New Leaders Foundation (NLF) is a dynamic start-up, not-for-profit company with a dedicated team who have partnered with government, the private sector and civil society organisations to drive sustainable change in education in South Africa. 

NLF started in November 2009 with a mandate from the funders and board of directors to develop a cost effective and sustainable model for improving learner performance which could be replicated. The initial eighteen month intervention was in the Johannesburg Central District and six of their schools in the Klipspruit West and Dube areas. This involved supporting and up skilling the district and school managers to drive effective curriculum delivery to their learners. 

In January 2013 the Data Driven Districts project was launched into 5 Ekudibeng districts with project funding from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF) and in partnership with the Department of Basic Education. The following year the Designed District Service Support Programme was accredited through the University of Free State.

In March 2014, the NLF’s participation in the Data Driven Districts Project was expanded with additional funding from MSDF. NLF furthered their involvement in the project by taking over the processing of data submissions from McKinsey.   
 
In March 2015, NLF was appointed to lead the implementation of the Data Driven Districts Project. This was made possible by expansion funding from MSDF. To date we have launched the project in 75 districts and currently support over 19 000 schools in seven provinces. In order to create greater scale and impact we have partnered with other NGOs to drive learner outcomes by improving the way key educational data is collected and used by officials in the education system to support schools and teachers more effectively.

In 2018 NLF continues their work with MSDF and First Rand Empowerment Fund (FREF) while implementing educational projects with Old Mutual,Zenex and the ELMA Foundation.

New Leaders Foundation

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