Annex VI), questionnaire with a 
very few questions addressing the level of satisfaction about the program and finally 
observation on the overall campus environment, ELIC centres and the volunteers’ work 
stations. The instruments of data collection had passed through rigorous content validity 
assessment. The FGD Guideline developed by the team and the same was deliberated by the 
team prior to its administration (see Annex II). Moreover, the team was guided by the 
philosophy of ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ while collecting data from the respondents. 
15
Both qualitative and quantitative methods have been applied to analyze the data collected 
from the various sources. Quantitative analysis involved summarizing data in tables and figures 
based on computations of counts, averages and percentages. Qualitative analysis involved 
classification/grouping of data, application of content analysis and interpretive analysis. 
3. Limitations of the Evaluation 
While every possible effort has been made to carry out the evaluation in a professionally sound 
way, there are some reservations which the team of consultants would like to point out as 
possible limitations. The volunteers have varied and diverse expertise. Therefore, they are not 
expected to do one and the same thing. For instance, some are active only in teacher training 
and could devote their time in in-service teacher education in the host institutions and in the 
local formal schools. Some others are rather very active on cross-cutting issues such as gender 
and HIV/AIDS. Most such volunteers opt to work with female students within the host 
institutions. There are volunteers who are more interested in direct involvement in major 
academic activities such as teaching in post-graduate classes and advising students on their 
research and many more. This situation made using uniform sampling frame very difficult. As a 
result, the sampling frame was varied from one institution to the other. Nonetheless, whatever 
data acquired have been handled with utmost professional care. Besides, due to the shortage of 
documents on details of everyday activities of the ex-volunteers at the host institutions, it was 
very difficult to cross-check generic reports obtained from IFESH country office. This problem 
has been aggravated by the fact that some of the officers with whom the volunteers worked are 
not even in the institutions let alone on their posts. Nonetheless attempt has been made to 
overcome this by tracing the whereabouts of those officers. Besides, the e-mail contacts with 
the ex-volunteers have helped the evaluation immensely. 
4. Major Findings 
4.1. The Project: Initiation, Relevance, Partnership, and Support 
Program Initiation
The program was initiated with the request of MoE and all of the respondents confirmed that it 
is aligned with the education program of Ethiopia. In this regard, the IFESH/Ethiopia country 
office had confirmed that the recruitment of AVs passes through four stages in a cycle: needs 
analysis, ranking the needs (in the light of order of priorities of educational institutions, 
relevance of the volunteers’ qualifications & other considerations), recruitment of the 
volunteers, and placement and orientation of the volunteers. But all of the respondents except 
senior management members in the host institutions reported that they were not aware of the 
procedures how the AVs were recruited. There is still a blurred expression about the 
acknowledgment of volunteer’s assignment in each institute as there are faculties (e.g. co￾workers at Haramaya University and DBCTE) which were not informed about the selection 
criteria and background of the volunteers. For instance, HDP coordinators (and Education 
Faculty Dean) at Haramaya University noted that they knew nothing about the recruitment of 
the volunteers; even they took no part in ‘on-arrival orientation’ for the volunteers. The same 
was reported from DBCTE. On the contrary, HPD coordinators at Adama University indicated 
that they attended on-arrival orientation workshops organized to introduce the volunteers to co￾workers and coordinators. Irrespective of such disarray, which may be partly attributed to the 
16
very nature of the host institutions, higher level managements of the Universities reported that 
the IFESH Country Office invites the HLIs to make their requisitions based on the resumes of 
potential volunteers sent to the institutions for their review and approval. It is only when the 
credentials of the volunteers are approved by the receiving institutions that IFESH allocates the 
volunteers. Nonetheless, there were cases where volunteers appeared to be technically 
incompetent relative to the job requirements and in some cases could not fit the work 
environment as well as the cultural make-up of the locality. The result was that some of these 
volunteers left the country without doing any further. It was also reported that some colleges 
like Hossana CTE, did not get volunteers on special needs education irrespective of repeated 
requests. 
Program Relevance 
The HLIs, particularly the newly opened ones, are staffed with very young, less experienced 
but energetic instructors. These instructors require close support in the form of experience 
sharing, coaching and mentoring from experienced and expert professionals. The IFESH 
volunteers are fit to fill such gaps. Many of the HLIs are also staffed with less effective 
teachers in conveying the essence of the subject matter and practical life experience because of 
their limited exposure to modern (learner-centred) teaching methods (active learning 
methodologies) and lack of mastery of English language skills. Thus, it has been confirmed that 
the program responded to the challenges by providing technical and material support that 
expanded the horizons for the improvement of language teaching skills and methodologies, 
which is a significant contribution to the quality of education at primary and secondary schools 
as well as at HLI. A statement of the Academic President of St. Marry University College 
acknowledges this fact. He said, “We are lucky enough to get a volunteer who is experienced 
and willing to work with us. He served as CPD leader and was resourceful in organizing public 
seminars on inter-cultural issues”. Similarly, the President of Haramaya University expressed 
his due regard to the program as, 
The volunteers go out of their way to show us what we did not see. For instance, we did 
not have Guidance and Counselling service separately set up to take care of students 
and staff members who need such services. However, Dr. Augustine Sasey, the current 
IFESH volunteer is working on this very important element. Not only that, as you know, 
our teachers teach their classes as usual business and go to their home or they feel that 
they have done their entire job. The volunteers, however, are not like that. They give 
equal value to the informal and non-formal element of learning (for instance, the school 
clubs, private consultations, and other ways of engaging or making the learners active), 
which are very important in attitude formation as professionals.
The President also noted that the volunteers from native speakers of English language are very 
useful for the following inter-related reasons: (i) English is a very important language to access 
knowledge and present day technological innovation and global competitiveness; and (ii) most 
of the students in our universities are ill-prepared in using the English language. The other very 
important element the President underscored is that because these volunteers come with 
experience, they help us overcome the weaknesses of our young instructors who are new both 
to the profession and not very familiar with application of their academic knowledge. All these 
opinions are shared by the former AVP of Adama University who gives high value to the 
volunteers’ presence as far as they are carefully used. It can be said that all the officers 
interviewed do agree to the above points and strongly underscore the relevance and 
appropriateness of the IFESH-Ethiopia’s activities. The volunteers on their side also confirmed 
17
that the program is valuable and necessary for the Ethiopian Education system. But some 
volunteers warned IFESH to stick to the ‘Self-help’ principles of the Founder. 
Volunteers have also confirmed that volunteerism is one of the strategies for Ethiopia since it is 
a cost effective deployment of professionals. It is an asset and a big opportunity for Ethiopia to 
have experienced and practice-oriented professionals.
IFESH Ethiopia’s Support 
All the Volunteers had expressed their satisfaction with the program management on the side of 
the IFESH. For the volunteers, IFESH has managed the program very well. The support the 
volunteers provided was rated to be very much welcoming. They (the volunteers) testified that 
IFESH is a well organized and professional organization that provided the leverage to manage 
the program successfully. A volunteer who had similar experience in another African country 
comparing the activities of IFESH Ethiopia to IFESH office in that particular country judged 
IFESH Ethiopia as much more competent in terms of effectively managing the program. For 
the volunteers, the country-level orientations they were provided on-arrival were also additional 
strengths of the management. 
The Evaluation team had learned from the documents and face-to-face interviews of IFESH 
program manager and the current volunteers that IFESH/Ethiopia country office makes 
periodic visits to host institutions and monitors the progress of the volunteers. The country 
office is also vigilant enough in tracing any difficulties/challenges that the volunteers are facing 
and acts quickly to amicably settle the problem. The documents reviewed from the country 
office also revealed that the office has an elaborate plan for monitoring and reviewing the 
volunteers’ progress and its report was found to be well-documented. 
Further, it has been learned that IFESH/Ethiopia has good partnership and working relations 
with HLIs. Particularly with Universities where the leadership is relatively stable during the last 
few years the relation is very strong. IFESH’s relation with University units and Departments is 
more through the volunteers themselves and dependent on the nature of management (decision 
making) the university/CTE employs. In those host institutes where the management of the 
volunteers is rather centralized; there is no particular contact IFESH makes directly with the 
units, ELIC centres, HDP coordinator and even departments. In such cases there is no means 
whereby IFESH gets information about the contributions (strengths and drawbacks) of the 
volunteers and the program itself from the units’ perspectives. A good example as mentioned 
above is Haramaya University. 
USAID’s Support 
With reference to USAID, even though the volunteers are aware that they are here with the 
financial support of USAID to Ethiopian Government; the FGD participants had the reservation 
regarding the visibility and close follow up of USAID. That means they expect equal visibility 
of USAID as IFESH in the operation of the programme. Lack of fund for some burning needs 
at the grass root level (which are connected to their activities) might have instigated the 
volunteers to develop such opinion of USAID. As a result the volunteers tend to feel that 
USAID has not done much in connection to the program apart from providing fund to IFESH 
for the operation of the major program. On the other hand, the FGD participants and individual 
volunteers suggested that USAID should work hard to ensure the coordination of US-funded 
voluntary efforts like IFESH and PEACE CORPS. It was suggested that USAID should take 
the lead in promoting IFESH volunteers’ management and creation of a strong positive image 
for IFESH – a tendency to expect also technical support. 
18
Host Institutions’ Support 
The Deans and Vice-deans of the HLI indicated that they provided all the needed supports to 
the volunteers to enable them perform the activities they have planned. All the HLIs facilitated 
housing, budget support, transportation and assigned coordinator or focal person to support the 
volunteers in their work. The assignment of a focal person who assisted and accompanied the 
volunteers in their work facilitated integration and handling bureaucratic processes as well as 
dealing with cultural and social challenges in the community in which they worked and lived. 
The volunteers themselves have affirmed that they got appropriate institutional support from 
the HLIs. They perceived that their suggestions were well taken and all the necessary supports 
were provided for any initiative they come up with as far as there is no resource limitation. This 
has been an opportunity even for home institutions. According to the Dean of the Faculty of 
Education and Behavioural Sciences (HU), this is an opportunity the Faculty is enjoying as a 
result of the volunteers’ presence. He said, “They can knock every door and get it open. As a 
result, they are essential means for the Faculty to have broader influences.” This shows that 
the volunteers play important role in strengthening the visibility (and contributions) of 
Education Faculties at the host Universities. On the contrary, volunteers have condemned the 
ever endless meetings and unplanned operations of universities and colleges where they are 
unable to get coordinators. 
Apart from logistic and a ‘go on’ support on the personal initiatives the volunteers take, there is 
no particular guidance which the volunteers receive from any corner regarding their 
professional activities. On their own, the volunteers try to do many things (to address many 
outstanding problems in which they feel handicapped in terms of expertise and training 
received). For instance, the current volunteer at Haramaya University who is positioned as 
HDP advisor is also serving as ‘HDP leader’, ‘Post-graduate program theses supervisor’, ‘Head 
of Guidance and Counselling Unit’, ‘supports the clinic and the gender office, and also engage 
himself in editorial works.’ This is seen as work overload for one person given particularly the 
demanding nature of the HDP and PGHET. If at all the volunteer has to deal with all these 
businesses, he needs to have other experts who support him and his duty would rather be 
coaching. The same is true in DBU where Katheryn is expected to work on ELIC, CPD of 
linked primary schools, and support Gender office. The current volunteer at Bahir Dar 
University, Mary Lugton, was also found to be extremely overstretched because of her 
services’ demand from diverse sources including from the University staff (for academic and 
professional English support), from students (for developing the 4 skills in English), from 
gender office (for training girls in life skills and assertiveness), from primary and secondary 
schools (for continuous professional development of teachers), from women instructors club 
(for building their research skills), and from Regional Education Bureau and Woreda Education 
Offices (for training principals & education officers in mentoring & coaching). With only three 
months of her stay in Bahir Dar University, Mary has been bombarded with lots of 
assignments. Comparing the level of engagement and effectiveness of services rendered by 
IFESH volunteers with that of VSO, an observer from Harromaya had the following to say, 
The management gives the IFESH volunteers many additional works and they finish 
their terms without observable accomplishment in any one area. Therefore, when I 
compare them with VSO volunteers, the VSO volunteers could deliver effectively in their 
areas because they (VSO volunteers) are strict in terms of concentrating on areas to 
which they were assigned. (The former HDP coordinator at Haramaya University) 
19
These instances indicate that some of the IFESH volunteers have been overstretched on their 
duties, which may cause them to be less effective when it comes to delivering quality results. 
Thus, a culture of joint planning as well as realistic goal setting has to be created in the host 
institutions in order to ensure optimum utilization of IFESH volunteers. 
On the other hand, there are cases where the volunteers reported that they are underutilized by 
host institutions (e.g. DBCTE) and that they initially disoriented and confused due to the lack 
of adequate institutional information. For instance, one volunteer remarked, “I was like a 
floating boat for about 3 months”. There were also cases where lack of continued commitment 
to support for the volunteers’ initiatives has been reported. Regarding this a volunteer said, 
“Verbally the officers are ready to help but in practice they lack determination to pursue on 
planned activities.” Such reflections once again remind all the concerned stakeholders that a 
system has to be established at host institutions to manage the volunteers in the most effective 
and efficient ways. 
Competence of volunteers 
The coordinators were asked to assess the competence of the volunteers on the following 
criteria (indicators): 
 English language enhancement 
 Improvement of general teaching–learning process 
 Engagement in co-curricular activities 
 Solicitation and distribution of educational resources 
 Introduction and improvement of systems 
 Readiness to share and receive knowledge 
 Participation in community support activities 
The assessment was to be done on a five-point scale ranging from ‘very-high’ to ‘very-low’ 
level of competence. In this regard, the coordinators at Haramaya and Adama universities were 
reserved as there were perceived individual differences among volunteers. With such proviso, 
they gave their general observation that most of the respondents agreed that their level of 
satisfaction with the competence of the volunteers was ‘High’. But a coordinator from Bahir 
Dar University described that all AVs that were/are assigned to the university except one were 
found to be very competent in their areas of assignment so far. Particularly, those that were 
assigned for HDP and the two of the three assigned for ELIC were found to be very competent 
and successful in their stay at the University. 
 
All the officers contacted in this study also reported that the volunteers are willing to support 
and share their experience with the local counterparts. However, they said that “the capacity of 
the locals to learn from and maximize benefits from the presence of the volunteers depends 
largely on interest, interaction skills, and the information seeking behaviour of the local 
teachers.” For example, the ELIC and HDP coordinators of Hosanna TEC agreed on the 
opinion that “Cultural and communication barriers limited the opportunities for the majority of 
the staff to interact with and learn from the volunteers”. The Drama Club coordinator 
expressed that “Teaching is both an art and a science that can be learned through practice and 
working with experienced colleagues. The volunteers can be a great resource for the transfer of 
tacit knowledge through active engagement with them.” According to the ELIC coordinator of 
Hossana, “The willingness and readiness to work together and learn new ways of doing things 
from the volunteers and information seeking and sharing behaviour of individual staff and 
attitudinal and cultural problem constrained the maximum utilization of the volunteers”. This 
20
was supported by the observations of the volunteer placed at the MoE when he said, 
“Everyone is helpful and cooperative, but sometimes the capacity of some people is not up to 
my hopes.” The above observations suggest that AVs are creating great opportunities to learn 
and improve themselves for local counterparts at host institutions. However, great deals of local 
staff have not been benefitted because of their lack of efforts to grab the windows of 
opportunities opened to them. This may require devising appropriate knowledge management 
strategy in each hosting institution. 
4.2. Assessment of Interventions: Practices, Achievements and 
Innovations 
The interventions of the project have been seen in terms of the four areas the project document 
identified earlier: English language improvement; teaching and systems improvement; 
educational resources supply and utilization; and community services and cross-cutting issues. 
The Consulting team had tried to examine the practices, achievements, and innovation attempts 
recorded and credited to any of the volunteers and/or to the host institutions in light of the 
above intervention areas. These are explained as under. 
4.2.1.English language improvements		
As clearly stated in the CBTEP II Document, one of the objectives of the program is to improve 
teaching of the English Language in teacher education institutions. Again, one of the strategies 
proposed is the establishment of ELIC for ELIP. ELIP is doing well both in DBU, BDU, 
Gondar University, Haramaya University, Adama University, CTC, and HTC. The demand for 
English Language training is soaring from the students, instructors, and administrative staffs. 
Having a quick look at Figure 1 and Table 2 below, a case in BDU (2011/2012), provides 
sufficient evidence. 
 Fig. 1: No of students attending English Language Tutorial sessions at BDU, 2011/2012 
21
 Table 2: Type and number of trainees attending at BDU 
 
The data presented in Figure 1 and Table 2, taking the example of BDU, depicts attempts that 
are under way in improving the English language proficiency of both students and teachers in 
HLI. 
 
According to the FGD held in BDU and DBU, ELIP has contributed in improving reading, 
communication skills as well as writing skills of the participants. There are debates, free talks, 
teaching grammar, exercise writing, leading/chairing meetings and other activities led by AVs, 
which help to build confidence to use English, positive feeling, etc. as some of the positive 
interventions intended to improve English Language skills of the beneficiaries. Volunteers are 
also helping the ELIP centre to be able to get more input supplies like English Language Kits, 
Cassettes, and aids by contacting different donors. On top of this, ELIC has been fully 
furnished with computers and audio-video cassettes with donations from IFESH/Ethiopia 
country office at BDU. All of the interviewees and FGD participants had noted that the demand 
for English language service is soaring from university staff (for academic language support 
service), from admin staff (for improving communication skills), from students (for developing 
writing, listening, speaking, and communication skills), and from school teachers (for 
enhancing effective teaching and communication skills). As a whole, there is a positive and 
green light in the ELIP, especially among students. Even the existence of a centre itself is 
valued and users of the ELIC are increasing from time to time. 
In almost all the institutes visited ELIC has Internet connections, show rooms, and mini￾libraries supported by native speakers where the HLI community is enjoying and getting the 
opportunity to communicate with them. The Ethiopian English teachers have been assigned 
there as committee members to sustain the program. The program is perceived to be good but 
the limited resources and (in a few cases) the upper management of the Universities/colleges 
were found to be less attentive to the centre mainly due to the several problems which compete 
for the limited resource. The demand for the service the centres provide is still there, hence the 
volunteers are over-stretched and this has created gaps in the level of satisfaction of the 
beneficiaries. 
 
4.2.2.Teaching and systems improvements		
The respondents (e.g. from Hossana CTE & Haramaya University) agreed that the volunteers 
have changed the prevailing work culture and their presence was visible in the work of the units 
which they were supporting. For instance, the Dean of Hosanna CTE indicated that “The 
volunteers showed us the importance of things which we did not normally appreciate and that 
the solutions to our problems are within us. We learned that we can make a difference and 
started to look for solutions to problems within us.” The volunteers widened the thinking and 
Trainees M F T 
Students (Tutorial and 
academic purpose) 147 51 198
Teachers 28 9 37
Administrative staff 11 12 23
Total 186 72 258
22
perception horizons of the institutions to improve the learning system in their institutions. The 
ELTIP coordinator at the MoE believes that the presence of the volunteers contributed towards 
improving the work culture in the office. He said, 
We have learned how to organize our work and deliver results timely. Now, we are not 
accumulating work. For instance, I used to give a script to the secretary to type it for me. 
Now, following the interventions by AVs, I am writing it myself. The performance of our 
directorate is exemplary at the ministry level, and this is mainly due to the contribution 
and skill transfer of the volunteers. 
The volunteer at the MoE supported the Teachers and Leadership Development Core Process in 
developing competency standards of English teachers based on which competency tests were 
developed for both primary and secondary school English teachers. There are 32 testing centres 
in the country and the volunteer trained 130 examiners and 10 exam administrators in 
November and December 2011. The volunteer noted that the test construction and 
administration has improved a great deal since its inception in May 2011.The volunteer has a 
plan/mandate to continue working on the analysis of the test results and based on which would 
develop training modules to provide training for the English teachers nationally. 
At Haramaya, the volunteers got involved in a lot of system improvement and in introducing 
some innovations. For instance, an early volunteer (Sheetal Shah) introduced client information 
software to facilitate efficient service delivery for student patients; introduced the balcony 
approach to clinic service delivery; initiated the purchase of queue machine; and collection of 
opinions and queries from female students in a confidential way. Furthermore, an ex-volunteer 
at BDU (Dr Emile Boresma) had created an ICT club for the university community, which run 
effectively for three years but halted because of her absence. The same volunteer had also 
introduced a guideline for academic research, which is still used as the main reference for 
postgraduate students of the University. Similarly, volunteer Dr. Augustine Sasey had 
introduced Guidance and Counselling services. The volunteers largely devoted their time on 
putting in place a broad-based staff development system both in the area of teaching and 
English language. They also introduced (or enhanced) special support for females as a means to 
help them get empowered. The English language club as a means to help the improvement of 
the English language capacities of the learners has also been introduced by the volunteers 
almost in all Institutes. 
There are very notable volunteers who strengthened the foundation for ELIC centre in HLIs 
with the mobilization of resources, collecting books, audio materials. Helen in Hossana and 
Katheryn Craytonshay in DBU may be mentioned as exemplars. The HLIs are supporting the 
establishment of the English language resource centres and laboratories through providing 
classes, tables, chairs, dividers, adapters, operating systems and computers. The ELIC 
coordinators indicated that the establishment of the English language resource centres enabled 
English teachers to improve their teaching skills. It is integrated into the curriculum of the 
English Department as in the case of Hossana. 
Katheryn Craytonshay in DBU is highly recognized for the introduction of her experiences on 
pre-test and post-test approaches for all her interventions (trainings) where she measures what 
they had before and the progress brought as a result of the intervention. She strongly advocated 
on the utilization of time and its management as she values punctuality which has consequently 
favourably influenced her Ethiopian Colleagues. 
23
In the area of HDP, many teachers have been trained. Officials from MoE and HLIs had 
confirmed that more than 4000 teachers have significantly changed their teaching styles as a 
result of HDP launched across the country. As it has been reported by the respondents about 
HDP, some behavioural changes have been observed in the teaching process by using the 
reflective approach (student-centred method) across faculties, a great shift from the traditional 
method of teaching to participatory methodology. Moreover, promising orientations are being 
witnessed among the university staff towards engaging themselves in Action Research, 
preparing SMART lesson plans, attempting their best to design CPDP and using continuous 
assessment of learning. The teachers are getting to teach individuals in class rather than the 
whole class and to differentiate among the students due to the sensitivity training and 
experiences acquired, mainly, from the volunteers. Volunteer Sheetal Shah (Haramaya) was a 
good example for introducing this. In her remedial English class for academically 
underperforming girls, Sheetal could identify students according to their abilities, interests and 
aptitudes and had private consultations with them. The Gender Office could buy this idea and 
make use of it in its training programs. 
There are testimonies from beneficiaries regarding the results (outcomes) of the HDP, wherein 
the volunteers played important roles. Here are selected testimonies from the teachers as 
presented verbatim: 
Frankly speaking, I was not a teacher before I got HDP training. I was a class monitor or 
just commander-in-chief of the class. After I got HDP training, I become a real teacher 
(i.e. a professional teacher) and came to recognize that I am responsible and accountable 
for the academic weakness of every student. It informed me to be a holistic teacher by 
capacitating myself to assume the role of a facilitator or a moderator. I am not happy with 
the interruption of HDP as there are teachers who should get the chance of similar 
training. I am absolutely sure that it can add value to the quality of education in our 
University. (An Instructor, BDU) 
Honestly speaking, HDP is a smart intervention to harness quality delivery of education. 
Through this program, I am able to conceptualize what a real teacher is! (An Instructor, 
BDU)
I was resistant to what they called HDP initially. I used to take part in it only because I 
was responsible for coordinating other instructors. However, through time, as we debated 
with the volunteer (Joetta Brown), I came to learn that there are much more I had to learn 
to become more competent in teaching. I finally started preaching HDP. (Haramaya 
University) 
Helen (a volunteer in HCTE), has trained 20 in-service teachers in HDP in active learning, 
action research, continuous assessment and school placement. From the HDP participants, 
Helen identified the best performing teachers and further coached 2 in-service teachers to 
replace her as HDP coordinators and trainers. She made follow up, classroom observations on 
how teachers practiced interactive learning methods and provided feedbacks and refresher 
trainings to share experiences and lessons learned. The HDP and ELIC coordinators of HCTE 
indicated that the demonstration effect of what Helen has been doing was visible in the work of 
fellow teachers. Besides the HDP program, volunteers in collaboration with LV facilitated 
24
several in-service trainings on academic and crosscutting issues. The data presented in Tables 
3 and 4 from DBU and HCTE, respectively may illustrate this. 
Table 3: In-service training by Local Volunteers with the support of AV at DBU (2010/11) 
Training areas M F T 
SBCPD , policy preparation and implementation 45 13 58
Measurement and Evaluation in teaching 47 12 59
Student centred teaching methodology 47 12 59
Special needs Education 14 46 60
Total 153 83 236
 Fig. 2: CBTEP beneficiaries per training areas in all institutions (2003-2010/11) 
When it comes to Hossana College of Teacher Education, the beneficiaries of training services 
rendered by an AV are displayed in Table 4 below. 
 
 Table 4: Training and workshops organized by volunteers in HCTE (2010/11) 
 Area of training Duration Modalities # of 
participants 
Target group 
Language skills 2 days In-service 160 Primary school teachers 
Continuous 
assessment 
2 days In-service 100 Linkage school teachers 
CPD 2 days In-service 150 Linkage school teachers 
Gender/HIV/AIDS 
inclusive 
education 
2 days pre- and 
in-service 
More than 
150 
TTC and linkage school 
teacher 
Active learning 2 days In-service 150 Linkage school teachers 
Library 1&half 
days 
In-service 
librarians 
40 Linkage schools, high 
schools and TTC 
25
As depicted in Tables 3 and 4, in-service trainings were also organized by the LV with close 
supervision of the volunteers. This entails, beyond the capacity building and introducing the 
culture of volunteerism, volunteers are working on the long-term knowledge management, 
skills transfer and finally the sustainability of the program. As a whole, IFESH volunteers have 
addressed a total of about 40,000 beneficiaries from 2003 to 2011 (Refer to Annex 5). 
Recognizing the contributions of AVs to the enhancement of teachers’ competences, a senior 
official from MoE had asserted that “the structural change that was observed in the area of 
teaching is significant and this is partly credited to the relentless efforts of IFESH volunteers.”
(The Sate Minister for General Education) 
4.2.3.Educational resources solicitation and utilization
 For the purpose of substantiating the classroom approaches of teaching English, volunteers 
have assisted in strengthening ELIC in each HLI and they are helping the ELIC to be able to 
get more input supplies like English Language Kits, Cassettes, and aids by contacting different 
donors. On top of this, ELIC has been fully furnished with computers and audio-video cassettes 
with donations from IFESH/Ethiopia country office and HLI community is using them as 
resource centre for the improvement of the language. Volunteers are donating their own 
personal books, collecting from friends and associations at their home country; even they are 
mobilizing local resources for the linked primary schools. DBU volunteers in collaboration 
with IFESH have tried to enrich the ELIC centre. Besides to this, they collected more than 
2,900 books and 15 science kits which they have distributed to 15 linked primary schools 
which is thought to augment the capacity of the schools in supplementary books. This was also 
practiced in many other colleges and universities. Table 5 shows resource mobilization done by 
volunteers in HCTE. 
 Table 5: Resources mobilized by volunteers 
Books/learning 
materials 
Quantity Expected number of 
beneficiaries 
Receiving 
institution 
Books 30,000 Over 10,000 students, 
teachers and community 
members 
Hadiya Education 
Office, public 
libraries, schools 
Audio-visual 
materials 
15 2630 teachers and 
students 
ELIC 
The volunteers not only worried about the scarcity of resources but also the proper utilization 
of these dearth resources. In DBCTE, there are unused computers, television, cassette 
recorders, copiers, unused cassettes and headphones, and the like which are simply stored 
somewhere and wearing out. Thus, the volunteers are continuously facilitating trainings and 
orientations in connection to using such facilities. A volunteer in Gondar hospital trained nurses 
about how to care for patients and use laboratory kits wisely. 
4.2.4.Community services and cross‐cutting issues		
Volunteers were observed to be very enthusiastic in supporting the community, especially in 
their link to nearby primary schools. They are participating in different trainings provided on 
26
such essential issues as gender and HIV/AIDS. They organize co-curricular clubs and attend 
various occasions (such as Women’s day celebration, special conferences and research paper 
presentations) wherein they provide meaningful inputs. But they are facing barriers as the HLIs 
don’t yet have mechanisms to involve the volunteers in strategic planning and other related 
aspects. Volunteers were also engaged in the trainings of the HLI community about the use of 
Internet, sharing of documents with other departments; facilitating training on essay writing 
skills for female students, providing materials and technical supports for nearby primary 
schools as well as providing training on CPD. Thus, it has been reported that participation of 
teachers have increased. As a result, teachers are facilitating trainings using the resource 
centres and the Internet services as inputs. Yet, the volunteers reported that the change (as well 
as the initiative for change) on the part of the local staff is not as they expect it to be. 
The volunteers (e.g., Helen and Megan in HCTE, Katheryn Craytonshay in DBU) organized 
trainings and workshops to capacitate linkage with primary schools. They encouraged schools 
to increase library use rate of students and provided shelves and books for schools which 
demonstrated results in terms of more participation of students and teachers in using the library 
resources. 
The volunteer at Gondar University Community School organized the library in new form, 
established a book club, and identified students according to their learning level. Presently, she 
is giving tutorial sessions for those lower and medium achievers. Furthermore, the volunteer is 
providing special support for 3 (three) Special Needs children. The teachers in her school are 
learning from her experience. In fact this is a very essential area because in many schools, 
tutorial programs are provided (also as a requirement by the education offices) but it is only a 
kind of re-teaching. In most cases it does not focus on the learning difficulty of the learner. 
Gender Officers at BDU and Gondar University affirmed that they are getting extended support 
from IFESH volunteers, particularly from Ex-volunteer (Emille) and current volunteer (Marry) 
on HIV/AIDS, Gender and Equity related experience. As a result of the concerted efforts of the 
volunteers, a good number of female students are getting increasingly aware of gender-related 
issues and are becoming more confident about their education. It was reported that volunteers 
are also providing Tutorial Sessions for female students. Yet, it was commented that the 
number of volunteers is too limited to provide tutorial sessions to all girls that are registered in 
the Gender Office. It has also been reported in DBU that the University and the IFESH 
Volunteers have conducted needs assessment in 20 sample primary schools. Based on the 
findings of the assessment, they have prioritized the needs, developed proposals, secured funds 
from IFESH and are supporting them accordingly. Thus, the University has given trainings for 
58 teachers selected from 16 schools within 6 districts of the North Shoa Zone. The training 
focused on continuous assessment techniques, management of large class size, action research, 
interactive teaching approaches, teaching methodologies, and special needs education. Thus, it 
has been reported in the post-testing review that 91.8% of the participants have expressed their 
satisfactions on the trainings offered by the volunteer. 
As part of their mission, IFESH volunteers have also been engaged in a number of community 
services around Bahir Dar and Gondar. Teachers at Tana Haik Senior Secondary School and 
Mekerem 16 General Primary School in Bahir Dar are getting more benefits from volunteers on 
CPD, especially to develop their professions continuously. This is done via Clusters at 
department level. The volunteers are supporting as facilitators so that real knowledge transfer 
is underway. The head master of Meskerem 16 General Primary School reported, “The
27
Volunteer (Mary Augstin) is very good. Most teachers in our school like her. She is helping us 
by capacitating our teachers. Specially, she (the volunteer) is helping teachers on how to teach 
English language in a simple and communicative way.” This is also practiced in three junior 
schools of Bahir Dar (FelegeAbay, EwuketFana, and Meskerem 16) and District Education 
Officers as well as High School Principals. Thus, participants have given positive feedbacks to 
the volunteers. Besides, an IFESH volunteer (Emille) has also organized ‘You Go Girls Club’ 
at Tana Haik Preparatory school in Bahir Dar. This club has demonstrated effectiveness in 
guiding seemingly hopeless girls to achieve high academic successes. The volunteer recruits 5-
6 orphaned/desperately poor girls attending Grade 11 capacitates them economically, 
emotionally, psychologically, and academically. She has been doing this project for the past 
couple of years and had achieved the result of 100% success rate in transition of students from 
secondary school to tertiary level. As a result, she is considered as a role model for the female 
students in the locality of Bahir Dar. 
At Haramaya, the activities of the volunteers is not limited to only those businesses which were 
mentioned in the project documents: teacher education, English language improvement, 
community services and cross-cutting issues (such as gender and HIV/AIDS). For instance, 
there were volunteers in the areas of health (clinic service as well as staff on Faculty of Health) 
just like volunteers in Gonder, pure science education (in the Faculty of natural sciences); 
theatrical art; guidance and counselling services and Teaching/advising in graduate classes. 
Some of these responsibilities, though given with the expressed need of the University’s top 
management, are not directly related to the four core themes of the project with ultimate goal of 
contributing to improvement of the quality of basic education in Ethiopia. Nonetheless, the 
IFESH/Ethiopia staff connect some of these responsibilities to the two major cross-cutting 
issues: HIV/AIDS and Gender. Besides, the understanding the University leaderships holds 
about quality education has its own influence on how they utilize the volunteers. For instance, 
at Haramaya there is a tendency to want to get volunteers in every area where the University 
management sees a need (a gap). Whereas, at Adama the volunteers are assigned to the core 
activities the program document already specified. 
4.3. Summary of Emerging Impacts of the Program 
The ultimate purpose of the IFESH program is to bring significant change in capacity of 
teachers and institutes and thereby improve the quality of Education. The consulting team of 
this study had observed the glaring realities of some promising and positive changes that can 
contribute to the quality of Ethiopian Education have begun showing up in all the HLIs. To 
demonstrate these facts, the team has summarized the prominent observations as follows: 
 The professional competence of teacher educators or instructors has been improved over 
time and this is reflected in classroom interactions and communications with their 
students. This may in turn contribute to the overall improvement of the quality of the 
education system at national level. 
 It has been noted that university students and school teachers are becoming accustomed 
to speaking English openly without feeling shy in front of their colleagues. 
 Female students’ network is coming to be visible through such opportunities as ‘You Go 
Girls club’, English Language Club, ELIC membership, Tutorial and English Language 
Day. Many more members are joining and becoming role models to their successors. 
 There are some encouraging results to the extent that internal (local) voluntarism has to 
be initiated and strengthened in order to ensure sustainability. Some local professionals 
28
seem to have been excited with such social services and become volunteers themselves 
in some localities (e.g. Debreberhan) especially in supporting linked primary schools. 
 There is much inspiration from the work of the volunteers that made the locals reflect 
on and often question their work culture. 
 A network of communication which is being strengthened between the CTEs and the 
nearby primary schools which facilitated experience sharing among teachers in the 
application of interactive teaching learning techniques, the role of teachers as 
facilitators in the teaching learning process, CPD, cooperative engagements with their 
colleagues and mainstreaming of co-curricular activities are valuable to support the 
learning process. 
 The fact that ELIC is strengthened and the libraries are better organized helped teachers 
in many cases to enhance their reading habits; use library resources and engage in 
personal development. This in turn gives teachers the confidence to use interactive 
learning methods that improved teacher-student interactions. 
 The work of the volunteers provides the locals with experiential learning and skills in 
preparing programs for workshops, seminars, report writing of learning events, 
development of proposals, follow up observations and feedback, communication and 
interactions for sharing experiences and lessons. 
 Co-workers value the lesson they learned from the volunteers with regard to– 
commitment to one’s purpose, punctuality and seriousness. These are essential traits 
which if inherited would ensure sustainable change in Ethiopian context. 
 The volunteers introduced some systems which improved work processes and quality of 
service delivery to the clients (the university/college students). Among this are the 
clinic service delivery and technique for assessing girls’ opinion at Haramaya 
University; the publication of local (in-campus newsletter) newsletter at Adama, and 
introduction of the ‘extra-formal’ learning opportunities such as clubs and important 
occasions (e.g. seminar on HIV/AIDS or girl students’ harassment). For instance, due to 
the activities of the volunteers in these ‘extra-formal’ activities, the local staff 
(instructors) could see that teaching to cover the academic course outline is not enough 
in educating professionals and that such ‘extra-formal’ activities are also equally 
essential particularly to form founded professional attitudes. 
4.4. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Challenges 
4.4.1. Strengths 
These are the areas in which IFESH/Ethiopia program excels at and needs to capitalize on them 
so as to make the program more successful in the future. These are expected to help the 
program managers exploit opportunities, neutralize threats, and avoid weaknesses as much as 
possible in order to guarantee the future success of the program. 
 Involvement of highly qualified and dedicated professionals/volunteers 
 There is peaceful relation and communication, good feeling and awareness, the staff is 
ready to support, the volunteers are co-operative, housing and offices are good. 
 Attention to ELIC – an emerging center which every guest is ready to visit and the 
university is also regarding this as an image building point. 
 Availability of strong country office and placement of volunteers based on the needs of 
the host institutes, 
 Handover noted s to succeeding volunteers to ensure continuity of activities 
29
4.4.2. Weaknesses 
These are areas of improvement that IFESH itself, volunteers, HLIs and other concerned 
stakeholders of the IFESH Program should take into account for the success of the project. 
a) IFESH 
 In Annual volunteers’ workshops, hosting universities are either not equally invited or 
not taking part even when invited. On-arrival orientation at host institute level is not 
accustomed. Lack of experience sharing program among hosting institutes and among 
the volunteers. 
 IFESH is good in assigning experts. But in some respects, the follow up, monitoring and 
support mechanism seem not as solid as expected particularly in those institutes where 
the management is a bit centralized. 
b) Volunteers 
 The volunteers plan to do many things in a very short time. For instance, a volunteer 
may plan to engage in teacher development programs, teach or supervise regular 
students, carryout some editorial works and more. This over stretches the volunteers and 
makes them concentrate on doing things (giving services) rather than transferring 
knowledge with a focus on certain areas. 
c) HLIs 
 The Volunteers were working for different fields in HDP, ICT, special needs education 
and ELIC due to the diversified needs of the institutes and this has made it quite 
difficult for them to focus on one or a few program (s) for long enough time to see its 
results 
 Lack of preparedness and poor documentation of the volunteers’ activities at host 
institutions– a problem of knowledge management. 
 Gap was observed between expectations of the volunteers and the responsiveness of the 
host institutions – which resulted in underutilization of the volunteers in a few cases. 
 Facilities and other resources are not readily at the disposal of the volunteers to carry 
out their planned activities. As a result there are times they fail to implement their plan. 
 Time wastage due to lack of responsiveness of the host institution in deployment of the 
volunteers: e.g. host institutions fail to prepare their annual academic calendar prior to 
the volunteers’ arrival. 
 Failure to communicate the job description and profiles of the volunteers to units where 
the volunteers would be assigned. Absence of well-structured knowledge management 
systems that are put in place in host institutions, especially to exploit the potentials 
volunteers have brought to Ethiopia. 
4.4.3. Opportunities 
 English currently is being enforced as the medium of instruction in Ethiopian school 
system/HLIs 
 High demand for volunteers’ service due to rapid expansion of educational institutions 
in Ethiopia 
 Government’s emphasis on quality improvement (considering such strategies as 
GEQIP, ESDP IV, GTP) 
30
 The volunteers can serve as a link between their host institutes and 
Universities/Colleges in the US. 
 Introduction of massive reforms in Education system. Nowadays higher institutions in 
Ethiopia are in the era of change (institutional dynamism). They have done and are still 
doing Business Process Reengineering – that means the old ways of doing things is 
being questioned and a new experience is sought. 
 Excellent hospitality of community members/members of society 
 Willingness of work colleagues to work with volunteers. 
 Availability of resource persons in English Department who championed the usage of 
ELIC services 
 The existence of VSO and peace corps may help to get a different and yet external 
perspective. 
 Supportive institutional climate in such institutes as Haramaya. 
 Ministry of Education in earnest need of such supports provided to younger staff 
(academics) 
 Young staff eager to learn from the volunteers 
 A desire for change and an ongoing change process at the Universities which increases 
the need for inputs from experienced volunteers. 
4.4.4. Challenges 
There are several challenges which the program implementation process encountered. Here are 
the most challenging ones: 
 Gap between MoE’s need and the capacity of IFESH (mainly in terms of budget) 
 Bureaucratic management skills at the end of host institutions, 
 Language barriers/ gaps , 
 Volunteers’ lack of clear-cut schedules to started their work ones they arrive at host 
institution. Cultural variations and lack of proper orientation and background about the 
local cultures, language, lack of planning and organized protocols, frequent unplanned 
meetings , lack of understanding about time value among majority of people – both 
teacher trainees and teacher educators, wrong expectation and perceptions from 
Ethiopian counterparts to do their jobs and/or ease their workloads 
 Mismatch between budget allocation period of IFESH (Dec-January) and the academic 
calenderer of the university (Sept- June) 
 Most experienced staff members who are supposed to share experience from the 
volunteers and takeover the mission upon their evacuation are less interested to benefit 
from such learning and assume such responsibility. 
 There is a tendency from the co-workers to leave everything, or at least whatever they 
do, to the volunteers instead of working together and learning in the process. 
 The Universities have multiple problems which need the sort of expertise that can be 
gained from the volunteers. This makes the universities to push for whatever they give 
priority to instead of considering the basic tenets of the project. As a result, much of the 
volunteers’ time is spend on activities outside or only marginally related to the 
stipulated objectives of the program. 
31
4.5. Best Practices and Lessons Learnt 
 ELIC centre has been strengthened and giving active services. 
 ELIC members are becoming able to communicate in English with volunteers and they 
are exercising Free talk, debate (weekly), reading e-books, participating in “You Go 
Girls Club and English day”. There are also activities that encourage internet access to 
all students, book lending and reading for fun 
 Training on essay writings for female university students and supporting primary 
school teachers 
 Trying to make females active in HLI 
 The HDP has been strengthened and the fact that the volunteers value and work on it 
has helped overcome some of the resistance to active learning from the part of 
experienced Ethiopian teachers. IFESH is well managed but needs better support to host 
institutions and contacts with units who directly work with volunteers. 
4.6. Sustainability 
Programs are sustainable if they are planned and implemented with the community. Thus, 
IFESH Volunteers are working with the HI communities and they are capacitating and 
transferring the expertise they have. In line with this, volunteers are encouraged to be working 
directly with the local staff to ensure skills and knowledge transfer as way of building in the 
sustainability element into the program. However, whether the result of a volunteer’s activities 
is sustainable or not generally depends on several factors including: 
 The nature of the volunteers’ activities: if the volunteers focus on capacity building and 
helping local staff to use the experiences transferred, and then it is more likely that the 
sustainability objective will be realized. 
 The attitude of the local staff: where effort has been made to increase the receptivity of 
the local staff (e.g. value attached to language club as a means to improve English 
language competence) then the result will most likely be sustainable. 
 Local capacity: where there is capacity, there is a possibility to continue with some of 
the changes introduced by the project. 
 Institutional support: when the institution supports and internalizes the rationale of the 
project, then there will be a high probability that the benefits will continue to deliver 
long after the project closes. 
Based on these and other considerations, it can be said that some of the results of the 
volunteers’ activities would be sustainable while other may be less sustainable. The teaching￾learning process has been already undergoing change and there is no reason for teachers to 
revert back because institutionally that is the desired state of teaching and learning. HDP will 
continue to be functioning because that is desired both by the instructors and the 
Universities/the MoE. A look at these instances reveal that where there is capacity, institutional 
support and the local staff is committed, nothing can possibly hinder the sustainability of some 
of the project results. . 
32
 The challenges faced constrain sustainability of outcomes. There are trends of changes both 
in the attitudes and teaching skills of teachers but continuity might be limited to the units which 
worked directly with the volunteers. There are no efforts in the institutions visited to create 
learning and sharing systems at the institutional level. There are also no incentives to 
institutionalize the changes which put the issue of sustainability in eminent jeopardy. 
The HLIs need to ensure that ELIP continues even in the absence of volunteers as English 
language learning is one of the focuses of the government in improving English Language. The 
ELIC is already established and it is managed by the students and volunteers have already 
given out the experiences. But the withdrawal should be smooth and gradual. Schools are 
sharing experiences; facilitate TOT, and ELIC members are serving the HLI community by 
making e-books available. 
 Dr Ousman, a volunteer in DBCTE had to say the following regarding the sustainability of the 
results of the program, “There is a bright possibility of sustaining the program - we are 
building the capacity, they have the resources, they can keep on and they are giving their ears 
and eyes, giving attentions”. If this is realized in all host institutions, there is no problem of 
sustainability of the results of the program. 
5. Conclusion 
In this performance evaluation, an attempt has been made to assess the performance of the 
USAID/Ethiopia-funded CBTEP program implemented by IFESH and thereby provide 
USAID/Ethiopia and the Ethiopian MoE useful information and data for determining the future 
direction in enhancing the quality of education in Ethiopia in general and teacher education 
programs in particular. In doing so, analysis of the project input, output, outcome, and 
sustainability were the main focuses of the evaluation. A participatory approach has been used 
in collecting both the primary and secondary information. Data have been analysed on the basis 
of robust qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques. From analysis of the data and the 
results documented it can be concluded that irrespective of the several weaknesses and 
challenges the program is accomplishing its objectives– contributing to the improvement of 
quality of education in Ethiopia. The volunteers have been making considerable contributions 
in enhancing the capacities of instructors and school teachers in effective teaching and in 
English language improvement. Considerable number of students, administrative staffs, and 
education officers also got some support in English language skills improvement. The 
volunteers had also participated in system improvements and community support programs. 
Based on the analysis of the findings of the study, the Consulting team had suggested that the 
program should continue with more focus on capacity building in the area of English language, 
subject area pedagogy and cross-cutting issues. 
6. Recommendations 
In light of the major findings and observations of the Performance Evaluation of IFESH 
Ethiopia volunteers in HLIs, it seems imperative to forward the following recommendations for 
the key stakeholders 
6.1. USAID 
6.1.1 While what has been achieved so far is encouraging and invaluable; it is far 
below satisfying the needs of the Ministry of Education. This is mainly due to 
33
budget constraint. Therefore, let USAID consider this for the ensuing phase of 
the program. Irrespective of our limited knowledge of the internal policy of 
USAID, the consulting team feels that it would be much more beneficial if 
USAID considers providing technical support besides funding the program. 
6.1.2 Volunteers would be much more encouraged and motivated if there is possibility 
for them to get a limited fund for solving some problems that emerge out of the 
work environment of the volunteers through action research or any other 
relevant professional exercise. Therefore, it is commendable that USAID 
consider additional direct funding (outside the program budget) for such mini￾projects. 
 
6.2 IFESH 
6.2.1 The program document should be strictly attended to while implementing the 
program. For that there is a need to aware the host institutions and if at all there 
is any change to the original document due to the specific situation of the host 
institutes, then the document needs to be amended. 
6.2.2 The need is still there, particularly in the area of “Subject area pedagogy” and in 
“English language skills enhancement”. Therefore, these have to be the major 
focus areas in the next program phase. 
6.2.3 The placement duration of the volunteers is too short to demonstrate results. It 
takes time for the volunteers to establish, understand the environment and 
integrate themselves with the community. In some cases the volunteers leave 
before they complete their planned activities. Therefore, IFESH/USAID need 
to consider the initial duration (may be increasing to at least two years) with the 
possibility for extension. 
6.2.4 The volunteers need to be adequately oriented that they are here to build 
capacity rather than doing things for (in place of) the local staffs and giving 
services. They have to take the role of a coach and a mentor in their areas of 
expertise. 
6.2.5 There is a need to consider discussing with VSO and Peace Corpus to reduce as 
much as possible duplication of efforts but rather create synergy and ensure 
sustainability. This needs to start from the country offices. The MoE and/or 
other stakeholders (funders & implementers) can discuss on this issue together 
(through common platform created by MoE) and come up with a 
comprehensive plan of action to deploy the volunteers efficiently and 
effectively. 
6.2.6 There must be clear memorandum of understanding between IFESH and hosting 
institutions regarding the roles of each party in volunteers’ management. 
6.2.7 Volunteerism has to be supported to continue in Ethiopia and IFESH/USAID 
need to consider mechanisms to encourage local volunteerism (whereby the 
local volunteers work with IFESH volunteers out of their site of work). In 
addition to volunteerism, IFESH also could try exchange program between 
Ethiopian HLIs and HLIs in USA. 
6.3 MOE/Host Institutes 
6.3.1 Assignment of volunteers should strictly be based on their area of maximum 
expertise with a focus also on thematic areas of the program. 
6.3.2 On-arrival of the volunteers, university level orientation has to be carried out in 
the presence of all relevant staff members. The roles and responsibilities as 
34
well as the working relations which should define the volunteers’ presence 
should be clearly established with the host unit of the host institute. 
6.3.3 There has to be stage (forum) whereby the activities of the project and lessons 
learned can be discussed by the direct beneficiaries in the presence of the 
university management. 
6.3.4 There is a huge need for host institutions to mainstream gender and HIV/AIDS 
properly to address diversity issue. A good example is the sexual harassment 
policy of St. Mary University. Therefore, the volunteers need to concentrate on 
building the capacity of the Universities and Colleges so that they ‘walk’ the 
‘talk’. 
6.3.5 Given the situation of gender mainstreaming reported from Hossana CTE (see 
Annex IX); it is commendable that there is a need to make sure the 
commitment of leadership and higher management to be able to institutionalize 
the gender mainstreaming activities; having baseline (e.g. gender audit for 
instance on political will) prior to commencement of such mainstreaming 
initiatives; and identify good practices and replicate (scale up) them in all 
linkage schools as learning models once the initiative implemented. 
35
Annex I: People Contacted/Interviewed 
N
O 
Name Position Tool 
administered 
Address 
1 Tomas Tesfaw (3rd
 yr) Students /English /ELIC FGD DBU 
2 Melese Degu (3rd
 yr) Students /English /ELIC FGD DBU 
3 Alazar Kassaye (2nd
 yr) Students Computer science (ELIC) FGD DBU 
4 Hamerenoh Zeleke (2nd
 yr) Students Computer science Dept 
(ELIC) 
FGD DBU 
5 Dawit Kassahun(2nd
 yr) student Engineering /ELIC FGD DBU 
6 Nesredin Yohanes (3rd
 yr) Students, Geography Dept /ELIC) FGD 
7 Naod Tilahun (2nd
 yr) Student Engineering Dept /ELIC FGD DBU 
8 Yared Dinku (2nd
 yr) Students IT Dept FGD DBU 
9 Michael Emishaw (3rd
 yr) student, English Dept FGD DBU 
10 Eyob Workineh (3rd
 ) student English Dept FGD DBU 
11 Dejene Mulugeta Lecturer , English Interview DBU 
12 Ato Azemeraw Ayehu Lecturer and Community Service 
directorate 
Interview DBU 
13 Katheryn Caytonshay Volunteer (ELIP) Interview DBU 
14 Dr Ellaline Roy Volunteer( Senior Advisor for Vice 
president for research and 
community services 
Interview DBU 
14 Lemma Demessie Lecturer and Vice director for 
institute of Education 
Interview DBU 
15 Dr Ousmane BA Volunteer /ELIP Interview DB CTE 
16 Mamuye G/Hiwot Dean Interview DB CTE 
17 Hiwot Beyene Instructor Interview KCTE 
18 Zeleke Beyoro V/Dean Interview KCTE 
19 Dr FirewTegenge, The Academic Vice President, Interview BDU 
20 Dr AbiyYigzaw, Postgraduate research and 
community service coordinator 
Interview BDU 
21 Mr MengistuMulu Community School Vice Principal Interview GU 
22 Mr Dawit Amogne Coordinator of ELIC Interview BDU 
23 Mr Tilahun---, Counterpart for ELIP Interview BDU 
24 Ms Martha --, Gender Unit Officer Interview BDU 
25 Mr TinsaeBerihun, Gender Office, Head; Interview GU 
26 Mr Sirur --, Vice Principal, Interview Wogera High School, 
North Gondar Zonal 
Administration 
27 Mr ZewgeTsegaye Principal, Interview Meskerem full cycle 
Primary School, Bahir Dar 
City 
28 Emily Boersma, Ex-volunteer, Interview BDU 
29 Mary Lugton, volunteer Interview BDU 
30 Liz Rath, volunteer Interview GCTE 
31 Shamekia Chandler, volunteer Interview GUcommunity school 
32 Joan Denne Ex- volunteer Email 
33 and Donald Thompson Ex- volunteer Email 
34 Ericka Scott Ex- volunteer Email 
Adnew Ontoro Dean, Interview HCTE
Tesfaye Academic Dean, Interview HCTE
Aster Assistant Dean, Interview HCTE
Elfenh, ELIC Coordinator , Interview HCTE
Sekata English Drama, club Interview HCTE
36
coordinator
Abera Guremo English teacher Interview HCTE
Abera HDP Coordinator Interview HCTE
Adem School linkage coordinator Interview HCTE
Zeregaw English teacher Interview HCTE
Nuria Gender focal person Interview HCTE
Hanna HIV/AIDS officer Interview HCTE
Solomon , Assistant director Interview Woldhana Primary 
school
Dutamo,Wolde 
director
, Director Interview Woldhana Primary 
school
Redi English Teacher, Interview HCTE
Ali English Teacher, Interview HCTE
Alemayehu Teacher Interview linkage school
Dinknesh Teacher, Interview HCTE
Umer Teacher Interview linkage school
Yakob Teacher Interview linkage school
Sashank Lopez, IFESH Volunteer Interview HCTE
Simon, VSO Volunter Interview HCTE
Solomon, English language Teaching 
Improvement 
Program(ELTIP),
Interview MOE
Tewodros Chewhraga Director, Teacher and 
Educational leaders 
Development Directorate
Interview MoE 
Mike IFESH volunteer Interview MOE
Tedela Academic vice President, Interview St. Mary University
Dr. Ayele Abebe Former AVP Adama Interview 
Ato Bogale Tesemma Former ELIC Head Adama Interview
Ato Ahimed Siraj Former ELIC Head Adama Interview 
Ato TAye Geresu Head, ELIC Adama Interview 
Ato Eshetu Tekle Former HDP Leader Adama Interview 
Ato Gemechu Wirtu Former HDP Leader Adama Interview 
Ato Tolera Negasa Former Vice-Dean of Faculty 
OF Edcuation
Adama Interview 
W/ Tezazew D/Head, Gender Offcie Adama Interview 
Dr. Aseffa Abahumna Admin Vice-President Adama Interview 
A group of 3 
instructors who 
attended HDP in the 
former Volunteers’ 
classes
Young instructors Adama FGD
Prof. Belay Kassa, HU President Haramaya Interview
Ato Dawit Negassa Dean, Faculty of Education 
and Behavioral Sciences 
Haramaya Interview
Dr. Tesfahun Former Dean, Faculty of 
Education 
Haramaya Interview
37
Ato Abdella Coordinator, HDP Haramaya Interview 
Ato Tassew Mezgebu D/Coordinator,. HDP Haramaya Interview
Ato Sirak Former Coordinator, HDP Haramaya Interview
Ato Adnew Head, Department of English 
Language
Haramaya Interview
--- Former Head of ELIC Haramaya Interview, telephone
--- University Chief Librarian Haramaya Interview 
W/ Emebet Head, Gender Office Haramaya Interview
W/ Kidisina D/Head of Gender Office Haramaya Interview
Ato Fayera Director, Academic Programs Haramaya Interview
Mrs. Jane VSO Volunteer (HDP 
Advisor)
Haramaya Interview
Dr. Augustine Sasey IFESH Volunteer Haramaya Interview 
A group of six 
instructors 
Three attending HDP and 
another 3 attending PGTHE
Haramaya FGD 
A group of 18 current 
volunteers 
On mid-term review From all over 
the country 
FGD 
38
Annex II: Key Informant Interview Guide 
(Questions selected from this have also served to facilitate the FGD) 
Evaluation of the USAID/Ethiopia-funded International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH) 
Capacity Building in Teacher Education Program Leading Questions for Key Informant Interview (KII) 
IFESH has been supporting the education sector in Ethiopia by deploying highly qualified professionals and 
experienced American volunteer teachers to various teacher education and other higher education institutions with 
funds from USAID/Ethiopia. The program had started in 2002/3 and since then IFESH had deployed about 82 
volunteers to various HLIs in Ethiopia. 
The purpose of this instrument is to gather information regarding the achievements and challenges of the 
IFESH/CBTEP and draw some lessons for future improvement of the program’s implementation scheme. The 
items incorporated into the instrument have been designed in a way they solicit interactive discussions among 
participants and cause generation of clear ideas that serve as the bases for identifying key areas of intervention in 
the future. Therefore, the participants are kindly requested to give their honest assessment of the performance of 
USAID/IFESH/CBTEP in the past 10 years and forward appropriate measures to be taken by relevant bodies in 
order to improve the future implementation of the program. 
(Instruction or Guide to FGD Facilitators/Interviewers: Any facilitator has to convey warm greetings 
whenever he/she meets the participants. He/she should clearly and concisely state the objectives of the research 
and explain the rights of the participants to give or not to give the information in relation to the subject under 
consideration. He/she must explain that the participation in this data collection process is purely on voluntary 
basis and all information is used for the purpose of the study only. No individual’s privacy is going to be affected 
as a result of the information provided to the facilitator and/or the implementing firm. All facilitators must be 
guided by the philosophy of “Appreciative Inquiry” while moderating the discussion and capturing relevant 
information.) 
I) Program relevance and national support (posed to MoE officials, University Presidents, TEC deans, 
IFESH, USAID) 
a. How was the program initiated? To what extent did the key stakeholders participate during the initiation & 
launching of the program? 
b. To what extent is the program aligned to the education goals and strategies of the country? How relevant is 
the program? (Establish concrete relations) 
c. How relevant is the program to enhance the capacities of education actors and contribute towards 
improvement of quality of education in Ethiopia? 
d. To what extent do policy-makers and strategists admire/appreciate the value of the program? (Give concrete 
examples) 
e. How supportive are the policy makers and other key stakeholders towards the success of the program?(Give 
concrete examples) 
f. Is the project up to its promises in terms of accomplishing what it envisioned to do? How effective was the 
project? 
II) Deployment and contributions of the Volunteers (posed to University Presidents, TEC deans, relevant 
department heads) 
a. When did you get volunteers for the first time in your institution? How many of them were deployed in 
this institution so far? What was your role in recruitment of the volunteers? 
b. How competent were the volunteers? 
c. What contributions have they made so far? (Please specify significant contributions the made)with regard 
to the following interventions as appropriate: 
i. English language improvement _______________ 
ii. Teaching and systems improvements __________ 
iii. Educational resources supplied and utilization ___ 
iv. Community services and cross-cutting issues _____ 
v. Others (please specify) _______________________ 
d. More specifically, how do you describe the behaviors displayed or contributions made by volunteers in 
terms of (get concrete examples or numbers): 
39
i. Efforts they make to assimilate with institution’s community easily and their willingness to support the 
institution and work colleagues. 
ii. Activities organized by volunteers that benefited teachers and students in colleges/universities and 
students including HIV/AIDS education, gender and other co-curricular activities. 
iii. Activities organized and led by volunteers that benefited teachers and students in neighboring schools. 
iv. Manner in which the volunteers technically supported the institutions in development of strategies, 
guidelines, plans, etc. 
v. Trainings and technical assistance provided in the HDP of teacher development program or in English 
language departments in the colleges/universities. 
No Area of 
training Duration 
modalities (pre service, 
in service, ) 
No. Participants Target group 
1 
2 
 
vi. Level of effectiveness of the volunteers in working with their counterparts and transfer of knowledge and 
skills to counterparts. 
vii. Resources (such as policy drafting, manuals, program design, modules, researches, education material, etc.) 
produced with the technical assistance of volunteers and continue to be in-use. 
viii. Innovations introduced by volunteers that continue to be in-use. 
ix. Type of support institution management received from volunteers. 
x. Volunteers’ activities level of response to the perceived needs of its beneficiaries.
xi. How many books or materials have been donated by the volunteers
No Books/learning 
materials 
# Expected No. of 
beneficiaries 
Receiving 
institution 
Remark 
1 
2 
3 
xii. What changes have been observed in the resource centre or library as a result of the materials donation?
e.What is the volunteers’ activities relationship to the host government and colleges/universities plan and strategy?
f.How sustainable are volunteer activities?
III) Institutional and Community Support (Relevant department heads, teachers/work colleagues, 
IFESH) 
a) How were the volunteers received by hosting institutions? How interactive, cooperative, willing to share 
knowledge, and productive were the volunteers in their duty stations? 
b) What institutional factors promote/constrain the maximum use of the volunteers? What challenges did the 
volunteers face during their assignment? How were they rectified? 
c) How organized and systematic are hosting institutions in efficient and effective use of the volunteers (i.e. 
maximized use of the volunteers’ time during their tenure in colleges/universities)? 
d) What is the volunteers’ activities relationship to the host government and colleges/universities plan and 
strategy?
e) How sustainable are volunteer activities?
f) How are the co-curricular activities integrated in the institute teaching learning process?(in terms of English, 
teaching, club, community service and system) 
g) What is the level of satisfaction of the staff on the work of volunteers? (Beneficiaries) 
 Key:VH-very high, H-High, M- medium, L- low, VL- very low, NA-not applicable
Considering the assignments , trainings and facilitation of 
volunteers, how are you satisfied with the following 
milestones/areas: 
VH H M L VL NA 
English language enhancement 
General teaching learning process improvement 
Co-curricular activities engagement 
Educational resource solicitation and distribution 
40
System introduction and improvement 
Readiness to share and receive Knowledge 
Participation on community support 
Others (please specify and rate) 
IV) Emerging results of the program (Presidents, deans, department heads, teachers) 
1. What Significant changes are observed in 
1.1. English Department, 
1.2. Situation of colleges/universities , 
1.3. Capacity of teachers and institutes , 
Intended or unintended results that is attributable to the interventions of the IFESH as perceived by 
stakeholders. 
2. Is there any improvement in the competitiveness of teachers in English Language use? How? 
3. Are there any changes that are considered in ELIP for Ethiopian Colleges and Universities? 
4. How does volunteering add to skills and learning for the staff of institutes, primary school teachers and 
volunteers themselves and others? 
5. What relationships, networks, bonds of trust between people and institutes are developed through volunteers’ 
involvement? 
6. How does volunteering strengthen shared sense of culture including language referring to any of the aspects 
in the list below, what are the effects of volunteers on the institutes. 
6.1. On the college/university as a whole 
6.2. On the services that the College or University provides 
6.3. On the staff 
6.4. On the local community and/or wider community 
V) SWOT (Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges) Analysis(presidents, deans, 
department heads, Teachers, IFESH) 
1. What (internal and external) factors do you think have contributed to the successful performance of 
volunteers? 
2. What (internal) factors had constrained the institution from optimum use of the volunteer(s)? 
3. What challenges did the volunteers face during their assignment? How were they rectified?
VI) Sustainability (Presidents, Deans) 
1. How sustainable are volunteers’ activities? 
2. How can you sustain the outcomes of the intervention in the absence of volunteers ( systems, 
infrastructures, practices, resources( human, materials , financial ) 
3. Are you ready to concentrate on transmitting knowledge and skills to the community, what is known as 
‘Skill transfer’ or ‘knowledge management’? 
1. The Way forward 
1. How relevant and desirable do you think is the program? 
2. What possible gray areas should be improved if the program persists? 
3. What other thoughts or ways of doing the program efficiently and effectively? 
4. Which area should it focus if it continues? 
5. Any further suggestions or recommendations?_______________________________________________ 
2.2. Leading Interview Questions for Volunteers 
2. Can you state your background in brief? 
3. How did you become a volunteer? 
4. What is your impression about the overall management of the program (You may focus on the roles 
played by IFESH, USAID, and host institutions)? 
5. What is your impression about the country, education sector, and work colleagues? (kindly describe all 
+ve& -ve aspects of each) 
41
6. What are the specific contributions you made to the hosting institutions (IFESH, USAID, and institution 
of assignment)? (Quantify them if possible—give specific numbers here) 
7. What progresses have you observed in relation to your mission? 
8. What do you think of the best practices and lessons learnt during your volunteerism? 
9. What are the specific challenges you faced and opportunities you exploited (or yet to be exploited) during 
your volunteerism? 
10. How do you see the programs’ relevance, desirability, continuity and sustainability in Ethiopia? 
11. Any further comments:_______________________ 
42
Annex III: List of Major Documents Reviewed 
1. International Foundation for Education & Self-Help IFESH/Ethiopia Reports ( biannual 
and special reports) 
2. IFESH field monitoring reports
3. The Bridge , quarterly publication of IFESH/Ethiopia 
4. Volunteers’ reports 
5. Assessment of the Impact of the Capacity Building in Teacher Education Project 
(CBTEP): Assessment of program accomplishments and Impacts September, 2007 
6. Capacity Building in Teacher Education Project Phase I: (CBTEP original), A Project to 
Provide Technical Assistance To Improve Teacher Training and Primary Education in 
Ethiopia, Original doc 
7. Capacity Building in Teacher Education Phase II: (CBTEP Extension), Program 
Description to Extend the Capacity Building in Teacher Education Project in Ethiopia 
from June, 2008, through July 2012x 
43
Annex IV: List of Volunteers List of IFESH Volunteers under CBTEP 2003/2004 - 2011/2012 A/Y 
yea
r 
No Name Sex Qualification Assignment Site Responsibility 
 2003/2004 A/Y
1. 2. Anna Janne Hammernick F BA Adwa TTI Teacher Trainer English/Education 
3. 4. Selamawit Sertsu F MA Dessie TTC Teacher Trainer English/Education 
5. 6. Susan Ruth Yarger F MA Harar TTI HDL 
7. 8. Wendie Ann Willis F MA Debre Berhan TTC HDL 
9. 10. Dianne Cary F Ph.D Awassa TTC HDP 
11. 12. Carolyn casale F MA Abi Adi TTC Teacher Trainer/ Deputy HDL 
13. 14. Aundrey J. Somerville F MA Gondar TTC Teacher Trainer/ Deputy HDL 
15. 16. Hellen Ann boxwill F MA Hosaina TTC Teacher Trainers/HDL 
 2004/2005 A/Y
17. 18. Rose C. Amazan F MA Hossaina TTI HDL 
19. 20. Joan Denne F Med Awassa TTC HDL Returnee 
21. 22. Donald Thompson M MA Awassa TTC HDL Returnee 
23. 24. Carolyn Casale F MA Mekele TTC HDL Returnee 
25. 26. Brenda Kaye Carter F BA Adwa TTI Teacher Trainer English/Education 
27. 28. Susan Ruth Yarger F MA Debre Berhan TTI HDL Returnee 
29. 30. Whitlow, Emery (Trey) M MA Educational Media 
Agency, MoE
Technical Assistant Returnee 
31. 32. Rebecca Eve Martin F MA Nazareth TTEC HDL 
 2005/2006 A/Y 
33. 34. Rose C. Amazon F MA Hossaina TTC HDL Returnee 
35. 36. Carolyn Casale F MA Mekele TTC Teacher Trainer English/Education 
37. 38. Emily Boersma F MA Bahir Dar University HDL 
39. 40. Allie Bak F MA Debub University HDL 
41. 42. Teydin Erkkinen F MA Awassa TTC HDL 
43. 44. Carlos Fernandez M MA Debre Berhan TTC Teacher Trainer/ICT 
45. 46. Nicholas Dimma M Ph.D St. Mary’s College HDL 
47. 48. Joetta Brown F MA Alemaya University HDL 
 2006/2007 A/Y
49. 50. Allie Bak F MA Adama University HDP Moderator 
51. 52. Carlos Fernandez M MA D/Berhan TEVTC ICT Instructor 
53. 54. Carlos Lewis F MA Mekele TTC HDP Moderator 
55. 56. Emily Boersma F MA B/Dar University HDP Coordinator 
57. 58. Nelicia Murrell F MA Hossana TTC Teacher Educator, Eng. Education 
59. 60. Nicholas Dima M PhD St. Mary’s College HDP Leader 
61. 62. Elizabeth Braden F MA Assela TTC ICT Instructor 
63. 64. Peter Farber M MA Haramaya University HDP Leader 
 2007/2008 A/Y
65. 66. Donald Thompson M MA D/Berhan University Science/ Education 
67. 68. Edona Alexandria F PhD Aksum University Human Dev’t & Family studies 
69. 70. Emily Boersma F MA B/Dar University Education/ English 
71. 72. Janice Heckler F MA MoE Education /ICT 
73. 74. Joan Denne F MA D/Berhan 
University 
Education 
75. 76. Katherine Simpkins F PhD MoE Special Education 
77. 78. Kim Deprenger F MA Adama University Education & PTE 
79. 80. Sapna Thakker F MA D/Berhan University Special Education 
44
No Name Sex Qualification Assignment Site Responsibility 
2008/2009 A/Y
81. Deborah Zinn F PhD HESC Technical Advisor 
82. Katherine Simpkins F PhD MoE School Improvement Specialist 
83. Melissa Gallagher F MA Hossana TTC Teacher Trainer 
84. Tafaya Ransom F MA Deredawa University Teaching & Curriculum Development
85. Emily Springer F MA Deredawa University Technical Advisor 
86. Robert Walker M PhD D/Berhan University HDP Leader 
87. Laura Johnson F MA Adama University Teaching Guidance & Counselling 
for Post Graduate Studies 
88. Adisa V. Beatty F MA Adama University Technical Assistant 
89. Edona Alexandria F PhD Aksum University Technical Assistant to the President 
90. Lucinda Acquaye F MA Bahirdar University Program Coordinator 
91. Sheetal Shah F MA Haramaya University Health Education 
92. Paul Roberst M MA D/Berhan University ICT Trainer 
2009/2010 A/Y 
93. Carolyn Smith F PhD Bahirdar University Education Faculty; Teachers 
Training & Counselling 
94. Charlene Taylor F MA Assela School of Health Health & HIV/AIDS Teacher Trainer 
95. Ericka Schott F MA Gondar University ELIP, Teacher Trainer 
96. Jeremiah Walker M BA Debre Berhan CTE ICT Trainer 
97. Katheryn Crayton-Shay F MA Debre Berhan 
University 
HDP Leader (came in the 1st
quarter) 
98. Kristin Juelson F MA Gondor community School 
& Sociology Dept In-service Teacher training 
(English) & Sociology Instructor 
99. Laura Johnson F MA Adama University Teacher Education in Counseling 
100 Patrick Hahn M PhD MoE then switched to 
Haramaya University 
Science Educator 
Ray Mobley 
M MA Debre Berhan 
University 
HDP Leader (Declined in the first 
week of his arrival and replaced by 
Katheryn Crayton-Shay) 
101 Sandra Ross F PhD Axum University Teacher Trainer (declined end of 
the first quarter) 
102 Sheetal Shah F MA Haramaya University Health & HIV/AIDS Educator 
2010/2011 A/Y 
103 Abebech Gutema Mura F MA Debre Berhan CTE Teacher Trainer /ELIP 
104 Comesha Griffin F MA Finote Selam CTE Teacher Trainer (HDP Leader) 
105 Katherine Simpkins F Ph.D. Kotebe CTE Teacher Trainer (Special Needs
Edu.) 
106 Katheryn Crayton-Shay F MA Debre Berhan
University 
Teacher Trainer /ELIP 
107 Megan Flowers F MA Hossana CTE Teacher Trainer /ELIP 
2011/2012 A/Y 
108 Bahereh T. Smith F MA Jimma University Teacher Trainer/Education Faculty 
109 Carol Oconnor F Ph.D Hawassa CTE English Teacher Trainer 
110 Derek Jefferson M MA Haramaya University English Teacher Trainer & Theatrical
Art 
111 Elizabeth Jean Rath F BA Gondar CTE English Teacher Trainer 
112 Elizabeth Leu F Ph.D MoE Technical Advisor 
Ellein Carol McDaniel 
(returned home on Oct. 13 2011 
due to health problem) 
F Ph.D Dire Dawa University HDP Leader 
45
No Name Sex Qualification Assignment Site Responsibility 
113 Kelly Anne Bodkin F MA Sebeta Special
Education CTE 
Special Education Teachers Trainer 
114 Kenyatta Albeny F MA (Ph.D 
candidate) 
Finoteselam CTE English Teacher Trainer 
115 Mariama Ross F Ph.D Aksum University Teacher Trainer/Technical Advisor
for A/V/President 
116 Mary Lugton F M.Ed Bahir Dar University English Teacher Trainer 
117 Michael Mark Martucci M MA MoE ELTIP Advisor 
118 Ousmane Ba M Ph.D Debre Berhan CTE English Teacher Trainer 
119 Sashenka Lopez F MSc Hossana CTE Library Science Specialist/English
Reading Skill Dev’t Specialist 
120 Shamekia Chandler F BA Gondar University
Community School 
English Teacher Trainer/Library
Science Specialist 
121 Augustine Sesay M Ed.D Haramaya University HDP Leader 
122 Katheryn Crayton-Shay F M.Ed Debre Berhan
University 
Teacher Trainer (CPD & ELTIP) 
NO. OF VOLUNTEERS ASSIGNED AS OF 2011/2012 82 
CBTEP TOTAL OBLIGATION 82 
Total Volunteers at the End of the Project (July 31, 2012) will be= 82 
46
Annex V: IFESH/ETHIOPIA Volunteers Present at IFESH Mid-Year Conference for 
Focus group discussion at Bishale Hotel, Addis Ababa, December 2011 
No Name Sex Qualification Assignment Site Responsibility
1 Augustine Sesay M Ed.D,   Haramaya
Unviersity
HDP & PGHEDT  
2 Bahereh Smith F MA,   Jimma University ELIC program; CPD and TA;
3 Carol Oconnor F PhD. M.Ed.,
TESOL;  
Hawassa CTE ELP and Teacher trainer r  
4 Elizabeth Rath F BA, TESL).    Gondar CTE ELP and CPD  
5 Derek Jefferson M MA,   Haramaya
Unviersity
English & Art
6 Yousif Ahmed M BSc., Diploma Dire dawa
university  
Engineering  
7 Katheryn Crayton‐
Shay
F M. Ed.,  MA in
English.  
Debre Berhan
University
Train Teachers CPD, ELP  
7 Kelly Bodkin F MA, Education;   Sebeta SN CTE SNCTE and  ELIC  
7 Kenyatta Albeny F PhD (candidate),
Comparative  
Finoteselam CTE ELIP  
10 Mariama Ross F Ph.D,   Aksum university TA to A/V/President office;
HDP leader; and ELIC.  
11 Mary Lugton F M.Ed,   Bahir Dar
University
ELIC and CPD.  
12 Michael Mark
Martucci
M MA,   Ministry of
Education
TA in ELIP:  
13 Ousmane Ba M Ph.D   Debre Berhan CTE ELIP  
14 Sashenka Lopez F MSc,   Hossan CTE ELIP and Reading  
15 Shamekia Chandler F BA,   Gondar University
Community School
English and CPD
16 Douglas Smith M BSc ; Post graduat
Diploma
Jimma university TA (technical assistant)
17   Berihun Mekonnen
Mebrate  
M PH.D GSSW/AAU Lecturer  
18 Ellaline Macaualy   F PhD Debre Berhan
university
Advisor  
47
Annex VI: IFESH-Ethiopia CBTEP Fund/Grant from July 2002 through July 
2012 
 
Start date End date 
No of 
volunteers 
Budget allocated in 
US$ 
Remark 
target actua
l 
1st July 27, 
2002 
July 31, 
2007 
32 32 $1270605 
2nd Aug. 
1, 2007 
July 31, 
2008 
10 8 $300000 Assigned less 
by 2 
3rd June 2008 
Sep22/2008 
July 31, 
2012 
40 12 
10 
5 
15
$1200000 
Plus $858000 
adjustment 
Totalling $2050000 
2 more 
assigned to 
compensate 
with 2007/2008 
Total (from 2002 through 2012) 82 82 $3628605 
Annex VII 
Table 6: CBTEP beneficiaries per year1
Years Pre-Service 
Teachers Trained 
In-Service 
Teachers Trained 
Administrativ
e staff 
Policy/Gov’t 
Individuals 
Trained 
NGO/CBO 
Representativ
es 
Other 
Beneficiaries 
 Total 
M F T M F T M F T M F T M F T M F T M F T 
2003/04 1809 1235 3044 476 132 608 32 26 58 0 0 0 39 41 80 173 141 314 2529 1575 4104 
2004/05 665 1297 1962 265 80 345 25 24 49 0 0 0 22 7 29 20 30 50 997 1438 2435 
2005/06 4561 3517 8078 484 71 555 13 38 51 0 0 0 1 3 4 880 467 1347 5939 4096 10035 
2006/07 2269 2797 5066 1078 300 1378 94 46 140 0 0 0 3 10 13 241 218 459 3685 3371 7056 
2007/08 1263 1588 2851 686 269 955 79 5 84 0 0 0 18 17 35 139 57 196 2185 1936 4121 
2008/09 482 287 769 270 101 371 0 0 0 0 0 0 63 266 329 584 1217 1801 1399 1871 3270 
2009/10 776 514 1290 257 81 338 0 0 0 28 46 74 33 30 63 535 645 1180 1629 1316 2945 
2010/11 318 909 1227 582 236 818 0 0 0 18 24 42 2 1 3 64 39 103 984 1209 2193 
Total 
12143 
12144 
24287 
4098 
1270 
5368 
243 
139 
382 
46 
70 
116 
181 
375 
556 
2636 
2814 
5450 
19347 
16812 
36159 
1 IFESH CBTEP Beneficiaries Statistic since 2003 
33 
Annex VIII: Statement of Work for Evaluation of the International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH) Capacity Building in 
Teacher Education Project (CBTEP) in Ethiopia 
1. Title 
The evaluation of the USAID/Ethiopia-funded International Foundation for Education and Self-Help Capacity Building in Teacher Education 
Program. 
2. Purpose 
The purpose of this Task Order is to provide a team to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the USAID/Ethiopia-funded Capacity Building in 
Teacher Education Program implemented by International Foundation for Education and Self-Help (IFESH). The findings and recommendations of 
the performance evaluation will provide USAID/Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education with information and data for determining the 
future direction in the strategies of USAID/Ethiopia’s Basic Education Office and the Ministry of Education to enhance the quality of teacher 
education programs. 
3. Background 
IFESH is a United States-based private, voluntary, non-profit and non-governmental organization (NGO). IFESH/Ethiopia established an Ethiopian 
office in 1996 based on an agreement between IFESH and the Ethiopian Ministry of Education. IFESH is currently operating in Ethiopia under 
Proclamation No 621/2009, registered as a Foreign Charity with License No.0898. IFESH has been supporting the education sector in Ethiopia by 
deploying highly qualified professionals and experienced American volunteer teachers to various teacher education and other higher education 
institutions with funds from USAID/Ethiopia.
In July 2002, USAID/Ethiopia awarded IFESH with the Capacity Building in Teacher Education Program (CBTEP) under grant number 663–G–
00–02–00360-00 for a five -year period (from July 24, 2002 through July 31, 2007). During this period, IFESH assigned 8 volunteers each year, 
totaling 40 volunteers to Ethiopia. 
Based on its satisfactory performance, continued relevance, and the need expressed by the Government of Ethiopia (GOE), the grant was extended 
in July 2007 for one year (from August 1, 2007 through July 31, 2008) under a bridge funding mechanism to deploy 10 volunteers in Teacher 
Education Institutions (TEIs). In 2008, IFESH was granted an extension of the program for another four years from August 22, 2008 though July 
31, 2012 to bring an additional 40 volunteers. 
34 
The overall goal of the IFESH/CBTEP is to help improve the quality of education through capacity building of teacher education institutions and in 
training teacher educators in alignment with the Ministry of Education’s teacher development program initiative. 
The specific objectives of the IFESH/CBTEP include the following: 
 Provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Education (MOE) in the implementation of the General Education Quality Improvement 
Program initiative, especially addressing the Teacher Development Program (TDP) in order to improve the quality of teacher education. 
 Provide technical assistance to establish Special Needs Education in the TEIs. 
 Technically assist the MOE in strategic planning for implementation of the School Improvement Program (SIP). 
 Improve teaching of the English language in the TEIs. 
 Initiate and implement HIV/AIDS education programs that integrate gender equity and prevention of harmful traditional practices (HTP) and 
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). 
 Donate English language books and reference materials to schools and education resource centers. 
IFESH/CBTEP aims to recruit and assign well-qualified, experienced, American volunteers to Teacher Training Colleges, education faculties in the 
universities and the Ministry of Education to improve the quality of education through capacity building of pre- and in-service teachers as well as 
educational administrators. The volunteers are expected to work with Ethiopian counterparts under the Higher Diploma Program (HDP), serve as 
advisors, and perform other teaching tasks. Some volunteer educators are expected to facilitate HIV/AIDS education and gender mainstreaming and 
improve the teaching of English language in teacher training institutions. IFESH was required to provide a total of 32 volunteers between 2002/3 
and 2007, another 10 volunteers in 2007/2008, and 40 volunteers in the four years between 2008/9 and 2011/12, totaling 82 volunteers during the 
life of the project (i.e. an average of 10 volunteers annually). 
Objectives of the Evaluation 
The evaluation team shall conduct a performance evaluation of the USAID/Ethiopia-funded IFESH/CBTEP. The following are the main objectives 
of the evaluation: 
 Examine and verify the results and effectiveness (output and outcome) of the program since its inception vis-à-vis the project agreement, 
goal, objectives and targets. 
 Examine whether the program activities, outputs, and outcomes have been integrated as appropriate into the initiatives of the host 
government and teacher training institutions. 
 Determine the level of satisfaction by the MOE, College of Teacher Education (CTEs), universities, and USAID/Ethiopia. 
 Identify lessons learned including innovations. 
 Identify the opportunities and challenges of program implementation and how they have been addressed, including recommendations for 
appropriately addressing those that have not yet been sufficiently addressed. 
35 
 Determine if the program is still relevant and desirable, and suggest options for future directions and sustainability beyond the end of the 
current grant period (July 31, 2012). 
4. Focus of the Evaluation- Questions and Issues 
The evaluation team shall address the following issues: 
h) The performance of IFESH/CBTEP.. 
i) Activities organized by volunteers that benefited teachers and students in colleges/universities and students including HIV/AIDS education, 
gender and other co-curricular activities. 
j) Activities organized and lead by volunteers that benefited teachers and students in neighboring schools. 
k) Manner in which the volunteers technically supported the institutions in development of strategies, guidelines, plans, etc. 
l) Trainings and technical assistance provided in the HDP of teacher development program in the colleges/universities. 
m) Level of effectiveness of the volunteers in working with their counterparts and transfer of knowledge and skills to counterparts. 
n) Resources (such as manuals, modules, researches, education material, etc.) produced with the technical assistance of volunteers and continue 
to be in-use. 
o) Innovations introduced by volunteers that continue to be in-use. 
p) Type of support institution management received from volunteers. 
q) Efficient and effective use of the volunteers (i.e. maximized use of the volunteers’ time during their tenure in colleges/universities). 
r) Volunteers’ activities relationship to the host government and colleges/universities plan and strategy. 
s) Volunteers’ activities level of response to the perceived needs of its beneficiaries.
t) Constraints on volunteers’ activities and how they were rectified.
u) Sustainable volunteer activities.
v) Lessons learned from the volunteers contributions.
5. Evaluation Methods 
Both quantitative and qualitative methods will be required to collect data from a number of sources, including field visits and interviews/focus 
groups with representatives of the implementing partner, MOE, colleges, universities, Regional Sate Education Bureaus (RSEBs), schools. 
Techniques/instruments to be used to capture data may include structured questionnaires, direct project activity observations, interviews and other 
rapid appraisal methods. The Team is expected to interview MOE officials; presidents, deans, teachers and students of universities/colleges; school 
directors; teachers; students; and implementing partner’s staff in Addis Ababa as well as in regional offices, and others deemed necessary. 
36 
Evaluation methods include, but are not limited to: 
 Prepare evaluation framework including the methodology, questionnaires, and tools pertinent to the nature of the evaluation. 
 Review of the project agreement and determine if it has been followed. 
 Assess the extent to which all key counterparts working with IFESH volunteers have performed their expected roles and responsibilities 
under the program. 
 Review all internal performance and assessment reports, beneficiaries’/trainees’ reports and sample materials produced by the volunteers. 
 Review all program reports, publications such as quarterly newsletters, annual updates and related documents submitted to USAID/Ethiopia, 
and certify the reliability of the information provided. 
 Visit a sample of institutions that have benefited from the program and interview key stakeholders – heads of departments, Deans of 
Colleges/Universities, supervisors and counterparts of volunteers, and volunteers – to verify if program goals and objectives as well as 
expected results have been or are being achieved, and to determine the relevance and continued desirability of the program. 
 Meet GOE/MOE officials to determine the degree of satisfaction with the results of the program, fit of the program to the educational plan 
and strategies of the donor and the host government, and continued relevance and desirability of the program. 
Once selected, the Contractor (Assessor/Evaluator) will prepare a detailed evaluation framework including sample size and instruments which will 
be reviewed and approved by USAID/Ethiopia. The evaluation work will include field visits to a representative sample drawn from the following 
list of institutions from the various regions in Ethiopia (Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Addis Ababa) that have benefitted from the CBTEP: 
Abi Adi CTE Gondar CTE Dessie CTE 
Adwa CTE Dessie CTE Awassa CTE 
Debre Berhan CTE Gambella CTE Mekele CTE 
Adama University Mekele University 
Haramaya University Hossania CTE 
 Axum University Bahir Dar University 
Debre Berhan University Gondar University 
 St. Mary's University College (private) 
MOE, Teacher Education, 
Curriculum, Higher 
Education, etc. Departments 
6. Report and Deliverables Schedule 
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The evaluation will be conducted not more than four week period. The first week will be devoted to the development of instruments, obtaining 
approval from USAID/Ethiopia, and reviewing various documents in the IFESH/Ethiopia office in Addis Ababa and other places. Then, the 
assessors will spend not more than a week and half in the field (outside Addis Ababa) to collect data and information. They will spend the last week 
in Addis Ababa to compile and analyze the data, prepare the draft report, and debrief USAID/Ethiopia. 
The Contractor will submit the final report to USAID/Ethiopia no later than ten days after the four-week duration of the evaluation work. 
Schedule/Timeline: tentative schedule of the evaluation will be as followed: 
No. Date Activity 
1 November 4-6,2011 Framework of the evaluation, development of instruments, 
sampling size, and approval from USAID. 
2 November 5-12, 2011 Review documents and collect data and information from 
field 
3 November13- 15, 
2011 
Compile and analyze data, and draft report 
4 November 18, 2011 Debriefing to USAID/Ethiopia 
5 November29,2011 Submit final evaluation report 
Report writing: The Team shall provide to USAID and its stakeholders a first draft of the evaluation report for review and comments. The report 
(formatted in Times New Roman, with font size 12 and single space) should not exceed 25 pages. The first draft shall follow the general format as 
follows: 
Executive Summary 
Purpose of Evaluation 
Background 
Methodology 
Body of the report 
Findings 
Lessons learned 
Conclusion 
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Recommendations 
Appendices 
Discussion on the findings and draft report (One workday): The Team will have a half-day meeting with the USAID BES Office Team to 
discuss the findings and the draft report and a half-day debriefing session with the MOE, IFESH/Ethiopia and other stakeholders deemed necessary 
to discuss the findings, experiences, lessons learned, and recommendations. 
Relationships and Responsibilities: The Team will work under the technical direction of the BES Office Chief or designee. This evaluation shall 
be participatory and collaborative in nature, encouraging and relying on host country and IFESH Ethiopia Field Office personnel. 
7. The Evaluation Team 
The evaluation will be conducted by a two-man team of independent assessors/evaluators. Requirements of each member of the team are as 
followed: 
Education Specialist: Team Leader 
The team leader should have a minimum of Master’s level degree in education with five years of experience in the developing world, Ethiopia or 
Africa in particular. He/she must have successful previous experience in teacher education development in Ethiopia and in leading evaluation teams. 
Excellent written and oral communication skills are essential. Knowledge of USAID programs, regulations and procedures will be an advantage. 
Evaluation Specialist 
Advanced degree (Masters) and four years of experience in conducting participatory evaluations, including facilitating group meetings and using 
rapid appraisal methods is necessary. The evaluation specialist must have successful previous experience in educational evaluation and familiarity 
with teacher education issues. 
8. Terms and Conditions 
Duty Post: The duty post for this Delivery Order is Ethiopia. 
Language Requirements: Members of the evaluation team are required to have excellent oral and writing proficiency in English. All reports are to 
be submitted in English. 
Access to Classified Information: The team will not have access to classified information. 
39 
Logistical Support: The Evaluation Team has to be able to manage its logistics within the country.
9. Evaluation Criteria 
The criteria set forth below will serve as the basis for the technical and cost evaluation of the proposal to fulfill the tasks identified in the Statement 
of Work (SOW).
1. Clear, realistic evaluation plan and methodology which ensures that the evaluation SOW is well treated. (35 points) 
2. Qualification of the evaluation team members: The team leader and the evaluation specialist to have a minimum of advanced degree 
(masters or PhD) in education, preferably in research methods and/or educational evaluation and successful previous experience in 
development and management of teacher education. (30 points) 
3. Experience in conducting educational research and evaluation activities, especially in the developing world, Ethiopia or Africa in particular. 
(15 points)
4. Experience in education sector, particularly in teacher education, and familiarity with Ethiopian Ministry of Education teacher development 
initiative. (15 points) 
5. Costs: The proposal will be evaluated, generally to determine that proposed costs are reasonable and realistic. (5 points) 
40 
Annex IX: Addressing Cross-Cutting Issues at Hosanna TEC 
The situation 
The Government of Ethiopia formulated gender and HIV/AIDS policies and established machineries at all levels of the administrative structure to ensure 
implementation of the polices. Gender and HIV/AIDS Desks are established at higher learning institutions to address gender stereotypes and practices that 
perpetuate the subordinate position of women in Ethiopia. The Gender and HIV/AIDS officers at Hosanna TTC organized various awareness raising and 
information sharing events to help students avoid risky sexual behaviours and develop social skills. They have established clubs and worked in collaboration with 
English language clubs (such as writing clubs, drama clubs and music clubs) to address gender and HIV/AIDS issues in an entertaining and educative way. 
According to the Gender officer, as is the case in other HLIs in Ethiopia, female students at Hosanna TTC face challenging situations. Nuria is a teacher at 
Hosanna TTC. She worked as Gender and HIV/AIDS focal person of the college. She noted that female students faced challenges as the college does not provide 
accommodation to students. It is the responsibility of each student to take care of themselves with food, accommodation and other basic needs with a monthly 
allowance of 350 birr. This particularly created challenges for female students. Due to their limited social exposure, female students are forced to get protection 
from male students who come from the same community and share accommodation with their fellow male students. As a result of this way of life, female 
students were expected to perform domestic work for their male counterparts. Due to their socialization, male students expected female students to prepare food 
and wash their clothes. They saw female students as care givers. This created huge economic and time burden for female students. The female students did not 
have enough time to study and developed submissive behavior in meeting their male counterparts’ needs and demands. In some cases, female students are asked 
to make sexual favors. There were reported cases of female students involved in transactional sex to supplement their living with additional incomes. The female 
students did not also have developed social skills and experience to avoid unwanted pregnancy, STI and HIV/AIDS. The gender perception and bias at the 
college was also not favorable for female students. Women are generally considered soft and weak needing support and protection from male counterparts. 
The response 
The Gender and HIV/AIDS officer of the college realized the challenges of the female students and organized different awareness raising, social skill 
development and experience sharing events to help female students cope up with the challenges they are facing. As a woman herself, she cares for the causes of 
female students. She holds discussions with individual female students about their life, experience in sharing accommodations and resources and mobility in 
town. The hardships of the female students did not give her peace of mind. She organized different counseling and advisory services for female students. The 
major Gender and HIV/AIDS activities included: 
 Organizing welcoming program to all female students. According to Nuria, the welcoming event provided female students a sense of inclusiveness and 
helped them connect one another emotionally and socially. Senior students shared their experiences and advice to new comers. The female students were 
encouraged to make friends with female students other than their own villages. This helped develop social networks and socialization of the female 
students. 
 Providing counseling service on how to manage life in shared accommodation and resource management. Female students were advised and made to 
share experiences on how they manage their study time and financial resources. This made the female students assertive in dealing with their male 
counterparts who shared resources. 
 Establishing Gender and HIV/AIDS clubs to create venue for discussion, debating and sharing personal testimonies and other skills. Participating female 
students have found club participation useful. They have developed social skills that helped them manage and overcome challenges. 
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 Providing Gender and Assertiveness trainings with the support of volunteers. The trainings helped students question their own perceptions and biases. 
 Celebrating March 8 Women’s Day with Q&A and writing competitions. 
The result 
The KII with the Gender and HIV/AIDS officer revealed that the various interventions taken to address gender and HIV/AIDS issues have resulted in 
improvements in the social skills of female students. The trends of changes observed included: 
 Female students improved their social and networking skills 
 They reported cases of harassment and sought for advice and protection from the police 
 Many rape and gender based violence reported cases increased 
 Increased membership of Girls’ and HIV/AIDS clubs 
 Female students become assertive 
 Academic performance of female students improved as a result of tutorial classes, study skills trainings and support and advice among female students 
Sustainability 
There are “islands” of individual initiatives to address gender and HIV/AIDS issues in the college. However, there is no system that would sustain the process 
and results of the initiatives. Gender and HIV/AIDS issues are perceived as only the business of the officers. Gender officers are usually nick-named and 
discouraged for their work. Teachers ridicule the work of the Gender officer: “When is your holiday”, referring to the gender-related activities. Gender and 
HIV/AIDS activists have not also been supported by the management. Another important thing for sustainability and monitoring results is the need for baseline 
information. 
Way forward 
 Getting the commitment of leadership and higher management to able to institutionalize the gender mainstreaming activities 
 Having baseline (e.g., Gender Audit assessment) to assess the political will of management, gender competency of staff, the college’s working culture to 
determine the extent to which system, structure and mechanisms are gender sensitive to ensure accountability to incorporate gender in the teaching-learning 
process 
 Designing program intervention which will promote gender equality 
 Identifying good practice and replicating them in linkage schools as learning model