Donor funding is good, but expertise is invaluable

education in other countries. Here, the universities remain frustrated, I think, by the fact that they and the business community are mostly mutually inaccessible.

Some companies give active support to tertiary institutions, but as valuable as donor funding is, the essence of the partnerships required is more than the exchange of a cheque. It requires the active participation by people from both sectors to better understand where the synergies lie and how these may be exploited to the benefit of all parties.

If engineering graduates are thought not to measure up to previous standards, this is not a challenge for the faculty alone. The market for graduate engineers must ensure that its requirements are articulated and supported to achieve the necessary standards offered.

I am aware that the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants, for example, is very proactive in working with accounting faculties to ensure the maintenance of high standards and to promote entry into the profession of previously disadvantaged people. I sense that this relationship may be envied by the head of UKZN’s Graduate School of Business and leaders of other important academic disciplines in our tertiary sector.

If there is a greater need for partnership in the tertiary sphere, it is surely much more of a priority as far as school education is concerned. There is a fundamental obstacle to the development of more collaborative approaches to educational problems, and that is that almost all decision-makers in this country, whether in the private or public sector, have no intimate knowledge of the educational crisis.

Their children are educated in privileged schools where such concerns as there may be are related almost exclusively to the welfare and progress of their own children. In companies with better-developed consciences about the education of the poor, a number of corporate social investment projects have been funded, many at extensive cost, throughout the country.

Indeed, the National Business Initiative found the quantum to be well in excess of a billion rand. But the donors sensed in time that, mostly, their money was not yielding a positive outcome. This was partly because companies determined their own support without sharing information about what intervention worked better than another.

For a time, the installation of computers was popular, but it became apparent in some, if not all, cases that a classroom of computers was not much use on its own. In Pietermaritzburg I attended launch functions of computer facilities on two occasions in the same venue within three years.

The first batch were pinched because inadequate attention had been given to how the centre would be managed and, indeed, whether it would bring meaningful benefit to the community.

Surely we have realised by now that problems are not solved by the simple expedient of throwing money at them. We also know that they cannot be solved without money, but the most important aspect is for projects or programmes to be developed in partnership, where all parties understand what the outcomes need to be and what processes have to be followed to ensure these are realised.

More valuable than money in this are experience, expertise and time. And there is a programme ready and waiting for people with knowledge and skills to mentor school principals, many of whom are equally frustrated by the state of their schools.

This project is the passion of Louise van Rhyn and her organisation, called Symphonia. It strives to put the school at the centre of the community. It’s worth looking into by those who have real concern and believe in partnership. Go to www.symphonia.net for more.