Axium Education grows talent and opportunity in rural communities by working with students, school leaders and teachers to raise student achievement.

THEORY OF CHANGE

In most South African school districts the structures are in place for education to take place: schools have basic facilities, a body of teachers and a rudimentary resource base of textbooks and stationary. Our premise is that in the majority of cases, the student achievement problems that arise can be traced to a lack of effective teaching and leadership - in most studies thought to be the two most decisive factors for student success. To create new, better schools would be to reinvent the wheel, but to continue to allow gifted students to fail while instruction improves gradually over time would be equally damaging.

Our theory of change thus operates on two levels:

Working with local schools to improve the quality of teachers and leaders in order to drive improvements in teaching, learning and ultimately student achievement. This is a medium-term intervention aimed at incrementally increasing the quality of instruction over a period of 5 - 10 years. "

"Ekukhuleni" Math, Science and English Centre will work with talented Grade 10 - 12 students from local schools to prepare them for further education in these three critical subject areas. By offering various incentives for students to return to the community (as qualified, well-trained teachers, health care workers or in other relevant professions) upon completion of their studies, this short-term intervention will result in a long-term "step-change" in the quality of schools and the community at large.