Evaluation of the Southern and Eastern Africa Regional Centre for ...

223 Findings: Impact of the SEARCWL3.1 General findings from the surveyThere have been a total of 202 students on the Programme. Of the 202, keycharacteristics are provided in the table below:Table 3.1 for all students:Nationality and genderTotal Female MalenumberBotswana 1 (0, 5%) 1 0Cameroon 3 (1, 5%) 3 0Ethiopia 1 (0, 5%) 1 0Kenya 27 (13, 4%) 23 4Lesotho 3 (1, 5%) 3 0Malawi 16 (7, 8%) 11 5Mozambique 1 (0, 5%) 1 0Namibia 1 (0, 5%) 1 0Tanzania 28 (13, 9%) 23 5Uganda 16 (7, 9%) 9 7Zambia 27 (13, 4%) 10 17Zimbabwe 78 (38, 6%) 73 5TOTAL 202 (100 %) 159 (79%) 43 (21%)This shows that 39 percent are Zimbabwean, and 79 percent are women. Concerningnationality, this is almost twice the 20 percent performance indicator that theSEARCWL has for regional composition of students. SEARCWL explained thiscomposition in terms of mitigating factors in student recruitment, especially that theoverall figure tended to be pushed up by last minute vacancies on the course andwhich are offered to Zimbabweans for practical reasons. Of the 202 in-take, 195have graduated and 7 therefore have not completed graduation (and of these somemay still complete). These figures show a very low rate of non-completion, probablyreflecting high levels of support from SEARCWL staff.In terms of the response rate of the survey itself- contact details were not availablefor 21 of the 202, most of whom we understand were ‘upgraders’ from the diplomataken in previous years. Therefore the sample for the survey was 181, of which 90people responded: 87 former students and 3 employers. In total, this number gives a