- In January 2011, few students in the matriculation class at schools in the rural Fezile Dabi education district in South Africa expected to pass because only 48% of the students who wrote in 2010 had gained a basic school leavers matriculation pass.
- But in 2011 things changed – permanently.
- At the end of the 2011 academic year 75% passed!!
- Amazingly, in 2022, 78% who wrote gained a university or technical university admission matriculation pass!!
What happened
- In 2011 school leadership teams from underperforming schools in this education district attended the Billion Child Foundation International Schools Centre of Excellence Programme
- School leadership teams learnt how to mobilise and inspire teachers, students, parents and school communities to proudly work as a cohesive team to develop a culture of effective teaching and effective learning with teachers and parents proudly playing a key role in the education of each child.
- Pride, ownership and accountability are the keys.
- When teachers feel they are part of something bigger than themselves they prepare lessons more thoroughly and present in the classroom more effectively.
- Every month, a well-trained cohort of middle managers discuss with each teacher their role in transforming their classroom into a centre of excellence. Then they develop a written agreement on the teacher’s objectives for the month and the training, coaching and support to be provided in the months to come. Teachers report feeling supported and that they are making a difference to the lives of their students.
- Since 2011, this programme has potentially impacted on the lives of 4 million children in South Africa and Lesotho and has empowered school leadership teams of thousands of schools to begin their journeys to become high performing schools.
- During 2022, BCF trained 3 District Directors and 60 Circuit Managers how to transform 1,518 schools simultaneously.
- The programme is commissioned by the heads of national or provincial departments of education, driven by district directors, implemented by school leadership teams and benefits teachers and students.
Why this is important
- Our global population is rapidly evolving into two worlds – those with education, jobs, money and a future for themselves and their children, and those with little education, no jobs and zero prospects. And these people are increasingly hungry, angry and mobile.
- We just don’t have time to turnaround one school at a time.
- We don’t even have time to turn around 20 or even 100 schools simultaneously.
- We need to turn thousands of schools around the world into centres of excellence every year.
- To the best of our knowledge, only the Billion Child Foundation has a proven, replicable, scalable and cost-effective programme to set thousands of schools on the road to excellence simultaneously.
What you can do to transform schools in every country
- Contact local politicians or the district or provincial office of your department of education and inform them that there is a silver bullet which will enable them to significantly eradicate underperforming schools simultaneously.
- Contact the heads of international or national companies and ask them to consider becoming sponsors of education transformation in their country.
- If you would like to donate to BCF please click here.