Thirty years of democracy have done little to improve the status of South Africa’s education system, one of the lowest performing and most unequal in the world.
South Africa allocates 20% of its government expenditure to basic education. In its 2023 report, South Africa’s failing education system, the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE), likens this budget to that of high-performing Scandinavian countries but with alarmingly poor outcomes. South Africa is identified as the single biggest learning underperformer relative to gross domestic product per capita among low- and middle-income countries. This stark inefficiency in translating spending into learning outcomes has led experts to describe the situation as equivalent to “a whole generation of schooling loss”.
It was in the face of this crisis that the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) was established as a nonprofit organisation (NPO) in 2013. The collaboration was established to serve as an implementation instrument for the Education Collaboration Framework (ECF), also launched in 2013. The ECF’s goal is to improve the coordination of civil society and business initiatives aimed at improving the quality of education. It aims to integrate these with the government’s reform agenda and increase their effectiveness and value.
The primary goal of this collaborative effort is to implement recommendations from the National Development Plan’s (NDP) education chapter and support national education priorities. The NDP aims to ensure that 90% of learners pass mathematics, science and languages with at least 50% by 2030.
The collaborative model underpinning NECT distinguishes it from previous education sector initiatives. Key elements of the collaboration include:
- Building on past improvements driven by various sectors
- Developing programmes directly aligned with the NDP goals
- Integrating programmes into government planning
- Combining government resources with private investments and social capital
- Gaining endorsement from all teacher unions
- Cultivating a culture of accountability.
NECT’s board of trustees includes representatives from the government, labour, private sector and civil society. A secretariat, comprising between 100 and 150 staff members, fulfil the NECT’s task of mobilising national capacity to support the government in achieving education improvements.
The diverse perspectives of the board and the consultative, strategic and deliberate thinking this enables inspired the introduction of NECT’s dialogue programme, Education DialogueSA. This programme of national policy discussion centres around the advocacy dialogue group which meets three times a year.
District steering committees (DSCs) secure district-level representation of all the necessary stakeholders in the NECT process. A key component of NECT’s District Improvement Programme (DIP), the DSCs operate across eight districts. Each is a multistakeholder body of about 20 members representing diverse community interests, including local businesses, teachers’ unions, school governing bodies, local government, district education offices, religious organisations, youth groups and traditional leaders.
Aligned with the NDP’s vision of active citizenship and local accountability, DSCs serve to monitor DIP implementation and support district education offices in addressing community-based challenges.
By the end of its first year, NECT had brought together 143 organisations and 1 853 people, including labour unions, government departments, businesses, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), and volunteers. It has grown in capacity and reach since then, expanding its original focus on five core programmes to a wider range of initiatives. These include the DIP, curriculum development support and crisis response initiatives. In its first decade, NECT’s programmes reached over 25% of the country’s teachers and principals, and over 91% of schools across all provinces.
The trust’s mandate was extended beyond its initial 10-year lifespan in 2023. This was accompanied by a restructuring into three divisions: schools and district system, systems capacity support and advisory, and social compact building and partnerships.
Reflections on the first decade of the Trust in The NECT – A story of collaborations to improve education in South Africa identified several organisational success factors, including:
- Leadership continuity in the form of long-term commitment of the founding trustees, consistent executive leadership and a strong relationship with government.
- Strategic partnerships, sustained support from key foundations and an effective match-fund model with the government enabling the collaborative to mobilise nearly R2 billion over 10 years.
- Risks were effectively managed through inclusive stakeholder engagement that built social legitimacy, strong governance and programme implementation, diversified funding sources and balanced project-based funding with capacity building investments.
The report suggested that, going forward, NECT will look to maintain its rapid response capabilities to deal with emerging developments, guard against the over-extension of resources and focus, improve stakeholder communication strategies, address gender imbalances at management level and balance crisis response projects with its core education improvement mission.
As NECT moves beyond its initial decade, it is transitioning to a more systemic approach, focusing on district-level interventions to drive broader educational improvements. This shift reflects the organisation’s evolving understanding of how to effect sustainable change in South Africa’s complex education landscape.
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Source: The original version of this article was published in the Trialogue Business in Society Handbook 2024 (27th edition).
