The Zenex Foundation's ten-year strategy 2006-2015


In late 2005, the Zenex Foundation's Board of Trustees developed a ten-year strategy to address persistent mathematics, science and language needs in schools. Based on experience, the strategy aligns the Zenex Foundation's work more closely with identified needs. At the same time, the strategy ensures that the Zenex Foundation's contribution is significant, unique and excellent.
The board recognises that, as a result of South Africa's apartheid legacy in education, there will invariably be a long lag period during which mathematics and science learners continue to perform more poorly than their counterparts in other countries. The absence of a good foundation in mathematics and English in the early FET years constrains young people who hope to pursue mathematics and science-based study and career pathways.
This problem features principally at two points in the school system: the Foundation Phase starting from Grade R, and the Further Education and Training phase leading to matriculation. In the Foundation Phase, the aim is to develop institutional learning in literacy and numeracy to provide the foundations for mathematics and the English language. In the Further Education and Training phase, attention has to focus on teachers as well as learners to ensure that sufficient learners exit the system with quality passes in mathematics, science and English.
In short, the Zenex Foundation articulates the problem to be addressed as follows:
Effective and researched responses to the teaching and learning of mathematics, science and English in South African schools.

Impact of research on strategic thinking
The ten-year strategy responds to the findings of the meta-evaluation6 described in the Evaluation section. The factors that appear to be contributing most to the low levels of learner performance present the Zenex Foundation, its service providers and other donors with strategic information that can inform the design of future interventions. The following table outlines how the Zenex Foundation has responded to the main findings of the research.

Strategic goals
The Zenex Foundation's ten-year strategy will focus energy and resources on developing long-term programmes to support education in mathematics, science and English. The strategic goals for the ten-year cycle – 2006 to 2015 – are three-fold:
1. The focus will switch from community-based early childhood development programmes to school-based early childhood development in Grade R and the rest of the Foundation Phase.
2. The focus for the Intermediate Phase will be on accredited teacher training in language and numeracy or language and mathematics, as well as continued professional development.
3. At the Further Education and Training phase, the Foundation remains committed to teacher training, and to producing sufficient learners with quality passes in mathematics, science and English.

Implementation of the strategy
The strategy for this ten-year cycle will be implemented in schools according to the following plan.

Foundation Phase
The Zenex Foundation's focus at this level aims to achieve the following:
• Grade R: Implement an early childhood development programme aimed to prepare young learners for school readiness.
• Grades 1 to 3: Strengthen home language, and provide foundations of numeracy and literacy.

Intermediate Phase
• Grades 4 to 6: Introduce English literacy and mathematics.
The focus at this level of the schooling system will be on accredited teacher training and continued professional development. The aim is to support 600 teachers in the Foundation and Intermediate Phases (Grades R to 6) to achieve certified competence in teaching language and numeracy or language and mathematics.

FET Phase
The Zenex Foundation's focus at this level of the schooling system will aim to:
• support 1 000 black learners to achieve matriculation passes in mathematics, science and English that will qualify them to enter higher education in these streams
• support 400 teachers in the FET phase (Grades 10-12) to achieve certified competence in teaching mathematics, science and/or English
• support 60 secondary schools to achieve ‘centre of excellence' status against agreed criteria in matric-level mathematics, science and English
• support ten school districts to implement models for district strategies encouraging schools of mathematics, science and English excellence.

Strengthening partnerships
Through experience, the Zenex Foundation has learnt that projects undertaken in the public school system must be developed and implemented in partnership with the relevant education departments. This will ensure that the projects:
• are aligned to the Department of Education's strategy and priorities
• add value to the education departments and build capacity
• are sustainable in that they are mainstreamed into the Department's programmes.
The Zenex Foundation wishes to focus its limited resources in such a way that it achieves high quality, high impact returns. It thus intends to enhance the impact of its provincial partnerships by adopting the following operational principles:
• Negotiations and partnerships with provincial departments of education are a pre-requisite for the initiation and support of projects. This is especially so since developments in education are leading the Zenex Foundation to operate increasingly within the schooling system.
• This in turn requires the Foundation to adopt a new or enhanced modus operandi in its selection of projects. Programmes and projects will require government partnerships if they are to germinate in a climate that enjoys direct provincial support. This is because the drive to innovate and model systemic interventions at district levels requires on-going and active engagement with the provincial education departments.
• The intervention needs to focus on producing models and/or schools of excellence in the delivery of mathematics, science and English teaching.
• School selection is a pre-cursor to project implementation. The Zenex Foundation will only intervene in schools that are functional in terms of criteria pre-determined in consultation with the education departments.
The Zenex Foundation does not have sufficient resources to spread them widely and still achieve the desired returns. Spreading activities and focus across all nine provinces is thus not an effective way of achieving the stated aims and objectives. For this ten-year cycle, the Zenex Foundation has selected the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal.
The Zenex Foundation did not use need as a criterion for selecting the provinces, nor to ‘fill gaps' in government provision. The limited size of its budget relative to the education spend, made it imperative that it invests where it can make a significant impact.
For the Foundation, the implications of partnering with provincial departments are two-fold. Firstly, it involves a shift to proactive funding. The Zenex Foundation will play a significant role in conceptualising programmes aligned to its long-term strategic vision. It will negotiate the set-up of the programmes and projects within the programmes, and build capacity among the major stakeholders including provinces and districts. The Zenex Foundation will also monitor and evaluate programmes and projects.
Secondly, the Zenex Foundation will budget for the costs incurred during the pre-start-up stage of such negotiations and the capacity-building requirements with and within provinces.

Indicative funding ratios
The following are indicative funding ratios for the ten-year strategic cycle:

Budget for key focus areas	Percentage of cycle budget
Grades 10 - 12	50
Grades R - 6	25
Innovation	5
Capacity building	5
Research and developmen	5
Monitoring and evaluation	10