Ignoring Educational Foundations Can Impede Future Business Growth

Posted on by Eduardo Tugendhat

Business leaders all around the world agree that one of the major challenges to growth and competitiveness is the lack of enough people with the correct skills and competencies.

On the supply side, education service providers (and governments) often don’t appreciate they are part of a market system in which young people, labour force participants and businesses are customers.

Are businesses failing their customers? This may be true, given the magnitude of youth unemployment, large numbers of young people leaving school (from families that see education as a poor investment of time and money) and fears of redundancy among those already working. The choice for business is to wait for governments and educational institutions to fix the situation, or to proactively invest in solutions.

If you like this, subscribe here for more stories that Inspire The Future.

Put simply, there are not enough people with an education to match the skills required for the future.

Companies need to plan and become involved in education to fulfill their future business needs.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, China’s e-commerce giant said: “If we do not change the way we teach, 30 years from now, we’re going to be in trouble.”

He said we need to teach children soft skills like independent thinking, values and team work. He added: “The knowledge-based approached of 200 years ago will fail our kids,” who will never be able to compete with machines.” He also said children need to learn about sports, art and music.

Jack Ma’s ideas have been applauded, but in some regions the problem is a basic lack of any education. Annual spending per school-aged child in Sub-Saharan Africa is roughly one-third of the minimum needed.

As a result, most children don’t come anywhere close to finishing secondary school.

They are forced to drop out early, because there are no places in public schools and tuition for private school is far too high for most families. 

Girls are more likely to leave school early despite parents knowing that all of their children need a quality education. Without the skills that a secondary education provides, the children who leave school early face a life of poverty.

Across Africa, political, religious, and civil-society leaders are doing what they can. Ghana has recently announced free upper-secondary education for all, setting the pace for the continent. This is to be welcomed of course, as long as the quality of education is sufficient to equip young people with what they need to be successful.  

As African countries struggle to fund their ambitious commitments, new partners, including private companies and high-net-worth individuals, should step forward to help them.

One approach for the future involves partnerships between companies and educational service providers to structure programs with curricula, experiential learning and qualified teaching that ensures that participants emerge with minimum requirements to be employable in that company/industry. This can offer a good return on investment while allowing companies to integrate with the communities where they operate.

Examples range from clothing companies that “adopted” a high school in El Salvador to Hollywood companies supporting partnerships that facilitate the growth of animation in Macedonia.

Investing in the development of these partnerships generates a sustainable supply of qualified people, not just for an individual company, but for the overall business ecosystem.

In Peru, a ceramics company set up a program for certified installers that could be recommended to end-customers by the retailers of their products.   

Another approach involves investment in educational services themselves as a for-profit business, or at least as a cost centre that generates business returns. This can include opportunities such as e-learning and certifications.

Caterpillar in Mongolia did not want to be in the education business but set up a school for operators of heavy equipment in Mongolia, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to sell its equipment. Could it then find a provider to deliver the training and certification?

To secure the future of an adequately trained, healthy workforce, companies need to invest in human capital, not just once they are employed, but to ensure that they are employable in the context of a rapid advance in technology and minimum requirements. Those who don’t, are risking the growth of their business and possibly the industry they operate in.

Education service providers that treat their students as customers are key to bridging the skills gap. Their success in placing and advancing graduates as employees and entrepreneurs should be the key measure of success.

If you like this, subscribe here for more stories that Inspire The Future.

Ignoring Educational Foundations Can Impede Future Business Growth

Posted on by Taye New

Business leaders all around the world agree that one of the major challenges to growth and competitiveness is the lack of enough people with the correct skills and competencies.

On the supply side, education service providers (and governments) often don’t appreciate they are part of a market system in which young people, labour force participants and businesses are customers.

Are businesses failing their customers? This may be true, given the magnitude of youth unemployment, large numbers of young people leaving school (from families that see education as a poor investment of time and money) and fears of redundancy among those already working. The choice for business is to wait for governments and educational institutions to fix the situation, or to proactively invest in solutions.

If you like this, subscribe here for more stories that Inspire The Future.

Put simply, there are not enough people with an education to match the skills required for the future.

Companies need to plan and become involved in education to fulfill their future business needs.

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, China’s e-commerce giant said: “If we do not change the way we teach, 30 years from now, we’re going to be in trouble.”

He said we need to teach children soft skills like independent thinking, values and team work. He added: “The knowledge-based approached of 200 years ago will fail our kids,” who will never be able to compete with machines.” He also said children need to learn about sports, art and music.

Jack Ma’s ideas have been applauded, but in some regions the problem is a basic lack of any education. Annual spending per school-aged child in Sub-Saharan Africa is roughly one-third of the minimum needed.

As a result, most children don’t come anywhere close to finishing secondary school.

They are forced to drop out early, because there are no places in public schools and tuition for private school is far too high for most families. 

Girls are more likely to leave school early despite parents knowing that all of their children need a quality education. Without the skills that a secondary education provides, the children who leave school early face a life of poverty.

Across Africa, political, religious, and civil-society leaders are doing what they can. Ghana has recently announced free upper-secondary education for all, setting the pace for the continent. This is to be welcomed of course, as long as the quality of education is sufficient to equip young people with what they need to be successful.  

As African countries struggle to fund their ambitious commitments, new partners, including private companies and high-net-worth individuals, should step forward to help them.

One approach for the future involves partnerships between companies and educational service providers to structure programs with curricula, experiential learning and qualified teaching that ensures that participants emerge with minimum requirements to be employable in that company/industry. This can offer a good return on investment while allowing companies to integrate with the communities where they operate.

Examples range from clothing companies that “adopted” a high school in El Salvador to Hollywood companies supporting partnerships that facilitate the growth of animation in Macedonia.

Investing in the development of these partnerships generates a sustainable supply of qualified people, not just for an individual company, but for the overall business ecosystem.

In Peru, a ceramics company set up a program for certified installers that could be recommended to end-customers by the retailers of their products.   

Another approach involves investment in educational services themselves as a for-profit business, or at least as a cost centre that generates business returns. This can include opportunities such as e-learning and certifications.

Caterpillar in Mongolia did not want to be in the education business but set up a school for operators of heavy equipment in Mongolia, otherwise it wouldn’t be able to sell its equipment. Could it then find a provider to deliver the training and certification?

To secure the future of an adequately trained, healthy workforce, companies need to invest in human capital, not just once they are employed, but to ensure that they are employable in the context of a rapid advance in technology and minimum requirements. Those who don’t, are risking the growth of their business and possibly the industry they operate in.

Education service providers that treat their students as customers are key to bridging the skills gap. Their success in placing and advancing graduates as employees and entrepreneurs should be the key measure of success.

If you like this, subscribe here for more stories that Inspire The Future.

3 Ways to Communicate Better

Posted on by Debra Carpenter

The world today is a very different place than it was 20 years ago. Technology has made an abundance of information, voices, and services available to us at any time we choose to seek it out.

In fact, many of us use technology in such a way that we do not have to seek information as much as just let it come to us – in our news feeds, our inboxes, our ears and minds.

For an entrepreneur, listening earnestly and communicating clearly and effectively among all the static can be a real challenge. Several studies have looked at the ways entrepreneurs’ communication skills – or lack thereof – correlate with their success and the quality of their leadership.

What they’ve found is no surprise: The most successful entrepreneurs are expert communicators who heavily invest in social capital. But in an interesting twist, research has found that these communication skills don’t have to be inherent to be effective. They can be learned.

Based on research figures, we spend 75% of our time actively communicating – speaking and listening – compared to the 25% of time we spend passively communicating through writing and reading. Both active and passive communication methods are important for entrepreneurs to master because they hang in careful balance. What we write may affect what we say; what we read may affect how we listen.

What if you’re an entrepreneur who isn’t inherently skilled in communication? How can you improve your skills and methods to give yourself the best chance for success? I searched for effective solutions and found three ways to make yourself a better communicator.

1. Educate yourself

The best way to begin communicating better is by educating yourself. Let go of your existing ideas about communication and start from the beginning. Learn about your own preferred communication styles and the ways those methods might clash or mesh well with others’.

You don’t have to enroll in a course or go to a seminar to learn about effective communication strategies that will benefit you professionally. Google searches will return an abundance of information, so sift through and take notes as you go. Begin paying more attention to the way you communicate with others and study their reactions. Focus on listening actively rather than simply hearing what another has to say.

2. Enlist help

The internet is full of programs and webinars that promise to make you a master communicator. But I haven’t seen anything quite like Crystal, the Nashville-based tech startup that uses complex algorithms and public online information to determine the communication preferences of any person with a LinkedIn profile, down to whether or not you should use an emoji when you email them.

Crystal’s email extension makes it possible to write emails in a way that is proven to appeal to the receiver, based on the information they’ve posted or made available online. For example, Crystal knows that the client I’m working with tends to write in short, to-the-point sentences and prefers to avoid ‘small talk.’ Crystal can then suggest relevant changes while I draft an email to this client (“Consider removing the friendly but unnecessary phrase ‘How’s it going?’ from your email”).

Crystal has attracted a lot of attention so far, and is already used by employees at Hubspot, Google, Accenture, and Thomson-Reuters. In any case, it certainly takes some of the guesswork out of professional communication.

3. Begin studying mindfulness

The study of mindfulness and meditation is a process that helps people learn to be more present and acknowledge circumstances, feelings and emotions without feeling powerless to them or identified by them.

Communicating mindlessly can take several forms, including responding too quickly with anger, making assumptions, and identifying ourselves and others by the emotions experienced. These tactics can unintentionally steer an entrepreneur away from success.

By being mindful in communication, we can ensure that we don’t do ourselves or our colleagues a disservice by communicating mindlessly. Entrepreneurs can benefit from studying mindfulness in a variety of ways, including:

  • Tapping into creativity
  • Gaining clarity and insight
  • Responding appropriately to stress
  • Quelling insecurities
  • Inspiring innovation
  • Encouraging self-care

Entrepreneurs have the best chance of reaching success when they can clearly and efficiently communicate their company’s goals, vision, and mission to stakeholders. Improving interpersonal communication skills will have far-reaching benefits in an entrepreneur’s professional and personal life as well. The methods listed above can help you begin to communicate more effectively. Which will you try first?

Note: This post was originally published on Startup Grind.

 

3 Ways to Communicate Better

Posted on by AP RS

The world today is a very different place than it was 20 years ago. Technology has made an abundance of information, voices, and services available to us at any time we choose to seek it out.

In fact, many of us use technology in such a way that we do not have to seek information as much as just let it come to us – in our news feeds, our inboxes, our ears and minds.

For an entrepreneur, listening earnestly and communicating clearly and effectively among all the static can be a real challenge. Several studies have looked at the ways entrepreneurs’ communication skills – or lack thereof – correlate with their success and the quality of their leadership.

What they’ve found is no surprise: The most successful entrepreneurs are expert communicators who heavily invest in social capital. But in an interesting twist, research has found that these communication skills don’t have to be inherent to be effective. They can be learned.

Based on research figures, we spend 75% of our time actively communicating – speaking and listening – compared to the 25% of time we spend passively communicating through writing and reading. Both active and passive communication methods are important for entrepreneurs to master because they hang in careful balance. What we write may affect what we say; what we read may affect how we listen.

What if you’re an entrepreneur who isn’t inherently skilled in communication? How can you improve your skills and methods to give yourself the best chance for success? I searched for effective solutions and found three ways to make yourself a better communicator.

1. Educate yourself

The best way to begin communicating better is by educating yourself. Let go of your existing ideas about communication and start from the beginning. Learn about your own preferred communication styles and the ways those methods might clash or mesh well with others’.

You don’t have to enroll in a course or go to a seminar to learn about effective communication strategies that will benefit you professionally. Google searches will return an abundance of information, so sift through and take notes as you go. Begin paying more attention to the way you communicate with others and study their reactions. Focus on listening actively rather than simply hearing what another has to say.

2. Enlist help

The internet is full of programs and webinars that promise to make you a master communicator. But I haven’t seen anything quite like Crystal, the Nashville-based tech startup that uses complex algorithms and public online information to determine the communication preferences of any person with a LinkedIn profile, down to whether or not you should use an emoji when you email them.

Crystal’s email extension makes it possible to write emails in a way that is proven to appeal to the receiver, based on the information they’ve posted or made available online. For example, Crystal knows that the client I’m working with tends to write in short, to-the-point sentences and prefers to avoid ‘small talk.’ Crystal can then suggest relevant changes while I draft an email to this client (“Consider removing the friendly but unnecessary phrase ‘How’s it going?’ from your email”).

Crystal has attracted a lot of attention so far, and is already used by employees at Hubspot, Google, Accenture, and Thomson-Reuters. In any case, it certainly takes some of the guesswork out of professional communication.

3. Begin studying mindfulness

The study of mindfulness and meditation is a process that helps people learn to be more present and acknowledge circumstances, feelings and emotions without feeling powerless to them or identified by them.

Communicating mindlessly can take several forms, including responding too quickly with anger, making assumptions, and identifying ourselves and others by the emotions experienced. These tactics can unintentionally steer an entrepreneur away from success.

By being mindful in communication, we can ensure that we don’t do ourselves or our colleagues a disservice by communicating mindlessly. Entrepreneurs can benefit from studying mindfulness in a variety of ways, including:

  • Tapping into creativity
  • Gaining clarity and insight
  • Responding appropriately to stress
  • Quelling insecurities
  • Inspiring innovation
  • Encouraging self-care

Entrepreneurs have the best chance of reaching success when they can clearly and efficiently communicate their company’s goals, vision, and mission to stakeholders. Improving interpersonal communication skills will have far-reaching benefits in an entrepreneur’s professional and personal life as well. The methods listed above can help you begin to communicate more effectively. Which will you try first?

Note: This post was originally published on Startup Grind.

 

Who Has The Guts To Change The World?

Posted on by Real Leaders

I saw this coming clearly. Five years ago I attempted to raise venture capital to start a free University. The opportunity was huge. You know a market is ripe for disruption when the price of something becomes outrageous in relationships to its value.

Welcome to the cost of college. It’s not a secret that college tuition rates zoomed past any rational connection to inflation because of low-cost government insured loans. These no-questions asked loans make it easy for colleges to maintain one of the most inefficient business models in history.

A quick look at college budgets reveal how relatively little is actually spent on classrooms, professors, research and teaching compared to building and maintaining huge inefficient campuses and scores of activities unrelated to education. Student demand was fueled by the public relations myth that college education would automatically lead to higher earnings in the good life. Of course higher education is correlated with all the things we want for children – higher earnings, happier marriages, greater health and longer lives. But correlation is not cause, and living a truly good and meaningful life is more complicated than earning a degree.

And spending as much as a quarter of a million dollars to learn what you can learn for virtually free doesn’t make much sense.

In fact, it’s outrageous. It’s outrageous because this craziness has created a generation of Americans with over $1 trillion in student debt. This is not the path to the good life. The fact is our 20 to 30 year-old children are not starting businesses, getting married, buying homes or becoming independent.

The primary economic reason for their ‘stuckness’ is that the soundtrack to their lives is the drumbeat of student debt.

The insane irony is that they are not even earning as much as their parents at the same age. I’m not simply an observer of these facts, I’m a fully engaged parent, coaching my three children between 25 and 30 to help them find their launch code to blast free. It isn’t easy even for the very capable and motivated.

The good news is that we are seeing the beginning of a new era of worldwide education.

For over 40 years we have known that the concept originally called “distance learning” can be more effective than in-person classroom teaching if some simple principles are followed. 1) a great, engaging, expert teacher using multimedia, 2) social learning with peers and 3) application of learning by doing. What educational researchers have discovered over the last 10 years is a way to combine online multimedia teaching, Skype tutoring, social learning where possible “learning-meet-ups.” All this both accelerates and deepens learning. Hallelujah! The educational revolution is marching ahead in full fury.

Universities and colleges are having business model meltdowns behind closed doors because they know a new generation of digitally savvy college students are simply not going to pay $50,000 a year for a college education.

When a major name brand university breaks ranks to create a low tuition option for a full bona fide degree earned largely online combined with a network of onsite experiences, hundreds of colleges will close. The university combatants are already circling each other in a worldwide cage fight to see who goes first. Already 200 universities ranging from Harvard and MIT to colleges in Europe, India and Australia are offering courses by partnering with education start ups liked EDx, Coursera, and Udacity. Imagine this… what if a university like Stanford got together with Google and multimedia creators like Disney to create courses taught by one of the world’s most charismatic experts.

What if the development and maintenance of these courses were paid for by large corporations whose brands were tied to certain subjects?

Like Johnson & Johnson on health related topics or GE for engineering classes. And what if Stanford partnered with Barnes & Noble to turn their declining bookstores into a network of Stanford student unions found in almost every city in America? And what if you could earn a first class four-year Stanford bachelors’ degree for say… $10,000? How many millions of students would choose this? One bonus for a school like  Stanford is that they have impressive athletic teams.

Imagine every basketball game being a home game no matter where they travel? Just think of how many T-shirts they could sell! The good news is that something like this going to happen. Education is one of the largest economic enterprises in the world. Using today’s technology to improve education and create a whole new business model is simply too tempting to ignore.

The question is who will have the leadership courage to bless the entire world with truly universal, first class education. I’m not using the words “leadership courage” lightly. There are many who believe a well-rounded education is the ultimate path to world peace.

You see, two of the outcomes from a university education are open-minded tolerance of people who are different than you and opportunity.

Open-minded people who have opportunity don’t want to fight; they want to build. The future we must build is one of sustainable abundance. For that, we need the full talent of our global brainpower. Everybody has a difference to make. My personal attempt to get something like this kicked off via a project called Citizen One was too far ahead of its time. But now there are others who are far more capable that me, who will literally change the world. I am rooting for them… how about you?

If you could change the world, what would you do?

 

Who Has The Guts To Change The World?

Posted on by Will Marre

I saw this coming clearly. Five years ago I attempted to raise venture capital to start a free University. The opportunity was huge. You know a market is ripe for disruption when the price of something becomes outrageous in relationships to its value.

Welcome to the cost of college. It’s not a secret that college tuition rates zoomed past any rational connection to inflation because of low-cost government insured loans. These no-questions asked loans make it easy for colleges to maintain one of the most inefficient business models in history.

A quick look at college budgets reveal how relatively little is actually spent on classrooms, professors, research and teaching compared to building and maintaining huge inefficient campuses and scores of activities unrelated to education. Student demand was fueled by the public relations myth that college education would automatically lead to higher earnings in the good life. Of course higher education is correlated with all the things we want for children – higher earnings, happier marriages, greater health and longer lives. But correlation is not cause, and living a truly good and meaningful life is more complicated than earning a degree.

And spending as much as a quarter of a million dollars to learn what you can learn for virtually free doesn’t make much sense.

In fact, it’s outrageous. It’s outrageous because this craziness has created a generation of Americans with over $1 trillion in student debt. This is not the path to the good life. The fact is our 20 to 30 year-old children are not starting businesses, getting married, buying homes or becoming independent.

The primary economic reason for their ‘stuckness’ is that the soundtrack to their lives is the drumbeat of student debt.

The insane irony is that they are not even earning as much as their parents at the same age. I’m not simply an observer of these facts, I’m a fully engaged parent, coaching my three children between 25 and 30 to help them find their launch code to blast free. It isn’t easy even for the very capable and motivated.

The good news is that we are seeing the beginning of a new era of worldwide education.

For over 40 years we have known that the concept originally called “distance learning” can be more effective than in-person classroom teaching if some simple principles are followed. 1) a great, engaging, expert teacher using multimedia, 2) social learning with peers and 3) application of learning by doing. What educational researchers have discovered over the last 10 years is a way to combine online multimedia teaching, Skype tutoring, social learning where possible “learning-meet-ups.” All this both accelerates and deepens learning. Hallelujah! The educational revolution is marching ahead in full fury.

Universities and colleges are having business model meltdowns behind closed doors because they know a new generation of digitally savvy college students are simply not going to pay $50,000 a year for a college education.

When a major name brand university breaks ranks to create a low tuition option for a full bona fide degree earned largely online combined with a network of onsite experiences, hundreds of colleges will close. The university combatants are already circling each other in a worldwide cage fight to see who goes first. Already 200 universities ranging from Harvard and MIT to colleges in Europe, India and Australia are offering courses by partnering with education start ups liked EDx, Coursera, and Udacity. Imagine this… what if a university like Stanford got together with Google and multimedia creators like Disney to create courses taught by one of the world’s most charismatic experts.

What if the development and maintenance of these courses were paid for by large corporations whose brands were tied to certain subjects?

Like Johnson & Johnson on health related topics or GE for engineering classes. And what if Stanford partnered with Barnes & Noble to turn their declining bookstores into a network of Stanford student unions found in almost every city in America? And what if you could earn a first class four-year Stanford bachelors’ degree for say… $10,000? How many millions of students would choose this? One bonus for a school like  Stanford is that they have impressive athletic teams.

Imagine every basketball game being a home game no matter where they travel? Just think of how many T-shirts they could sell! The good news is that something like this going to happen. Education is one of the largest economic enterprises in the world. Using today’s technology to improve education and create a whole new business model is simply too tempting to ignore.

The question is who will have the leadership courage to bless the entire world with truly universal, first class education. I’m not using the words “leadership courage” lightly. There are many who believe a well-rounded education is the ultimate path to world peace.

You see, two of the outcomes from a university education are open-minded tolerance of people who are different than you and opportunity.

Open-minded people who have opportunity don’t want to fight; they want to build. The future we must build is one of sustainable abundance. For that, we need the full talent of our global brainpower. Everybody has a difference to make. My personal attempt to get something like this kicked off via a project called Citizen One was too far ahead of its time. But now there are others who are far more capable that me, who will literally change the world. I am rooting for them… how about you?

If you could change the world, what would you do?

 

The Business of Education in Morocco

Posted on by Real Leaders

Education is a real issue in Morocco. Around 40 percent of the population is illiterate – not a great scenario for parents wanting to help with their kids education.

Each year, the birth rate adds 640,000 more kids to the system while 380,000 leave school before completing high school. These kids are very often exposed to social exclusion, unemployment and illegal immigration to Europe.

The Sanady Foundation has a solution – for US$260 per child per year. Kacem Bennani-Smires is chairman and CEO of Delassus, a leading grower and exporter of fruit and vegetables in Morocco and he’s developed a unique plan to get companies to fund the education of their employees kids. Morocco is ranked 11th out of 14 countries in the MENA region for educational outcomes (access, equity, efficiency, quality) according to a recent report from the World Bank. Out of 100 students enrolled in primary only 12 will ever get their baccalaureate.

In a society that finds it difficult to implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)successfully, Bennani-Smires came up with a project that kept the funding and target group close: companies that fund the education of their employees’ children. The Sanady Foundation offers free tutoring to public school kids after school, with each class funded by the respective companies that employ their parents.

The foundation helps kids achieve at school and motivates them to complete high school and aims to create an equal opportunity for public school kids, including gender parity. The foundation started with 57 kids in a citrus packhouse in Agadir in 2008 and now supports close to 3,000 kids in five cities across the country. In Morocco, there are no retirement homes, as it’s taken for granted by parents that their kids will take care of them in old age. For these employees, their only hope for a better future is if their kids succeed through studying and becoming something in life.

The first step in achieving this is to obtain their high school diplomas, before going on to do their higher education. In addition to raising the quality of education, the employees are comforted by the fact that Sanady can track their children’s progress when they have no ability to do so, intellectually or financially. The program has shown companies that CSR programs can make sense and also help resolve many of the urgent social needs in Morocco.

It gives companies a simple and tangible method of implementing CSR, without mobilizing extra human resources, as the program is taken care of by the Sanady Foundation, that organizes the classes, does follow-up and reporting. From Bennani-Smires’ own company, Delassus, where the program started, they now have 36 participating companies with the primary goal of acting out their CSR strategies and relying on Sanady to help them.

One of the more important social impacts of the program is that kids aren’t abandoning school. This makes a real difference in Morocco where the dropout rate is extremely high and kids become a problem in society for decades. Schooled kids feel better about school, more confident about themselves and are better prepared to continue with studies after school.

Sanady kids have a better chance to succeed in a career beyond school and thereby offering a better future for their parents too.

https://notablemagazine.com/this-is-what-inspired-me-to-reach-the-womens-world-cup/

The Business of Education in Morocco

Posted on by Real Leaders

Education is a real issue in Morocco. Around 40 percent of the population is illiterate – not a great scenario for parents wanting to help with their kids education.

Each year, the birth rate adds 640,000 more kids to the system while 380,000 leave school before completing high school. These kids are very often exposed to social exclusion, unemployment and illegal immigration to Europe.

The Sanady Foundation has a solution – for US$260 per child per year. Kacem Bennani-Smires is chairman and CEO of Delassus, a leading grower and exporter of fruit and vegetables in Morocco and he’s developed a unique plan to get companies to fund the education of their employees kids. Morocco is ranked 11th out of 14 countries in the MENA region for educational outcomes (access, equity, efficiency, quality) according to a recent report from the World Bank. Out of 100 students enrolled in primary only 12 will ever get their baccalaureate.

In a society that finds it difficult to implement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)successfully, Bennani-Smires came up with a project that kept the funding and target group close: companies that fund the education of their employees’ children. The Sanady Foundation offers free tutoring to public school kids after school, with each class funded by the respective companies that employ their parents.

The foundation helps kids achieve at school and motivates them to complete high school and aims to create an equal opportunity for public school kids, including gender parity. The foundation started with 57 kids in a citrus packhouse in Agadir in 2008 and now supports close to 3,000 kids in five cities across the country. In Morocco, there are no retirement homes, as it’s taken for granted by parents that their kids will take care of them in old age. For these employees, their only hope for a better future is if their kids succeed through studying and becoming something in life.

The first step in achieving this is to obtain their high school diplomas, before going on to do their higher education. In addition to raising the quality of education, the employees are comforted by the fact that Sanady can track their children’s progress when they have no ability to do so, intellectually or financially. The program has shown companies that CSR programs can make sense and also help resolve many of the urgent social needs in Morocco.

It gives companies a simple and tangible method of implementing CSR, without mobilizing extra human resources, as the program is taken care of by the Sanady Foundation, that organizes the classes, does follow-up and reporting. From Bennani-Smires’ own company, Delassus, where the program started, they now have 36 participating companies with the primary goal of acting out their CSR strategies and relying on Sanady to help them.

One of the more important social impacts of the program is that kids aren’t abandoning school. This makes a real difference in Morocco where the dropout rate is extremely high and kids become a problem in society for decades. Schooled kids feel better about school, more confident about themselves and are better prepared to continue with studies after school.

Sanady kids have a better chance to succeed in a career beyond school and thereby offering a better future for their parents too.

https://notablemagazine.com/this-is-what-inspired-me-to-reach-the-womens-world-cup/

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