Our general goals, in no particular order are: 1), to get all stakeholders to discuss the challenges South African education faces, and 2), to create opportunities for those stakeholders to meet, learn, and collaborate in finding ways to address those challenges, and 3), create opportunities to highlight successes and encourage appreciation and positive feedback.

When we first stated our work with curriculum advisors in 2006 we discovered that:

1. The challenge South Africa faces in education is a deeply systemic problem with a wide range of stakeholders who need to be able to collaborate powerfully in thinking systemically about what they wanted to create and how best to do it.
2. Many people feel overwhelmed by the challenges and changes. Working in education is very challenging and people are not respected, rewarded and recognized enough for their contributions.
3. There is no blueprint for success. Stakeholders need to learn their way into the future together. A culture of collaborative learning needs to be encouraged rather than the defensive and divisive blame-finding that has become established in many areas.
4. There are many deeply intentional and passionate people who are doing incredible work, but who are getting very little appreciation for their effort and achievements. Without appropriate positive feedback and appreciation, morale and motivation will continue to devolve in to hopelessness, anger and helplessness.

We also learned that, generally, people in South Africa are passionate about education, and no matter where they work in the system, they want to get together to discuss, learn and share together. Over the past two years SACATS’s delegate base has increasing included more and more people who are not curriculum advisors.

Based on these insights, what we wanted to create then, for curriculum advisors and others involved in teacher support, and which we are building on now for other stakeholders is:

• A unique experience that allows them to focus both on their particular context , niche and needs, as well as, enable them to see the system as a whole and to collaborate across functions and departments and sectors.
• An enriching and enlivening process that firstly engages delegates intellectually with world class content, secondly, reopens their hearts to their passion by reminding and reconnecting them with their purpose in education and thirdly, improves their ability to work collaboratively and more effectively by giving them the opportunity to develop new skills and relationships.

South Africa’s education system is complex, messy and dynamic. The Education Action Scorecard Project provides a process and method to make sense of it all and to be clear and confident about strategy and its implementation..

The Education Action Scorecard Project aims to encourage and enable stakeholders from government, labour, business and civil society to collaborate in building and managing a range of Education Action Scorecards that effectively:

1. Define a guiding set of clear collective objectives.

2. Show how key elements interact and interrelate with each other to form a system that needs to be managed as a whole.

3. Highlight the gaps between what needs to be managed and what is currently being managed.

4. Enable stakeholders to prioritise and/or design interventions that together form a coherent strategy that will actually improve desirable results.

5. Focus management energy and resources and makes it possible to measure progress, or lack thereof, in areas that are critical for success.

A good example of the process and the outcomes can be downloaded here: REPORTBACK- THE EDUCATION ACTION SCORECARD INITIATIVE – EDUCATION WEEK 2010

This report-back was prepared to give stakeholders who participated in the Education Week 2010 initiative feedback  about how their data and information was used and the outcome of their contributions.

We hope this document will:

• Carify the value of this simple, collaborative, non competitive approach to  consensual strategic planning, monitoring and evaluation.

• Help leaders and managers imagine the impact and value of building Education Action Scorecards at all levels of South Africa’s education system.

• Inspire all stakeholders to take the next steps towards  building an Education Action Scorecard of their own.

The Partners

The Education Action Scorecard Project is a joint partnership between Rooken Podesta of the Field Education and Dylan Wray of Shikaya and Dr Julian Day, of Collaborative Projects.

Dylan Wray is the Director of Shikaya, a non-profit organisation with a vision of a South Africa in which every learner is inspired through enthusiastic, committed and professionally prepared teachers to become responsible citizens in our democracy, valuing diversity, human rights and peace.

Rooken Podesta works with organisational leaders, managers, change agents and team builders who need to lead collaboratively in order to get things done, and who want to develop their team or group’s ability to collaborate effectively.

 Julian Day specialises in facilitating organisational problem solving, complex projects and project crisis turnaround. He has developed practical action learning approaches to facilitate collaboration, group sense-making and sound intervention design in complex situations. He is committed to the growth and development of people so that they can manage the complexities of their work and lives creatively.