The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), through generous funding from the Goldman Sachs Foundation, will be launching a programme between June and July this year to identify talented learners from poor communities.
The objective is to select grade 10 maths and science learners who have the potential to succeed beyond their impoverished circumstances and whose schools “have fallen outside our historic feeder schools”, said Zena Richards, student equity project manager at Wits.
Many education intervention initiatives have been launched by the business community across the country to promote maths and science subjects, but the Goldman Sachs programme is donor-funded.
Although the Wits initiative was inspired by the same altruistic considerations, Richards said the programme is not a “run-of-the-mill matric support initiative”. The programme is purely about enrichment, as opposed to those that focus on redressing the imbalances of the past. Richards said Wits wanted to address other areas of education that need intervention, and enrichment was one of those.
She said the three-year pre-Âuniversity programme will target 330 learners from Limpopo, Gauteng and Mpumalanga. Although the formal launch will take place later this year, provinces have already started with the initial spadework, which includes selecting learners and schools.
“Each province will select 110 learners from Dinaledi schools [the education department’s dedicated maths- and science-focus schools]. Limpopo has identified 26 schools, Mpumalanga 10 and Gauteng 24,” said Richards.
For learners to qualify for the programme, they have to obtain 65% in maths, science and English in their final grade 9 examinations, and this level would have to be sustained throughout the programme. “Failure to maintain this would result in automatic drop-out,” said Richards.
Learners will participate in a two-week residential programme at Wits, where they will attend classes from 8am to 6pm. Richards said the purpose of the exercise is to help demystify the university environment, expose and orient the learners to student life and improve their overall matric performance. They will be exposed to skills centering on information literacy, forensic science and life skills, said Richards.
The programme includes a distance-learning component so learners can do research at home and submit projects by post. Richards said Wits’s curriculum development team has structured the programme in such a way that there would be a transfer of key academic learning skills to help the learners with daily schoolwork. These include critical analysis, research and creative writing.
Richards said learners would be encouraged to do community work and to adopt a project in their area. They would have to compile and submit regular status reports. Learners will be guided every step of the way with report writing and the general management of the project.
Before the programme’s official launch, parents of the learners will be invited to special workshops to share ideas on how to handle talented children and will be exposed to appropriate responses in cases where children perform badly. “More importantly, we would like to get parents’ buy-in,” said Richards.
When the learners complete matric, they will have the option to study at an institution of their choice other than Wits. But their performance will continue to be closely monitored.
Selected schools will send two maths and science teachers to Wits for one week a year, where they will participate in a development programme which includes a mentorship component. The teachers will be trained to mentor the learners participating in the project.