FunDza always has three open online courses on offer to our readers. They cover a range of topics – some are theme-related, focusing on topical issues or themes such as bullying, xenophobia, or even romance, whereas others are focused on other areas such as developing writing skills, or information on work-readiness, or on language topics from the English curriculum at school.
For every course there are multiple-choice questions that are carefully structured not only to test but to help improve comprehension, broaden vocabulary, and encourage critical thinking. There are also some open-ended questions where participants submit their own opinions.
At the end of each course participants fill in a survey. Recently we have upgraded our Monitoring and Evaluation system, and this has given us the tools to analyse the data we receive in a very clear and helpful way.
These are some of the things we have discovered:
• 3500 people have filled in our final questionnaires since March (though of those a few did not finish the entire course.)
• 67% were female
• 20% are below 17, 45% are between 18 and 25 (which shows us we are generally reaching our target group of 13-25, but we have a lot of older readers as well)
• A disturbing 46% say that they are looking for a job while 38% are at school or college
• Participants were generally positive about the course they completed: 55% said it was as helpful as expected, and 43% said it was more helpful than expected
• Our course completors are certainly also our dedicated readers with 52% reporting they come to the mobi site nearly every day, and 22% saying they come a couple of times a week.
• Our net promoter score from these surveys is 74% which is classified as ‘world class’ (above 50% is ‘excellent’)
The most heartwarming parts of the survey are the qualitative responses, where almost all participants report that both the course and FunDza in general have a positive impact on their lives as well as their literacy development. Here is a selection from the thousands of comments (please note they are unedited):
I was bored during this Covid 19 lockdown, since school are closed I love going to the library as I love reading and borrowing books. Thanks to Moya for all the information it has one can never get bored being locked down. I’m so hooked to the phone, i hate it when the battery is off, im going to do every courses in this app till I’m no longer breathing. Thank you.
I have enjoyed is so much because, this is what keep me busy and motivated for my future, look at what happen the world now so many people lost job and job course help me to keep me busy and my mind positive. Thank to fundza
Yes I did enjoy this course as it helped me improve my reading and answering questions and also the stories I learned that how people live and overcome their circumstances
I must say it [FunDza] really change my life completely because before I hate it to read a book or to write but today I’m glad to be a registered author already publish one of my books
There are thousands more similar comments that show us that for these readers, we are certainly having an impact. There are some negative comments, but these generally relate to connectivity or sometimes tech glitches on our side. In terms of content, responses are overwhelmingly positive.
As we seldom get the chance to meet our thousands of readers face-to-face, these survey responses are very important to us, and make our work feel worth it!
If you are interested in finding out more about FunDza courses please email dorothy@fundza.co.za.