The South African One Thousand Schools Project and Stephens' Quality Wheel

This paper describes the development of a qualitative educational initiative in South Africa: the One Thousand Schools Project. This multiagency initiative is headed by the Independent Development Trust (IDT), a nongovernmental organization. The project soon experienced issues of complexity, however, due to, first, the number of partners involved and, second, the scope of the project: qualitative educational improvement within 1000 schools that were discriminated against under the historical segregated educational system. Seeking an approach to guide the project the IDT opted for Stephens' Quality Wheel, an educational model whose objective is to achieve systemic improvement via coordinating three key educational elements: the agents; conditions for improvement; and a guiding set of educational goals and principles. This paper considers the project's use of Stephens' model, highlighting the insights gained by the project, but also the limited nature of its systemicity. Finally, an inherent tension which was experienced in the project and thereby identified in the model is debated.