Programmes

Our School Transformation Programmes in Action

School transformation programmes are at the heart of Billion Child’s mission. We work with underperforming schools, teachers and parents to improve learning outcomes for disadvantaged children.

The Global Schools Transformation System

GSTS is a proven, scalable school improvement system to enable ministries of education and donor partners to simultaneously transform hundreds or thousands of currently underperforming schools into high performance schools. 

Within 2-3 years student examination results soar due to the creation of a high performance culture at each school rapidly improving lesson preparation and teacher in-class performance. The System ensures no school is left behind. 

Demonstration of the Impact of GSTS 

Limpopo, South Africa – District-Led Transformation 

In 2022 BCF trained district and circuit managers to simultaneously train school leadership teams (SLTs) of 1,518 primary and secondary schools. 

2025 Highlights: 

• 20% of schools achieved 100% matriculation pass rates
• 19% of schools achieved 95%–99.9% matriculation pass rates
• 76% of learners gained a university or TVET college admission matriculation 
• Significant improvement in Grade 4 reading with comprehension

This table demonstrates the ability of GSTS to kickstart academic results from the year of training. 

 Source: South African Department of Basic Education (excludes students progressed due to age)

Impact in Lesotho 

The Lesotho Ministry of Education and Training in its report to UNICEF, who funded the implementation of GSTS during 2016, stated (verbatim): 

1. This Programme was a significant success.
2. The role of the Inspector has significantly changed from being a compliance officer to that of becoming an Excellence Leader who empowers principals to reinvent their schools to become centres of excellence.
3. This programme does not focus on improving academic outcomes; it focuses on changing the culture of each school to become a centre of excellence. The excellent results follow.
4. Principals acquired the skills to make progress on the journey to reinvent their schools as centres of excellence and in so doing inspired the staff to improve the culture of effective teaching and effective learning.
5. The pass rate at under-performing schools (which had in 2015 enjoyed less than 80% pass rates) on average increased their pass rates by 54% while the pass rate of control group of schools declined by 7% indicating an overall improvement of 61% compared to the control schools.
6. The number of schools gaining 100% pass rates increased from 3 schools to 7 schools.

Impact in South Africa since 2011 

The arrows in the table below demonstrate the ability of GSTS to kickstart academic results from the year of training. Also that 95% of the improvement in academic outcomes at each school are achieved within three years. 

The table presents the average percentage of students in each province achieving the four categories of matriculation pass (Total), as well as the percentage qualifying for university or TVET college admission from the year of training (Uni + TVET). 

Source: South African Department of Basic Education (excludes students progressed due to age).

Parent Engagement Synergy: 

GSTS can be implemented alongside the BCF National Parenting Skills Programme which trains parents in the skills required to 

• Confidently parent self-reliant children 
• Support learning, reading and studying at home 
• increase their engagement with each school. 

The programme is delivered by teachers at each school. 

Why International Donors Should Commission GSTS 

1. Equity ensured – no school left behind: The BCF School Implementation Tracker Reporting System (SITRSS) monitoring guarantees every school, including the most disadvantaged and remote schools receive support. 
2. Rapid, measurable impact: 95% of gains are typically achieved within 2–3 years. 
3. Full education system mobilisation: GSTS engages national, district and school leadership teams to embed accountability and leadership practices at scale. 
4. Sustainable improvements: Schools maintain strategies, routines and leadership practices long-term, creating permanent high-performance culture. 
5. Scalable: National or district teams cascade training to hundreds or thousands of schools simultaneously. 
6. Proven system: GSTS has successfully kickstarted improvements at scale in South Africa and Lesotho since 2011. 
7. Teacher engagement & culture change: Teachers are inspired, supported, and held accountable, improving lesson preparation, classroom performance, and learner outcomes. 
8. Adaptable to local contexts & integration-friendly: GSTS can be tailored to local contexts and integrated with existing donor or national programmes 
9. Ownership of the system: Ministries fully own all tools, processes, and monitoring systems, ensuring long-term sustainability and adaptability. 
10. Cost-effective: Less than USD 240 per school for nationwide implementation anywhere in the world. 

How the System Works

• BCF trains national managers, who then train provincial/district managers.
• District managers train School Leadership Teams (SLTs), monitor implementation, and provide remedial coaching using the BCF School Implementation Tracker Reporting system to ensure no school is left behind. 
• SLTs create an inspirational and professional school culture ensuring teachers feel supported while being held accountable. 
• Teachers improve lesson preparation, knowledge, skills and in-class performance. 
• High-performance practices are embedded across the entire education system from national and district managers to each school, creating momentum, accountability and measurable, sustained improvements in student outcomes. 

Why Donors Trust GSTS 

• Rapid Impact – 2–3 year gains. 
• Scalable – Thousands of schools at once. 
• Sustainable – Early monitoring builds momentum, after which high-performance routines and habits become embedded. Once results improve, school leaders, teachers and parents actively resist regression and insist on continued progress. 
• Measurable & Accountable – Real-time SITRS tracking ensures transparency. 
• Cost-Effective – Less than USD 240 per school anywhere in the world. 
• Teacher Engagement & Culture Change – Teachers are inspired to join the GSTS Crusade at their school, improving lesson preparation and in-class impact. 
• Integration-Friendly – Complements existing programmes and adapts to local contexts. 

Donors can confidently invest in a system that transforms schools at scale, strengthens education systems and delivers measurable outcomes quickly. 

Take Action: Partner with BCF 

Empower education departments to permanently transform all their schools into high performance schools within 2-3 years. 

Email: alan@billionchild.org | Phone: +27 79 225 4732

THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS STRATEGIC PLANNING PROGRAMME

Hundreds of school leadership teams have developed robust strategic plans unique to the circumstances of their school.

Principals report that they have

• developed a highly successful school
• fostered a culture of empowerment and collaboration among academic staff
• improved marks in all grades
• developed high performing teams throughout their school
• created a high performance culture at their school
• mobilised and built relationships between all stakeholders – school leadership team, teachers, students, parents , school governing body, community leaders
• provided each learner with the opportunity to become a well-rounded individual who will succeed in the world
• effectively developed the reputation and image of their school.

Discover what principals say about the progress they have achieved. click here.

NATIONAL PRACTICAL PARENTING SKILLS PROGRAMMES

This Programme is designed to train teachers, other professionals and church and community leaders how to conduct parenting skills training workshops which they present annually in their local language. To date the Programme has been presented in six languages to over 270,000 parents.

Outcomes of this Programme

• Parents learn the practical parenting skills they need to raise their children to be self-reliant, confident individuals
• Parents become involved in in their communities through the establishment of Community Parent Forums
• Parents become actively involved in many aspects of their children’s education including the monitoring of reading and homework each day and talking up education in the home.
• A reduction in callouts by police to family violence and violence against women and children.
• Parents enjoy being parents 
• Parents report the creation of harmonious cohesive homes.
• Pastors and teachers who facilitate this programme become informed authorities on practical parenting skills in their communities.
• New parents generally adopt the parenting methodologies used by their parents, or do the opposite. When children of the parents trained themselves become parents, they will in all probability deploy the same cutting-edge practical parenting skills appropriate for the 21st century used by their parents. The gains made by this intervention are therefore sustainable from generation to generation.

Each parent attends three two-hour workshops every year from the birth of their first child until their children have left school.

BCF encourages each school to form a Community Parenting Forum
Initiatives launched by Community Parenting forums include:

• The creation of child-safe, child-friendly and supportive environments 
• Walking taxis’ to ensure children can commute to and from school safely
• Launching drug rehabilitation initiatives for youth in their community
• Raising funds for a range of new projects and facilities to create a child safe community
• Launching career counselling programmes
• Launching cultural and sporting programmes
• Bringing successful people who previously lived in the community to provide role models and tell success stories to inspire people to strive for a better life
• Persuading food chain stores to donate soon to be out of date food products to enable community members to provide daily feeding programmes for indigent families and child-headed homes
• Providing children who live in informal housing with a venue with electric light such as a church where they can complete their homework after school hours.
• Launching an Angel Parenting Organisation where abandoned children and children from child-headed homes are able to visit their Angel Parents every afternoon to discuss health, learning and social challenges including bullying they are experiencing, to report on their day at school, to report on successes they have enjoyed during the day, on homework completion, and importantly to experience an adult praising them when they achieve.
• Establishing a Council of Elders to assist children who want to escape being a gang member, stop abusing drugs and smoking, satanism and being a child prostitute.

Discover what a teacher says about this programme – click here.

See teachers delivering this Programme – with passion in Sesotho, isiXhosa and Afrikaans.

THE BCF PROGRAMME TO INSPIRE LEARNERS TO SEIZE EDUCATION

Most principals of under-performing schools report their greatest challenge is the lack of self-motivation of the learners, that they sit through school because they have to, pay little attention to homework and cannot wait to escape at the end of the day to their after-school social activities.

BCF is currently developing this programme which makes no attempt to tell learners why they need an education but rather to discover for themselves why education is important to them personally.

It relies on 20 minute interventions every month which involve each learner in activities in which they ultimately discover for example that they will need mathematics to become an apprentice motor mechanic, English to gain a salary sufficient to buy the kind of car which they hope to drive when they leave school, etc.

THE BCF SCHOOLS AND HOSTEL SAFETY PLANNING AND EVACUATION PROGRAMME

BCF trains personnel from schools to develop their school’s unique school and hostel safety plan. During training evacuation of schools and school hostels is practiced.