The effectiveness of social investment programmes to improve education in Gauteng

[摘要] The decisions and actions of management in organisations have an increasing impact on individuals, other organisations and the community. The importance of the exercise of corporate social responsibility can no longer be based on the assumption that the self–interest of the owner of the property will lead to the public good, or that self–interest and public good can be kept apart and havenothing to do with each other. On the contrary, it requires of managers that theyassume responsibility for the public good, that they subordinate their actions to an ethical code of conduct, that they restrain their authority wherever their exercise would infringe upon the common will and upon the freedom of the individual. South Africa is one of the countries with the highest illiteracy rate in the world. There are more children dropping out of school in South Africa than any other country in the world. The social and economic impact of the lack of education is difficult to comprehend. Lack of education affects company productivity and competitiveness adversely. A lack of education increases the training costs of organisations immensely. Hence, companies cannot sit on the sideline, but should rather be involved in education through corporate social responsibility programs. The primary objective of the study is to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility spending by companies, especially on education, and improvement in standards of education, thereby increasing the overall annual Grade 12 pass rate. In order to address the primary objectives of the study, the following secondary objectives were formulated: * To understand and obtain insight into the dynamics of social responsibility programs of companies that are involved in education; * To analyse and identify the main reason for companies to be involved in education; * To analyse and assess corporate and school partnerships in and around the designated area; * To measure output for different township high schools by using the grade 12 pass rate as a measuring tool; * To establish the level of satisfaction within companies that have embarked on corporate social responsibility programs; and * To establish the importance of mathematics and science as part of the school education. The most important conclusions that could be drawn from the study are: * Companies had endorsed corporate social responsibility as part of their strategy; * It had been extremely difficult to obtain information about companies' corporate social responsibility programs due to information being classified as confidential by companies. This could be a serious impediment for advancement of literature and research in the country; and* Companies had contributed massive resources to the advancement of education through their educational programs, but this had not yielded the consistently desired results through improvement of the Grade 12 pass rate.

[发布机构] North-West University