The Kagiso Trust and Shanduka Foundation announced a groundbreaking partnership in education, which will have a significant impact on the quality of learning at more than 400 Free State schools.
Kagiso Trust, one of South Africa’s biggest non-profit organisations supporting education, and Shanduka Foundation, a vehicle for Shanduka Group's social investment initiatives, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Free State department of education.
The MOU was signed by Free State MEC for Education Tate Makgoe, Kagiso Trust chairperson Dean Zwo Nevhutalu, and Shanduka Foundation chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa. The signing was witnessed by minister of basic education, Angie Motshekga.
Each organisation has committed to spending R100 million over five years – a spend that will be matched by the Free State department of education. This will see an investment of R400m that will benefit over 400 schools in the Fezile Dabi District and in Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu in the Motheo District.
As the largest private sector intervention in education in South Africa, the partnership will see the implementation of a new model for whole school development. This new model brings together the successful approaches developed by the Kagiso Trust’s Beyers Naude School Development Programme (BNSDP) and Shanduka’s Adopt-a-School Foundation. The intention is that this model will be replicated across other districts and provinces in future.
At the signing event, Nevhutalu said: “We formed this partnership because we found people whose passion and heart are where ours are – in education. We are aware of the challenges of our government’s leadership in education and therefore we need mobilisation of society to make this work.”
Shanduka Foundation and Kagiso Trust will combine their resources, knowledge and best-practice whole school development models to make a sustainable difference. By collaborating with the Free State department of education, the partners will harness the best that each has to offer and maximise the impact on schools. Already, Kagiso Trust has been able to leverage government funds in a more meaningful way and assist government to spend its funds more efficiently in the right areas.
Kagiso Trust already has a successful partnership with government, which in 2012 resulted in an average 81% pass rate by BNSDP Grade 12 learners, including 30% bachelor passes and 44% diploma passes.
Shanduka’s Adopt-a -School Foundation has 167 schools under adoption across the country, and in 2012 started working in Lesotho and Mozambique.
“We're aiming at contributing to the strengthening of the delivery of education in our country," Ramaphosa said. He added: “We hope that past the launch and the execution of our plans, we can draw more partners and entities, so that we can spread our work to other parts of the country. We’ll be walking with government and not riding their coat tails in this partnership where performance will be the order of the day. It is a time for the education department to trust us, match us and work with us to be examples to other organisations and entities to copy.”
MEC Makgoe expressed, “We are privileged as the Free State to be the first beneficiary of this partnership. We will ensure a good return on this investment.”
Minister Motshekga said the initiative showed that education is truly becoming a societal issue. “It is a vital cog in the transformation of education,” she said.
