ProLearn

The ProLearn project was funded by ADRA Czech Republic and implemented by ADRA India in areas affected by tsunami in 2004. The main aim was to restore and enhance primary education in 8 villages by renovating classrooms, training teachers and providing teaching aids.

Final project evaluation 

The final evaluation explored the project impacts, including attitudes of those involved. In order to collect unexpected (positive and negative) impacts, the Most Significant Change (MSC) technique was used to assess even “soft” changes, such as changes in attitudes of children, without having a baseline study. Specifically, community volunteers were trained and sent to different villages to collect MSC stories or drawings, depending on the age of the children. 

The method was triangulated with other quantitative and qualitative methods – data review, key informant interviews, focus groups, community group discussions, a survey among schools and site visits. 

Key conclusions

The biggest positive change was in the changed attitudes and behavior of children rather than in the new school infrastructure. Thanks to introduced child clubs, children became empowered, fought for their rights such as access to potable water, sanitation or playground and managed to get these fulfilled by the local community and authorities.

More details

The full report is not publicly available, but you can find more details in the presentation above . 

You can also read more about the project, the evaluation context, purpose, methodology, reasons for selecting the methods, utilisation of results and what I would do differently next time in the Wageningen University 2013 Conference Report “Impact Evaluation: Taking stock and looking ahead“, pages 68 – 72: 

The Most Significant Change Guide is free to download here. 

Web full of resources relevant to this method is here. 

You can share your experiences and ask question in a yahoo group.