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2/9/2015 Business can effect change where it counts — in schools | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive
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2/9/2015 Business can effect change where it counts — in schools | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive
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Business can effect change where it counts — in schoolsby Bob Head, July 24 2014, 09:59
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2/9/2015 Business can effect change where it counts — in schools | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive
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Provinces, districts to be held to account on schoolingTale of two matrics tells how SA is slowly dyingWelfare grants help children walk tallerIF SOUTH Africa raised the performance of its public education system to the global average, national income would perhapsbe 25% higher. That would wipe out unemployment.
I have to sign off South Africa’s exports and imports numbers every month. South African exports are hitech. We will losecompetitiveness without an educated workforce.
There are five things that need fixing: education, health, jobs, corruption and crime. There is only one thing that fixes all ofthese — education.
On a microeconomic level, we also need good education. A successful business needs to have quality, invention, service,efficiency and so on. We need people with the ability to learn and develop, who can write simply and clearly, with goodcomprehension, numeracy, analytic skills, a sense of responsibility and common sense.
If schools do not provide the skills, business has to incur the costs to train people.
There are success stories. Barbara Creecy, now Gauteng’s finance MEC, did a stunning job as education MEC. But trying tocatch up with the legacy of poor education and the huge growth in Gauteng’s population is an uphill struggle. Creecy hasbeen, since 2009, resolute and committed to delivery.
Many articles similar to this one have been written before but we never seem to talk about how we can help fix the issues.Well, business can.
It can fund things such as the National Education Collaboration Trust, but that is not going to help for the next 10 years. Weneed action now. And we need more people on the pitch and not in the stands moaning.
There is a programme called Partners for Possibility (PfP), which is a nongovernmental organisation. I am just a participant.
The concept and execution are simple: a businessperson supports the single most important point of change — the schoolprincipal. Think about most principals and their stakeholders (education departments, workforces, pupils, challenging socialenvironment). PfP takes the principal and business partner away and trains them. I support the principal in their leadershiprole, then we work with the management team and then the teachers.
The most powerful leverage comes when we engage the community.
I am partnered with the most marvellous principal in Atteridgeville, called Jane. So what have Jane and I done in the lastyear?
The first thing is to give the principal confidence. That is easy. I have met about 80 school principals in Gauteng and CapeTown, and they are wonderful individuals — they just need to realise it. Imagine a job where few people say “well done”.
We work in the classroom.
We have had careers talks, attended by South African Revenue Service (SARS) employees — such as a web designer,market researcher, human resources practitioner, personal assistant and chief financial officer. My personal assistant spokein English but told her jokes in Zulu and everyone laughed and looked at me. I think I was the joke. The teachers weredelighted because previously it had been theory rather than bodies.
We have done economics. The textbook says the advantage of being an informal trader is that you don’t pay tax and thedisadvantage of being a formal business is you do pay tax. I work for the SARS. So I took a scan of that page and sent it tomy boss at the time, Pravin Gordhan, and said he might want to take this issue up with the minister of basic education.
We are about to do marketing and a proper marketer is coming (baked beans, chocolate, British Airways, etc).
And we have people coming in to teach cooking. My friend Musa makes the best pasta. He has the muscles.
We have done personalskills training with the management team and are about to do the same with teachers.
If Jane has a problem, we discuss it by phone or email. If I can’t help, there are people in SARS who can. We can deploysomeone to help and it takes only minutes.
We have done fundraising. We are approaching R100,000 but we are not stopping there.
2/9/2015 Business can effect change where it counts — in schools | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive
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I have brought about 20 British visitors to the school to work there for the day, and they have loved it and have sent money.Jane once deployed eight people seamlessly.
Every trip back to the UK, I bring English books. My mother, who is 85, is collecting them like crazy. We now have a libraryof 5,000 books and it grows by about 100kg every trip.
Four graduate trainees from SARS volunteered their evenings to do research into why parents were not helping with theirchildren’s education. We presented the results to teachers and they were amazed at how highly the school was regarded, athow welcoming parents found it to be and at the parents’ appreciation of education. The parents just did not know how tohelp.
One weekend, we had a fun day and parents listened to a lecture from me and Jane on what to do. There was a raffle forcoming and the prize was three double tickets for a flight over Atteridgeville, donated by my friend Pieter. More than 70% ofthe children’s parents were there.
We have an incentive for the three people (and their partners) who contribute most to the school (dinner, bed and breakfast atthe very lovely Orient Hotel).
It is not only about what the programme does for the school. It is also about what PfP does for me. I have never been soimmersed in a township community. You learn about that community. I now realise that the SARS password reset question(your favourite holiday location) is actually rather insulting.
I have taken people into the township who have never been there before. And they are doing more. The more this happens,the more rainbow the nation.
My influencing skills have definitely improved — I only have influence, no power. Imagine a business run only on influence. Iam more open to other points of view. How many businesses would have that?
My listening skills have grown because I am confronted by a very different set of circumstances.
You value other people and what they are trying to achieve, from the principal to the people protecting our vegetable plot.There are brilliant, talented and amazing people out there. And they are not me.
Confidence. I know I can make change happen in a totally alien environment. We had no idea what to do a year ago and nowwe have a million plans.
Of course, business has corporate social investment programmes. But it is people who change things — not money in theaccounts. Does business want people who listen, are open to other points of view, resort to persuasion before power,appreciate other people, understand what was an alien community and want to try to make South Africa a better place? Ofcourse it should.
Throwing money at the issue or having pet projects is not enough. Only people change things. Creecy wanted 1,400businesspeople in Gauteng to help in schools. South Africa needs another 20,000.
So Partners for Possibility is wonderful. It benefited me (and I am 55), it benefits education and it counts for black economicempowerment. It will benefit your business.
Get on the pitch and make South Africa what it should be — great.
• Head is the acting chief financial officer of SARS.
2/9/2015 Business can effect change where it counts — in schools | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive
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Brian777 199 days ago
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So true, that education is the single most important tool to lift anybody out of poverty and yet with SAwho spends about the largest % of it's annual budget on the education dept we still have this sorry
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2/9/2015 Business can effect change where it counts — in schools | Opinion & Analysis | BDlive
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Kathryn 199 days ago
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state of affairs in our schools. Mass education of teachers should be prioritised. A culture of exellance should be incourage fromgrade 1. Japan did it, China and the countries of the far east are doing it, but Africa seems to miss thepoint completely.
Goverment and black parents are failling their own sons and daughters and now business are askedto come and rescue that is there still to be rescued, but yet our goverment is hugely antibusiness.......?
What a brilliant way to get practical new business models, businesses and PEOPLEinvolved! View more
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