Real school change starts with the people who lead it.
We develop the whole leadership team, not the principal alone, so the school is led by a group strong enough to carry its own change. Deep, sustained work over many months, in the under-served South African schools that need it most.
- Nearly 20 years
- 45+ under-served schools
- 4 WCED districts
- independently evaluated
South Africa’s education crisis is a leadership crisis.
81%
of South Africa’s Grade 4 learners cannot read for meaning, the lowest of fifty-seven education systems.
PIRLS 2021
Each mark is one Grade 4 learner in a hundred.
The shortfall is rarely a lack of money or effort: spending per learner has become far more equitable, yet outcomes have not kept pace.
Strong schools are built through strong leadership systems
School improvement happens in a demanding environment, where district and school leaders balance competing priorities, growing demands and the work of turning plans into sustained action. Three conditions matter most:
- District and school leaders aligned around shared priorities and goals
- Leadership capacity to focus effort and drive improvement amid complexity
- Leadership routines that strengthen collaboration, accountability and continuous improvement
When these conditions are in place, leaders can turn vision and commitment into lasting improvement in schools. Dinaledi works alongside district and school leaders to build that collective capacity.
45+
Schools partnered with
Nearly20
Years operating
32,000+
Learners reached
Independent evaluation, Tshwane University of Technology, 2024: leadership efficacy across the cohort rose from 3.4 to 4.2 on a five-point scale. Read the evidence
We choose depth over reach: a year or more with every school, our people on-site and in person. The learners are reached because the leadership held.
Dinaledi was founded in 2007 by coaches and educators testing one question: could real coaching work in Cape Flats schools? Nearly twenty years on, the answer is built for this context, not imported into it.
Read our full storyA school sits inside a system. We work the whole of it.
Lasting change requires alignment across every level of that system, from provincial policy down to the classroom, and it holds only when the people who lead the school are working as a team.
The System
Provincial policy sets the conditions for everything
The Provincial Education Department, civil society organisations, and funders create the enabling environment: the conditions a school is given, or left without. Dinaledi works to align with provincial priorities and build relationships that give school-level change long-term durability.
- Provincial Dept
- Civil Society
- Funders
The work moves inward
Funders & partners who back the work.
These organisations have made the work possible.
“Their commitment to educational transformation, particularly in our most challenged schools, is deeply appreciated and strongly endorsed.”