A remarkable partnership

In the early 1990s, with South Africa on the cusp of a new democratic era, business visionary Mr Mike Rosholt pioneered a ground-breaking partnership between leaders from South Africa's corporate world, major political parties, trade unions and representative organisations of black business. On the agenda was solving one of the greatest challenges that the new democracy would face – the restructuring of the country's education system, then rife with the inequalities imposed by the apartheid government. Despite an initial air of distrust and suspected hidden agendas, after more than a year of negotiations and debate, the various political parties and unions accepted the bona fides of business and the Trust Deed establishing the Joint Education Trust was signed on 29 January 1992. Rosholt secured the commitment of 14 leading South African companies to provide R500 million (more than R1 billion in today's currency) towards the Trust’s work.

Driven by an appreciation on the part of all partners that the new democracy's future success would depend on well-educated management and a skilled labour force as well as building a positive relationship with the emerging new government, the Joint Education Trust Board of Trustees drew equal representation from all the partners, creating a diverse set of perspectives that worked effectively from the first board meeting.

With a five-year mandate, the subsequent success of the Trust, the forebear of today’s JET Education Services, was undoubtedly due, in the first instance, to this remarkable partnership, and in the second, to the expert management and staff appointed by the Trustees to realise the Trust's strategic objectives in the drive to create a unitary, non-racial education system equally accessible to all.

Founding Partners of the Joint Education Trust