Tackling the education monster, one school at a time

On February 24th Partners for Possibility will be celebrating their 600^th partnership at a function in Cape Town.

Who are they, and what partnerships am I talking about, I hear you ask? I’ll tell you, and this time it’s worth more than just two cents.

Think of the biggest, hairiest and ugliest monster standing between us and a brighter future and it has to be the dismal state of basic education in the country.

According to a number of international rankings, South Africa lies close to - if not at the very bottom -  of the ladder when it comes to the quality of maths and science teaching, and those are just the subjects that they like to rank.

A shocking statistic you keep on hearing is that, of the 25 000-odd schools in the country, only 5 000 are functional. That includes the private and former model C schools, and the bar for functionality is not set very high.

All manner of evil flows from there – unemployment, unemployability due to inappropriate skills, poverty and crime. It’s a perpetuation of the inequalities engendered by the evils of the past. And the dire state of education persists despite basic education being the biggest line item in the national budget and despite the millions spent by well-meaning corporations on educational aid and developmental programmes.

Faced with all of this, Dr Louise van Rhyn decided six years ago, that she should do something about it and, being a leadership development expert, that’s where she began. She wondered if empowering the principals of those struggling schools to become effective leaders wouldn’t galvanise the teachers, and encourage communities to become involved in the education of their children. And couldn’t we, one school at a time, begin to solve the problem?

The idea she came up with was to tap into the expertise of business leaders, and the willingness of businesses to make a contribution. Let’s partner a business leader with a school principal, she thought. Together they could tackle the problems facing the school, using the one’s business acumen and the other’s passion for teaching children. The school would benefit and both would learn a hell of a lot from the experience – even more if the process was structured to ensure meaningful engagement, between the partners themselves, and other partnerships in a similar position.

So, she tried it out, using herself as the pilot project. She began working with the principal of a primary school in Grassy Park Cape Town, and they are still together six years on.

That was Partners for Possibility partnership number one. Last week in Joburg they announced number 500 and in fortnight’s time in Cape Town they will be celebrating number 600. There have been some hiccups, of course, but the success stories coming out of those liaisons are staggering.

Giving the principals of schools that could be counted among the 20 000 dysfunctional institutions the opportunity to show that they can be every bit as effective as leaders as those on the other side of the divide has been the greatest achievement of the programme.

And it’s being done by giving them a thinking partner who will listen to them; offer, and ask for, advice; and walk beside them on their journey.

That there are now 600 of those partnerships out there now, and the number is growing, is cause for celebration. The hairy monster’s still there, but people are beginning to stand up to him.

To find out more visit http://www.pfp4sa.org