Front runners: Carol-Ann Wright and Karolyne Beets are the first graduates of the new master's degree in monitoring and programme evaluation.

Two students from the School of Management Studies are set to make history when they become the first graduates to obtain the new master's degree in monitoring and programme evaluation.

Karolyne Beets and Carol-Ann Wright have finished the one-year course, and will be among the nine organisational psychology master's students to graduate this winter.

The programme is aimed at people who have to do monitoring and programme evaluation in their work, and students who wish to use their social research methods knowledge in practice.

It is only offered at UCT and is set to meet the need for competent monitoring and evaluation specialists in the country.

Professor Joha Louw-Potgieter, UCT's head of organisational psychology, says the programme was started because of a need in identified government departments.

"Our programme deals with the assessment of social programmes like housing and health, to see if they achieve their objectives," Louw-Potgieter explains. "We need to find out whether the big programmes, in which a lot of taxpayers' money is spent, are working or not."