active
Marianne Merten
Ten grade 11 and 12 pupils crowd into a cold classroom at Langa High School, in a Cape Town township, on an overcast afternoon to attend extra science tutorials held by University of Cape Town students as part of the ActivScience project.
Thirty UCT BSc students visit four township high schools Mondays to Thursdays to hold extra science and maths classes and develop science projects for the planned exhibition in August.
Project co-ordinator David Masikhwa said it was important to motivate learners to study maths and science. “All careers are open to you,” said the third-year BSc engineering and higher education diploma student.
Coming from a little school in the rural areas of Venda, Masikhwa knows black pupils are definitely interested in science and maths although it often is an uphill struggle because of lack of facilities and little motivation or commitment from teachers.
Another difficulty is that both subjects are taught in English and exam papers are also in English, which for many pupils is a second or third language.
Siyana Dludla (19) regularly returns to his old school, Langa High School, to tutor maths and science. “You know how things are back at the school. If there is a way to help, why not help,” he says.
The tutorials are held in the science lab empty of equipment. Only 10 of the 90- odd physical science students at the school attend the extra lesson.
ActivScience was started in 1997 by nuclear physics student Nceba Mhlahlo, who is studying for a master’s degree. The project has been funded since 1998 by the Open Society and this year received R81E000 from outgoing UCT vice-chancellor Ramphele Mamphele.
At Nelson Mandela High School, tutorials are held in bare, cold classrooms with graffiti-scarred desks.
Matsidiso Tsita is a grade 11 pupil and one of 16 girls attending the tutorial that afternoon. “We want to learn. I want to find a good job.” Yet lack of teacher encouragement and commitment from the school almost scuppered the programme at the school. At a recent meeting between ActivScience staff, the principal promised to support the project.
Frans Ngako, a 23-year old BSc chemical engineering student, said if South Africa wants to be globally competitive it needs to get the basics of its economics right. And that can happen only with more maths and science graduates.
He said many of his fellow matriculants, who studied the “general stream”, today still have no jobs.