Government, business partner to improve education

Friday, February 7, 2014

Pretoria – Business and government have committed almost R600 million to help improve the delivery of education in the country.

The public-private partnership – dubbed the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) – is an alliance between business, labour, civil society and government. It is the first large-scale initiative in terms of the National Development Plan (NDP), which calls for collaboration to address challenges in the country’s education system.

The NECT, which is backed by the Department of Basic Education, was launched last year by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.

Under its auspices, certain initiatives have been taken. Notable among them is the improvement of intra-governmental collaboration, which has seen the Post Office deliver textbooks to schools where there had previously been challenges. The Department of Correctional Services has also enlisted offenders to do repair work at damaged school buildings.

Since its launch, the NECT has completed the profiling of almost 3 500 schools in eight districts, including rural and urban, and functional and dysfunctional schools across six provinces.

Interventions will focus on quality teaching, a call for courageous and effective leadership, improving government’s capacity to deliver, creating a safe environment, books and infrastructure, community and parent involvement and student support and wellbeing. – SAnews.gov.za