Calling Education Non-Profit Company

I only recently learnt about the Elevate Prize and was encouraged to see the existence of such a collaborative, problem-solving community. The possibility of being part thereof is exciting, especially given the ongoing support that Elevate provides on top of the funding. Such networking and mentoring can only improve Calling Education's efficacy and organizational health and will be incredibly enriching for my personal journey.

Should Calling Education be awarded funding, this will be used mainly for scaling Calling's model to other parts of South Africa, i.e. growing the school chain. The start-up years of a new school presents specific financial hurdles, particularly as a subsidy from government is not available in a school's first year. Funding would be used to overcome this hurdle for a new campus and likely to appoint of a development officer to investigate and drive further scale opportunities.

Other possibilities, depending on the funding mandate, would be to improve the infrastructure of the home campus in a stunning setting near Cape Town (an essential building project is around the corner!). This project will up the excellence of our facilities to align with the quality of the vision and team.

I was fortunate to attend outstanding schools, a prestigious university and then to teach at pre-eminent schools in the United Kingdom and back at my alma mater in South Africa for ten years.

The glaring disparity between the quality in education available to the low-income community and the middle-class in South Africa, moved some friends to start a new local school. I resigned from my secure position to head up the initiative. A two-year research and development period followed: could we develop the most relevant model of providing top quality education to learners from low income backgrounds? 

In 2018, Calling Academy was founded with 60 learners. Today, there are 242 learners benefiting from excellent education. Apart from outstanding teachers and a strong local network, international partnerships (e.g. with the Oxford Centre for Tutorial Teaching, 4Challenge in the Netherlands and the University of Cologne) are being leveraged to add value to the learners' experience.

The need across South Africa for a scalable solution in this field is enormous. Calling Education now in advanced discussions with the another provincial government to start another Calling Academy in stunning facilities in January 2022. Further opportunities have already come to the fore and are being investigated.

The problem we are solving is the provision of top-quality education to learners from low-income communities in South Africa. The divide in South African education between the quality available to the haves and the have-nots, is enormous. South Africa is the world's most unequal country (World Bank, 2019) which presents massive opportunities to impact lives and systems.

Recent research by Dr Nic Spaull revealed that "3% of schools in South Africa produce more distinctions in Mathematics than the other 97% put together". Add to this a significant drop-out rate of approximately 45% and it is clear that the lack of access to quality education functions as a poverty-trap.

While there are other "low-fee" independent schools in South Africa, their fees are still way too high to truly target the segment of the population most in need of a solution. Calling's financial model, with an annual school fee of $440, is decidedly pro-poor...and scale beckons!

Further initiatives include mentoring through connect groups plus enrichment modules such as coding and "future fathers", to help learners develop a healthy framework for fatherhood and family in a country where two-thirds of children grow up without their biological father.

Our funding strategy and blended funding model is unique, as far as we know, in the sense that it takes a fresh approach to sponsorships of learners. Parents are still required to pay a school fee which is low enough to activate the maximum government subsidy. Private funding is then added through an innovative learner partnership scheme - this all renders a truly low annual school fee of approximately $450.

Much of the additional value added to learners is built on seeking out "high value - low cost collaborations" where opportunities and individuals in the community are mobilized. Regular visits to companies allow learners exposure to a world previously unfamiliar to them. Exposure, a high value for us, fuels aspiration! 

An international collaboration with the Oxford Day Academy (Palo Alto, CA) and the Oxford Centre for Tutorial Teaching in the UK allow us to implement the Oxford Tutorial Method which enhances critical and logical thinking. Further international collaborations with a Dutch serious gaming company and the University of Cologne (Germany) regarding student teachers, allow for global exposure.

In essence, a highly innovative funding model coupled with a collaborative mind-set helps us to provide top-quality education to low-income learners.

Education is the key to so many other areas of impact on humanity. As Nelson Mandela famously said, "Education is the most powerful weapon one can use to change the world." In the South African context, this is particularly true because of the co-existence of truly world-class schools with severely dysfunctional ones. The provision of top-quality education to low-income learner has an impact on humanity in the sense that it drives upwards mobility towards greater equity. Many of our learners are from traumatized backgrounds and offering them a safe space with emotional support moves them to personal healing which contributes to communal well-being.

A key first step was to slowly build a competent board that stewards the vision and provides the governance. A further key step to achieve our planned impact is to acquire high-quality, innovative educators and administrative staff. We would rather have high-quality people in average facilities than average people in top facilities! The combination of their relational skills and abilities is the school's fuel.

Further afield, we've been building relationships with key role players in local government in another province as well as with visionaries in other provinces to prepare for the scale opportunities.