A project to build the numeracy, literacy and life skills of grade four learners has significantly bolstered their achievement in these areas.
An evaluation of four Student Prince Academies, which has reached hundreds of grade four learners last year, found the initiative has managed to bring about an average improvement of 20 percentage points for numeracy and 29 for literacy after one year’s work. The target was 10 percentage points for both.
Based on the success of the initiative, funded by the retailer PEP, two more academies have opened in Berea in Johannesburg and Soweto this week. This brings the total number of Student Prince Academies to six, with around one thousand learners benefiting from the scheme.
The academies focus on the essential building blocks of education – words and numbers. It is well documented that if a child falls behind in the early school years, this gets exponentially worse as the child goes through school.
The evaluation study also reveals that learners enrolled in academies performed significantly better than those not enrolled in both learning areas, while children enrolled in the programme performed better at the end of grade four than they did in grade three.
The results were assessed, monitored and released by an outside research and monitoring company on behalf of PEP.
“The fact that these results are so good is very encouraging and we would open more academies if we could,” says PEP People Support Director, Estelle Morkel.
PEP MD, George Steyn says: “Most of the academy learners are children of people who cannot afford school fees at all or any additional education. We’re not only helping to keep those kids at school and off the streets, but we’re also providing a safe and caring environment for free supplementary education and other activities with the aim that in the long term they’ll keep on attending school.”
The project has been endorsed by the national department of education as the kind of model that should be replicated in as many provinces as possible.
Advisor to Minister of Education, Naledi Pandor, Martin Mulcahy adds: “Too many companies just throw money at CSI projects. However, PEP has identified a need and has piloted this properly to make sure the Student Prince Academies work. This is also an example of how Private Public Partnerships should work.”