333 days ago
Bridging the gap between financial services education and the industry.

By Justin Nurse via IOL.

In this Pied Piper Project instalment, a LeadSA and Daily News initiative, Justin Nurse talks to Terence Berry, who calls himself an “eduneer” – someone who looks for opportunities in the education space to create new things. He is also principal of the Asisa Academy, which bridges the gap between financial services education and the industry itself.

Background

I had my mid-life crisis at 30 when I was working for an investment bank in London. I knew deep in my heart that education was the lever of change and that I wanted to come back to South Africa and make a difference. Earlier in my life, I was involved in social upliftment projects in townships, but that was to do with housing (through my church I’d been involved in bringing Habitat for Humanity to the Western Cape).

Education really seemed like my calling though, so I took a big pay cut and started working for a London-based consultancy, Edunova, involved in Tony Blair’s big education drive – the Academies Programme – which was all very new and exciting. The concept was to go into an area where education was failing because there was a low desire to learn (be it because people were happy just being on the dole, for example), and create an academy – a whole new school with a new principal, organisational structure, new buildings, and new approaches to learning – basically a blank slate.

To read the full article on iol, click here: http://bit.ly/KxC7pm