South Africa is the only place The Kresge Foundation works outside of the United States. The foundation began funding South African universities in 1989. To date, Kresge has invested nearly $40 million to promote South African postsecondary access and success – especially improving student graduation rates.

In 2014, we launched the Siyaphumelela (“We Succeed”) initiative to encourage the use of data analytics to enhance South African university student success. Specifically, Siyaphumelela seeks to build institutional capacity to collect and analyze student data to determine when and why students are not succeeding so that institutions can focus on the most effective interventions.

Led by the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) and informed by student success innovators from across the world, such as the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) and Achieving the Dream, Siyaphumelela reform efforts are taking shape at five universities: Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, University of Pretoria, University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and Durban University of Technology.

The initiative also supports the latest technological and productivity advances to identify cost-effective methods of delivering high-quality postsecondary instruction.