Winner — Education Award: De Beers Fund
De Beers Consolidated Mines, like many companies in South Africa, has recognised that urgent intervention is needed if the country is to meet its growing skills requirement — especially for companies that need skilled engineers and other science-based professionals.
Education is the largest single focus of its corporate social investment (CSI) programme, the De Beers Fund, totalling 39% of its spend. Since 1998 the fund has spent R143.2-million on a range of educational initiatives.
Jane Roach, the CSI education specialist at Tshikululu Social Investments, the management agency handling the De Beers Fund, says the skills shortage is not entirely to blame on the curriculum.
“There has just been so much change. We need teachers who are paid well, are able to adapt and update the curriculum and who are themselves able to meet the standards required to fulfil the new skills set required in the economy,” she says.
Under the banner, “From bricks to mortarboard”, the fund supports schools infrastructure devel opment, teacher capacity building, early childhood and life skills development and tertiary education.
It keeps a keen focus on improving the maths and science skills required to produce professionals. Roach says the standards in maths and science education have slipped and points again to the dearth of teaching skills.
“There has been a significant lowering of the bar. We are fostering a culture of mediocrity,” she says. “We should be emulating countries like Korea that pay learner teachers during their studies to attract the best possible skills into the teaching profession.
“We can also look to Japan and some of the Scandinavian countries where only the top 5% of matriculants are allowed to study to become teachers.”
Fund initiatives to raise the bar in maths and science include establishing the Bokamoso Science and Technology Centre, a maths “hub” and supplementary educat ion programmes in the Northern Cape.
The fund tends to focus on hometown mining communities to build infrastructure that benefits those living close to the mines and to inject resources into under-funded rural areas. It invests a substantial portion of its spend on capital projects, building and upgrading facilities.
An innovative matched-funding partnership with the departments of education has seen the upgrading of facilities at schools in areas of Limpopo that provide labour for the mines. Other educational initiatives include a Saturday school programme, bursary funding and youth initiatives that focus on life skills.
The Investing in the Future judges were impressed that, despite the parent company reporting a R363-million loss for the 2009-2010 financial year, its CSI spend remained at R50- million in the same period. “The fund’s education focus has a high degree of sustainability and a good impact in the rural areas, despite the recent shrinkage of the company,” they said.