TEACH South Africa honours Cyril Ramaphosa and Paul Harris

South African business leaders Cyril Ramaphosa and Paul Harris were presented with Private Sector Heroes in Education awards at TEACH South Africa’s honorary dinner on October 6, 2009, held at the Sandton Sun in Johannesburg, Gauteng.

Presenting the inaugural awards, Thiru Pillay, TEACH South Africa board member and Deloitte’s head of strategy, said that leadership in education awards would be presented annually from now on in “recognition of the influence of an individual from the private sector who was an example in terms of change and progress in education”.

Harris is the CEO of FirstRand Limited and chairperson of the Penryn Trust and the Shalamuka Foundation, the latter is a broad-based BEE fund established solely to raise funds for the long-term sustainability and replication of Penreach. The Penryn Trust aims to improve the standard of teaching in historically disadvantaged schools through the Penreach programme, established in 1994.  In appreciation of her hard work and dedication to the mission at Penreach, Harris called Penreach CEO Phutumile Dumisa onto the stage to accept the award with him.

Currently the largest school-based outreach programme in Africa, Penreach has trained approximately 4000 educators in nearly 1000 schools, reaching approximately 350 000 learners.

Accepting the award, Harris thanked Dumisa for all her hard work, saying that it would not have been possible without her.

The Adopt-a-School Foundation is similar to the Penreach programme in that it assists underprivileged schools by improving their infrastructure and facilities. The foundation was founded in by Ramaphosa in 2001 after individuals became concerned about the state of many educational facilities in South Africa, and is now the major CSI project of The Shanduka Group, a leading black-owned and managed investment holding company of which Ramaphosa is currently the CEO.

“According to the Schools’ Needs Register, South Africa has about 28 000 schools and 21 000 of these have buildings and infrastructural facilities that are in an unsatisfactory condition,” says the foundation’s website. “[Fifty percent] of our schools have no electricity, over 9 000 schools have no access to telecommunications, 30% have no water and 10% have no sanitation. There is no science laboratory in two thirds of schools and only one school in five has a library ... Against this background in 2001 a group of concerned individuals initiated a project aimed at assisting needy schools to improve their infrastructure and facilities. These schools were virtually ‘adopted’ and from this sprang the establishment of Adopt-a-School Foundation, which in turn has led to a growing ‘family of adopters’.”

Accepting the award on Ramaphosa’s behalf was Shanduka Energy Managing Director Phuti Malabie, who said it was an honour to receive the award on Ramaphosa’s behalf, as education was Ramaphosa’s real passion.

Malabie said that Ramaphosa believes that partnerships between business and government were crucial, before hailing the role of the TEACH Ambassadors.

The awards highlighted the need for continued partnerships between the private sector, government and initiatives such as TEACH South Africa, in order to address the challenges facing the educational sector in South Africa.