Mandela Institute
Education in East London

The Nelson Mandela Institute was founded in 2007 with the understanding that South African society and the economy cannot grow without the creativity, skill and capacity of its people: The future of any country depends on the quality of its public education system.

The Nelson Mandela Institute works with rural teachers, learners and parents to create classrooms that work for rural children. Secondly, the solutions (curriculum, teacher support) are often not well tested or calibrated to the linguistic and socio-economic context of rural schools. Sweating it out with rural teachers, and placing the rural child at the generative centre, the NMI creates tools and methods through which to build text rich primary school classrooms that promote reading, writing, expression and critical thinking. We use these resources as the basis to develop teacher training systems accountable to learner achievement in classrooms. With your support, we seek to build an internationally acclaimed teacher training institute serving teachers across the Continent, accountable to the socio-linguistic realities of rural learners. Former President Mandela launched the Nelson Mandela Institute in 2007 in response to the education crisis facing rural Africa. He sought to establish a research and training institute working in close partnership with rural teachers, children and communities, to build sustainable solutions to the problems facing education in rural Africa. Based in the rural Eastern Cape, attached to Mandela's alma matre the University of Fort Hare, the NMI was launched to work with rural teachers, children and parents to create sustainable solutions to education serving rural Africa.