The International Schools Centre of Excellence Programme is a programme which empowers district management of Ministries of Education to train principals of each school in their district to transform their school into a centre of excellence.
Between January and March 2020 the first round of training of 1,020 principals in the Capricorn North, Vhembe East and Vhembe West education districts in the Limpopo province of South Africa was completed with training due for completion in June 2020.
Sadly, on the 23 March 2020 the programme was suspended due to Covid regulations.
The three District Directors have requested BCF to resume the training programme mid-January 2022.
Much work has been done during the hiatus caused by the Covid pandemic:
- Circuit Managers have ensured that each principal has implemented his/her School’s Centre of Excellence Strategic Plan, and implemented leadership skills which provide them with the skills to successfully win the commitment of teachers, learners, parents and the community to proudly play their role in transforming schools into centres of excellence.
- Principals who have been appointed since the first round of training have attended the first round of training as part of their induction.
The good news is that District Directors are expecting an improvement of 2021 year end academic results at many schools despite the hiatus in training and all the disruptions caused by the pandemic.
BCF commends the three District Directors for keeping their feet on the pedal despite all the challenges they faced in 2020 and 2021.
The SA Schools Centre of Excellence Programme is, to the best of our knowledge, the first scalable programme capable of transforming every school in every country into a centre of excellence, district by district.
BCF and the three District Directors are grateful to Worley Ltd (South Africa) which funded the Programme in these three districts.