New Center to seek novel solutions to South Africa’s education crisis
Educators in South Africa have welcomed a new education hub launching at the African Education Week in Sandton. The Center for Education Innovations – South Africa (CEI-SA) is one of three global education hubs that are working to increase access to quality, affordable and equitable education for the world’s poor by showcasing and amplifying non-state programmes – initiatives implemented by NGOs, social enterprises, government partnerships and private companies – that have the potential to drive learning in poor communities.
Backed by the Results for Development Institute (R4D) with funding from the UK government, CEI South Africa will be housed in the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the UCT Graduate School of Business and will run in partnership with BRIDGE, an established and well-respected local education NGO.
The Center will set out to plug an information gap in the South African education system. Currently, too little data exists on the size, scope, and quality of educational services offered by the non-state sector and this is preventing the country from capitalising on the potential impact of such initiatives in meeting national education priorities.
“Besides poor data quality and massive underreporting, there is also insufficient knowledge on appropriate public policies towards non-state education and training,” said Nicholas Burnett, R4D Managing Director. “In some cases, attitudes are still deeply ideological – arguing against any non-state education provision. In order to promote quality education for the poor, the focus must be grounded in evidence and shift to critical issues such as how to harness and improve non-state provision for underserved populations such as girls, out-of-school youth, the disabled, ethnic minorities and illiterate adults.”
According to Dr Francois Bonnici, Director of the Bertha Centre, providing access for the poor to quality education and training is a major challenge for developing economies, where public sector mechanisms such as schools and universities struggle with financial and administrative pressures in meeting the overwhelming demand.
“Globally it is the private and non-governmental sectors, often in partnership with governments, that lead the way in innovation in the sector,” he says. “South Africa is a fascinating case when it comes to education. Due to the huge challenges in education in the country, many programmes have sprung up to fill the gap and are doing very innovative work.”
CEI employs a three-pronged approach: firstly identifying up-to-date information about non-state programmes with the potential to improve the way education systems operate for the poor; analysing the programmes to find out what makes them successful; and finally connecting them to funders to help facilitate the scale-up of successful models.
Bonnici says this is one of the reasons the initiative is so important. “South Africa has a bustling education ecosystem but when donors and corporates decide to invest in education development they often don’t know where to invest and what programme they should fund,” he says.
The core of CEI is an online platform, containing an innovations database of programmes, a research and evidence library with information on global education and a funders’ platform for organisations supporting non-state education efforts around the world.
Emma van der Vliet, coordinator of CEI-South Africa, believes the platform will be ideal for showcasing South African innovations. “This initiative could assist in finding answers and scaling effective interventions in education in the country, because by empowering those organisations and programmes that are already actively improving access to quality education, we are enhancing the possibilities that exist and increasing the impact.”
