SOCIAL FRANCHISING AND SUPPLEMENTARY TUTORING: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF FACILITATORS’ PERCEPTIONS

Abstract

Franchising, a business concept that originated in the United States of America (USA), is a system of doing business via contracts through which the franchiser shares a system of knowledge, intellectual property and trade secrets in return for fees and royalties. Social franchising, on the other hand, utilises the same principles and format to achieve social benefits. Social franchising has been associated with, among others, the health services and education. Health services such as Marie Stopes International make use of social franchising to increase their services by engaging existing private providers to deliver high quality sexual reproductive health services in underserved areas. In education, social franchising can be seen as a quick fix to national problems regarding education. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively analyse facilitators’ perceptions of social franchising in education through the provision of supplementary lessons and its potential to improve students’ performance. The sample of the study comprised facilitators actively involved in the facilitation of lessons to supplement existing knowledge/impart new learning methodologies in mathematics, science and languages for school-going learners. An interview schedule was developed and participants were interviewed at the site of delivery during the period when students were on recess. From a content analysis of the transcripts of the interviews four themes, namely, challenges, opportunities, motivation and sustainability emerged. It is recommended that there should be greater parental as well as university involvement in the provision of supplementary tuition for learners. Existing schools with adequate resources should also be considered as possible venues for supplementary tuition.

Keywords

• social franchising, education, students, qualitative