Project Showcase

The Build Education Back Better (BEBB) initiative seeks to build early insights from the ground and lived experiences of the partners in Kenya and South Africa on what works or does not work in education innovation during and post COVID-19, with a focus on Whole Child Development (WCD).

Skills and qualifications of the people in Africa are at the heart of African renaissance. Therefore, the African Continental Qualifications Framework (ACQF) is a vital policy of the African Union.

The MRP Foundation Education Programme has been implemented since 2019 in 98 primary schools in KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape, Gauteng and the Free State. The programme assists and supports the schools to improve their learner performance through a ‘holistic approach’ focusing on: School leadership and management improvement; Teacher knowledge and capacity development; Increased parent involvement; and Learner performance. The four components being implemented by JET are: Planning and Organisation; School Management; Teacher Development; and Parental Involvement.

In an effort to address the poor outcomes of basic education in South Africa, the government has prioritised early childhood development (ECD) and education in the Foundation Phase, covering the age group 0 to 9 years. The focus of this project is Grade R, which, in line with government policy was introduced into Gauteng public ordinary schools and some community organisations that offer ECD.

The Jala Peo ("Plant the Seed" in Sepedi) School Food and Nutrition Garden (SFNG) Initiative is a Department of Basic Education (DBE) project. The seeding is funded by WesBank Fund, managed by Tshikululu Social Investments & the implementation of the project is managed by JET Education Services. The vision of the “Jala Peo Initiative” is framed within the context of the National Develoment Plan (NDP) and the DBE’s Action Plan to 2019: Towards the realisation of schooling 2030

The Jobs Fund has appointed JET Education Services to undertake a three-year longitudinal tracer study of beneficiaries of 10 projects funded under the Enterprise Development (ED) and Support for Work Seekers (SFW) Funding Windows.

JET was contracted by GIZ to develop a knowledge management strategy and implementation guideline for the two ATVET projects. The work also entailed the design and production of knowledge products and capacitating and mentoring GIZ-CAADP ATVET, ATVET4W and AUDA-NEPAD staff.

JET was contracted to undertake an evaluation of the programme, beginning with a retrospective evaluation to establish a baseline. PfP was able to secure sustainability funding based on the results of the retrospective evaluation.

Future Nation Schools (FNS) aim to spearhead the African education revolution by providing an educational model that is relevant, futuristic, and technology enabled; that epitomises excellence; and that is capable of producing future African leaders, entrepreneurs and innovators who are passionate, confident in themselves, excel at what they do, and are ready for the 21st century. FNS intend to achieve this by building a network of high quality and affordable independent schools across South Africa.

The FPI provides training in LtP, learning materials and manipulatives, and aims to integrate play into the Foundation Phase (i.e. Grade R to Grade 3) curriculum.

The goal of Injini is to improve education outcomes across Africa through supporting EdTech entrepreneurs with solutions that are relevant, evidence based, effective and scalable, and can address challenges of access and quality.

As an educational research agency with a non-profit motive, JET is contributing to the coordination of COVID-19 preventative measures and also coordination of efforts nationally and internationally.

A research project initiated by the Mastercard Foundation to examine progress in secondary education on the African continent and to propose forward-looking recommendations.

JET fcocused on developing capacity in the core elements of education research, development of models and their application, monitoring and evaluation of projects and the honing of project management skills ensuring that young South Africans are able to come up with their own unique solutions to the inequalities that plague us in education. In a nutshell JETStreaming is a capacity-building programme in education research involving: a combination of experiential workplace immersion, and formal/collaborative training processes, that seeks to build self-driven, continually learning, social justice change agents in education research in South Africa.

Nal’ibali was established in 2012 as a reading for enjoyment campaign which aims to spark children’s potential through storytelling and reading and build a culture of reading for enjoyment in South Africa.

JET, working with our lead partner, the Institute of Education in London, was awarded a DFID grant that will look at how accountability relationships and processes within South Africa’s education system enable or inhibit the raising of learning outcomes. “…[a] novel approach to looking at accountability, if successful, could impact the way in which the field thinks of accountability.”

The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) aims to improve the health and nutritional status of the poorest learners in South Africa. Its main objective is to enhance learning by providing a nutritious meal on time daily. The programme is of great strategic importance: it involves a large financial commitment from government (R5.3 billion), and reaches over 9 million learners. Given this, an implementation evaluation was commissioned by the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation, in collaboration with the Department of Basic Education (DBE) and was conducted by JET Education Services.

The FLBP was established in 2007 with the goal of attracting greater numbers of students into initial teacher education (ITE) programmes in South African universities. High-achieving students are given generous full-cost bursaries to undertake ITE programmes in priority education phases and subject areas to address both supply and quality issues in the education system. In return, recipients of the bursary are expected to teach in public schools for a period equal to the number of years they have received funding.

The project was undertaken by a consortium made up of the Human Sciences Research Council (the lead organisation), the Education Policy Consortium, JET Education Services, and the Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa, with the support of the Department of Education. The NSES study, conducted under the theme of improving school effectiveness, was designed to enable the gain scores of a learner over any one-year period to be related to the practices followed by the teacher for the same year. The study followed a group of children for three years, starting with Grade 3 in 2007 and ending in Grade 5 in 2009. Around 16 000 children participated in each year of data gathering, during which a cohort of 8 383 was tracked over all three years. The NSES culminated in the publication of the book Creating Effective Schools, edited by Nick Taylor, Servaas ven der Berg and Thabo Mabogoane