Institutionalise M&E and Build Evaluation Culture 

Engagement description: This engagement began with developing Theories of Change and M&E plans for the E4H program at the facility and ecosystem levels, through an iterative process that involved SELCO Foundation's central and state teams, as well as donor representatives.  Once the M&E plans were developed, Probex advised SELCO Foundation on the structure of the program's internal M&E team, created job descriptions and participated in conducting interviews, resulting in the establishment of the team.  Initially, Devyani functioned as the interim lead of this team.

Probex has developed the tools for a longitudinal study of the program's outcomes and impacts at the facility-level, and in collaboration with SELCO Foundation (SF), data collection has been launched in several languages.  Both data collection and analysis guides have also been created to ensure that the execution of the longitudinal study is smoothly transferred to SF in the future.  In parallel, rapid and longer-term qualitative studies have been conducted by the Probex-SELCO Foundation team.  

Probex has also developed a manual process for analyzing SF's operations and maintenance data to calculate the program's Key Performance Indicators.  We are now supporting SF to transition to an automated process to calculate and communicate these indicators through their MIS and dashboard.  Finally, through learning sessions and presentations, we have disseminated the findings from our analysis of the O&M and longitudinal data, as well as qualitative studies, widely within the organization.  

Engagement description: The M&E system for PathShila was developed through an inclusive process that involved iDC's founders, investors, operational teams and students.  Due to the championing of M&E at the founder-level, as well as our close engagement, the Theory of Change that was developed became integral to how they communicated PathShila to investors and partners, and to the planning of operations.  Phase I of our engagement resulted in a M&E plan that, when implemented, would validate the Theory of Change.  It also recommended that iDC hire a M&E Associate who would be able to supply high-quality evidence to improve decision-making on PathShila.

In Phase II of our engagement, the Associate was hired, and the execution of the M&E plan began.  We created a monitoring dashboard for PathShila, and developed baseline survey and post test assessment tools.  With our support, the M&E Associate launched data collection in several languages, analyzed the results and started creating customized reports for PathShila's partners.  Through this system, iDC was able to rigorously evaluate changes in students' career awareness using multiple parameters, and used the results to successfully advocate for increased funding to improve program quality.

In the time since our engagement with iDC ended, their M&E team has grown in size, and so has the scale of their system.  In 2023 they published the first Bharat Career Aspirations Report, which drew from baseline surveys conducted with 5,225 students.  The Bharat Career Aspirations Report is now published annually, and in 2025 was based on a sample size of 21,239 students.