The Perdekraal East Wind Farm has announced its support of a collaborative education leadership programme, together with the Western Cape Education Department (Cape Winelands District), to help support school principals at a time when leadership is vital.
This one-year programme, launched last month, is aptly named “Partners for Possibility Leadership Development & Principal Support Programme”, and is being rolled out at 10 schools in the communities Ceres, Nduli/Vredebes, Bella Vista and Prince Alfred Hamlet.
“The need for robust leadership in education has been highlighted in the difficult Covid-19 pandemic period,” said Jo-Anne Brown, economic development manager at Perdekraal East Wind Farm, “as many community-based learners were less likely to have access to remote online teaching.
Nduli Primary School principal Fezeka Lethunya had this to say about the programme: “It is helping develop my leadership capacity in an under-resourced and consequently underperforming school.
The skills and knowledge I will gain from this partnership will help me involve parents in the education of their children. The partnership will also help us as principals to share best practices and build unity, which is needed in our schools.”
The programme engages business leaders in a challenging hands-on experience within an educational environment that is fraught with complex challenges that requires skilled leadership.
Through partnerships with the business leaders the programme prepares principals by equipping them with the skills and knowledge to lead change and mobilise communities around their schools during this time of Covid-19.
“The programme is all about creating collaboration and harnessing the strengths of people that are willing to work together for enrichment and the benefit of education,” Brown added. “Knowledge and skills are obtained through training, and one-on-one interaction between principal and business partner as well as group discussion, and these are then taken back to the school community for implementation.”
The programme works by asking partners to effect change collaboratively at four levels in the school environment which includes the school principals; the school management teams; teachers; as well as parents and community.
“This programme focuses on the ABCD principles, which have been embraced in communities in the Witzenberg area,” said Brown. “It is based on different sectors coming together to work at a common goal, by leveraging one another’s strengths.”
