Empowering our school principals to lead: Working together to create #TheFutureWeWant

Empowering our school principals to lead: Working together to create #TheFutureWeWant
Komala Pillay, Programme Director for PfP

Partners for Possibility’s new #TheFutureWeWant campaign aims to reach 600 under-resourced schools within the next two years. If successful, the programme will realise its goal of impacting 2000 schools by 2022; 10% of the under-resourced schools in South Africa.

Award-winning education and leadership non-profit, Symphonia for South Africa (SSA), has today launched the first leg of its nationwide #TheFutureWeWant campaign. SSA, which runs the Partners for Possibility programme (PfP), aims to ramp up much-needed support for principals from under-resourced schools in South Africa.

Komala Pillay, Programme Director for PfP, said: ‘’The recent release of the 2020 matric results has put the state of education in South Africa under the microscope once again. It has confirmed what we already know: pervasive, entrenched inequality still exists in our education system.

While it is important to acknowledge the strides we have made in education, as a society we must reflect deeply on what needs to be done to ensure that quality education is enjoyed by all our children. It is against this backdrop that we have launched our #TheFutureWeWant campaign.

Our aim with this campaign is to create a vision of what is possible in South Africa if we all come together. Research tells us that one of the main characteristics of successful schools is a capacitated and energized school principal. What if we galvanize South Africans from all walks of life to join this campaign in its mission to support principals in leading effectively?’’ said Pillay

Most school principals in South Africa face formidable leadership challenges including inadequate school infrastructure and learning resources, demotivated teachers, impoverished learners and communities who feel disenfranchised and disillusioned.
In contrast, South Africa has thousands of businesses and business leaders who have been well-equipped by their organisations to assume leadership positions and manage change.

‘’What if we bring the two together at scale? If we acknowledge that sound school leadership is a key driver of quality education, then tapping into the vast business expertise on offer appears to be the obvious solution. PfP does exactly this – partnering socially conscious business leaders with well-honed leadership skills, with school principals so that they can become agents of change and find their own solutions to the problems their schools face,’’ explains Pillay.

The fact that school principals have an impact on every single learner and teacher makes the development of this group of leaders both sustainable and cost-effective, with far-reaching impact. To date, over 1,400 school principals have been empowered through the PfP programme. The aim is to reach 2000 schools by the end of 2022.

‘’Rather than continuing to criticize, the PfP programme enables South Africans to step up, share their talents and work together in achieving the future that we all want.”

For more information about the Partners for Possibility programme, visit www.PfP4SA.org or contact Dorcas Dube, Marketing and Communications Manager: [email protected]