Together Schools is a South Africa: The Good News initiative that is developing a truly innovative approach to working with dysfunctional schools in South Africa.

Through our research, networking with more than 40 NGOs and visiting a range of schools, we have a sense that although there is excellent work being performed by many NGOs, this has not translated into a significant improvement in results.

Our mission is to facilitate and enable effective partnerships between government, the private sector and NGOs in providing holistic, developmental and sustainable solutions in schools. Our model aims to connect corporates to schools; conduct a needs analysis; prioritise what is required to deliver an improved teaching environment; and implement these via best practice NGOs.

There are an estimated 23 000 dysfunctional schools in the country. If we are to achieve our goals, we need to develop a process that enables corporates to engage with schools on a “one-corporate-one-school” basis that is within a framework that ensures sustainability and ensures the relationship between the corporate and the school is fully empowered and contractual.