Looking at two smaller-scale systemic school improvement projects implemented in selected district circuits in the North West and Eastern Cape by partnerships between government, JET Education Services, and private sector organisations, this book captures and reflects on the experiences of the practitioners involved. The Systemic School Improvement Model developed by JET to address an identified range of interconnected challenges at district, school, classroom and household level, is made up of seven components. In reflecting on what worked and what did not in the implementation of these different components, the different chapters set out some of the practical lessons learnt, which could be used to improve the design and implementation of similar education improvement projects. Many of the lessons in this field that remain under-recorded to date relate to the step-by-step processes followed, the relationship dynamics encountered at different levels of the education system, and the local realities confronting schools and districts in South Africa’s rural areas. Drawing on field data that is often not available to researchers, the book endeavours to address this gap and record these lessons. It is not intended to provide an academic review of the systemic school improvement projects. It is presented rather to offer other development practitioners working to improve the quality of education in South African schools, an understanding of the some of the real practical and logistical challenges that arise and how these may be resolved to take further school improvement projects forward at a wider district, provincial and national scale.

South Africa is under-capitalising on its rich ways of doing business. One such way, the focus of this book, is collaboration. The collaboration approach should be promoted to the same extent that the Japanese have entrenched and exported their 'small incremental improvement' Kaizen approach.

There are many such underexplored indigenous ways of doing business in Africa. Where improvement is required in relation to development and organisational performance, the need is not so much building new capacities as discovering and implementing more strategic and effective utilisation of existing indigenous ones. And there is no need to cringe when African culture is used to inform science.

This book uses history, interviews and documentary evidence from South Africa to weave together a story, arguments and lessons about collaboration.