Community planning for rural education in South Africa

The authors describe their experience in using soft OR methods to facilitate a one-day workshop to support the planning processes of a community-based educational trust in South Africa. This workshop brought together the contributions of over 40 people who were involved either in the overall management of the Trust or in the delivery of its courses. It had been agreed to make use in the workshop of the philosophy and methods of the Strategic Choice Approach. To facilitate participation by this relatively large number of participants, it was also agreed to adapt the workshop design by introducing complementary methods from the repertoire of the Nominal Group Technique.