IkamvaYouth learners from township and rural schools achieve 85% pass rate; 42% of which are bachelor passes.
“Today my life begins and I’m so happy” – Anathi Malindi, Grade 12 learner from Nyanga.
Speaking on SAFM on 4th January, Graeme Bloch said that “you have to go to a model c school if you want to do well in matric”. And although the country is celebrating the 70.2% national matric pass rate, analysts agree that this figure masks the inequalities in achievement and access to tertiary study. With learners at township and rural schools severely under-performing, it appears that the higher the school fees the better one’s chances of academic achievement.
Yet IkamvaYouth’s volunteers and learners have once again shown that excellent results are possible, irrespective of which school one attends. There were 100 Grade 12 learners enrolled at IkamvaYouth in 2011, and of the 85% that passed, 42% obtained bachelor passes. This is remarkable given that only 24.3% bachelor passes were achieved nationally; the far majority by ex-model c schools. Two Western Cape branches with their first grade 12 classes did particularly well (Masiphumelele achieved 96% pass; Nyanga 93%), and the Ivory Park branch led the pack with a 100% pass rate). Overall, 70% of learners have achieved the bachelor or diploma passes they need to access tertiary education.
Matriculants at Makhaza Branch, Khayelitsha
IkamvaYouth sets no academic pre-requisite for enrollment in the programme. Most learners join with abysmal academic results and are from impoverished homes with unemployed caregivers. During their time with IkamvaYouth, learners dramatically improve their results, access tertiary education, and as Portia Dlamini’s mother in rural KZN hopes, will be able to “carry the family out of poverty”. Many ikamvanites excelled (25 distinctions overall) and – most importantly – many showed significant improvement. “When I joined IkamvaYouth, my third highest mark was 64%, and today I’ve achieved 5 distinctions”, said Shelton Chadya from Ivory Park. Tshepo Lesejane effectively doubled his maths literacy result (39% when he joined; he matriculated with distinction).
Gauteng Branch celebrating Matrics with Branch Coordinator Joe Manciya
Although celebrating the results, IkamvaYouth’s work with the class of 2011 is far from over. 80% of the learners who failed are eligible for supplementary exams, and tutors will ensure that they’re ready to succeed in these exams in March. While many of those who passed have already been accepted by the country’s top universities, there is still work to be done to ensure that none of the class of 2011 become unemployed. The next step is ensuring that all these learners access tertiary education, training, internships, learnerships or employment. “IkamvaYouth will continue to support all our 2011 matrics as they access quality post-school opportunities and become tutors; enabling the following years’ learners to do the same,” says director Joy Olivier.
The tutors who help the learners to reach these heights are all volunteers. Most are university students and many are ex-learners from IkamvaYouth. They’re also the organisation’s greatest benefactors: next year, ikamvanites will be delivering the equivalent of over 3 million rands’ worth of tutoring time to learners in seven communities in three provinces. The result of this phenomenal investment is an intensive, high quality programme that offers ongoing individual attention and support to learners for under R4500 per learner per year.
As well as our volunteers gratitude must be extended to our funders and donors. In particular IkamvaYouth is especially grateful to the DG Murray Trust, EMpower, the Raimondo Trust, the Potter foundation, the Answer Series, ABI, Hatch, African Bank, Cato Manor ABM, AME Africa, the Anglo Chairman’s Fund, SEF, TSiBA, UWC, DUT, Department of Libraries and Information Science, Learning Trust, Bertha Foundation, Dietschweiler Stiftung, the Foschini Group, iKineo, Education Without Borders, World Teach, Zonke Monitoring Systems, and Capitec Bank for their vital contributions this past year. A great shout big shout out also goes to the countless individuals whose time and money has ensured that IkamvaYouth not only continues to operate in challenging economic times, but can grow and expand its reach and impact.
When announcing the results, the Minister of Basic Education pronounced the eradication of inequality a national priority. IkamvaYouth invites everyone to get involved in transforming our nation, one shining future at a time. IkamvaYouth has branches in the Western Cape (Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Masiphumelele); KZN (Chesterville and a new branch opening in Umlazi) and Gauteng (Ivory Park, and a new branch opening in Ebony Park). IkamvaYouth has maintained a matric pass rate of between 83 and 100% each year since 2005, and true credit for these results must go to the learners, volunteers, the branch teams, and the donors.
Congratulations Class of 2011!
December 16th. It’s a public holiday in South Africa – Day of Reconciliation. It’s also holiday time, and the streets of Makhaza are filled with people making ready for their Christmas festivities or their annual pilgrimage to the Eastern Cape. The small children are playing in the streets, the older kids are heading to the beaches, but seven of Makhaza’s inhabitants get up this morning and go to the office.
These seven remarkable individuals (pictured below) are part of a very exciting project called Khan Academy. With a library of over 2,700 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and 253 practice exercises, Khan Academy is on a mission to help you learn what you want, when you want, at your own pace (www.khanacademy.org).
Project X Team – Top Left: Unathi Smile, Mandisi Gladile, Patrick Zangwa, Andrew Einhorn, Ayanda Gladile. Bottom Left: Athi, Ayanda S, Yanga Zukelwa
This team, however, has a more specific goal: To translate the Khan Academy videos into Xhosa. At present, the videos are being subtitled into 47 different languages around the world in a Wikipedia-style open collaboration. Of these 47, 16 are in the process of being dubbed. The reason? Khan Academy is not truly open to the world until it has been translated into the languages that make it accessible to the world.
When scouting about for a name for the translation project, we discovered that Xhosa is the only official language on the globe that begins with an ‘X’. It followed naturally that we name the operation “Project X”. This is the name that has stuck, and Project X is now well and truly under way.
It is a momentous task, but our translators have so far shown themselves to be up to the challenge. In the space of just two weeks, they have fully translated and edited the first 40 videos, which address topics in arithmetic. This equates to roughly 8000 lines of Xhosa, or 64,000 words. The videos are translated by individuals and then edited as a group to gain maximum simplicity and clarity in the translation. The goal for December is to complete the Arithmetic and Pre-Algebra playlists – two of the three core sets of videos in the Khan Academy math library. So far the team is well on track.
Project X is not only about bringing Khan Academy to the seven million Xhosa speakers in South Africa. It is also about leading the way for other African countries and language groups to follow suit. At present, Xhosa is one of only two African languages into which the videos are being translated – the other being Swahili. Ironically, while of all the continents Africa has perhaps the greatest need for learning tools like this, it is also the continent that has the lowest Khan Academy penetration. Project X is one way we are trying to rectify this imbalance.
If you are interested in getting involved with Project X, or setting up a parallel project for another language group, please contact Andrew by email on andreweinhorn@gmail.com.
Translation in Progress: Khan Academy’s online translation tool (and coffee!)
On World Aids Day, December 1, 2011, the Cape Town Information Resource Center invited Ikamvanites to a trans-Atlantic Skype dialogue session to create awareness of HIV/Aids related issues with American teen journalists from Boston University.
The catalyst before the Skype session was the screening of Susan Walker’s film entitled “A Tale of Two Teens” (2005). Walker is Boston University’s Professor of Journalism and a documentary film producer. The documentary follows Margaret, an American teenager, as she travels to South Africa to meet Sine, a 16-year-old girl orphaned when both her parents died of AIDS. Sine lives with her grandfather in the Pholela district, Kwazulu-natal, South Africa, the unofficial epicenter of the pandemic. Through the girls’ friendship (they bond over the music of American Dave Matthews, who was born in South Africa), the film explores how AIDS has been able to ravage an entire continent, while a dangerous complacency has developed in America. It looks at the disparities in the girls’ lives, from access to education and health care to their thoughts on boys, sex, and HIV/AIDS.
Infused with a resilient spirit, A Tale of Two Teens offered an accessible and meaningful appreciation of the global AIDS crisis as well as a powerful tool for discussion, awareness and prevention to kick start the dialogue session.
Guest facilitator, Garrett Rhodes, a major in Film from Penn State University and currently a Peace Corps Response Volunteer working with PEPFAR based at the Western Cape Dept. of Health in Cape Town, excelled at engaging both trans-Atlantic teen audiences in the Q&A sessions with his experience as a Life Orientation Coach and HIV/Aids Peer Group Educator.
Phumza Kibi, explained to the American teens that Ikamva Lisezandleni Zethu means “The Future is in our Hands” in Xhosa and the IkamvaYouth non-profit organisation focuses on the empowerment of youth through education, e-literacy training and career guidance.
After the program, Professor Susan Walker wrote about this initiative: “We are all just amazed at what we can do with the new technology and efforts of dedicated educators. Students were blown away by this experience and I would love to consider this, again, maybe next year during World AIDS Day.”
Results:
By highlighting World Aids Day and in support of the U.S. Mission to South Africa goals in partnering with the South African Government, this IRC program focused on HIV/Aids Education and awareness is moving forward towards an Aids-Free generation of South Africans. The dialogue session was a fun and creative way to carry the message home and to foster mutual understanding among global youth audiences.
Text is taken from Susan Dymond’s report of the event.
To view the Youtube clip of the conversation click here
Makhaza Prize giving
Prize giving event is conducted at the end of the academic year as a celebration of the successes of learners, volunteers and staff. It’s great to celebrate the end of the stressful exam period and the imminent summer holidays, so we give it all we’ve got. Makhaza branch had prize giving on the 26/ 11/2011. Due to the larger number of dedicated learners and tutors Makhaza branch issued out 112 certificates. 3 of most dedicated, good marks, leadership role, and best attendance learners were given a computer each. Other prizes that Makhaza learners got were Freshly-ground tickets. 15 of Makhaza branch learners will get the opportunity to watch freshly-ground performing live. The lovely Makhaza choir and hip-hopsters ensured we had good music. Tembela, one of the grade 12s who got 4 certificates plus a computer, couldn’t hide the joy and happiness during the ceremony. Thanks to Patrick for a great motivational speech which inspired most of the learners and tutors, also thanks to Joy for a great speech and background about the organisation.
One of the key things when you’re working with dedicated people is to show them the appreciation of their amazing work. It is indeed a pleasure to recognize and thank all of our tutors for the great year and amazing work they done for Makhaza learners this year. Makhaza branch tutors had their funny party at cool runnings in Tygervalley. Cool runnings is the most popular adventure sport. Ride the 1, 25 kilometre of twisting steel half-pipe and reach up to 40 km per hour. In this driving you control the speed with a hand brake, so you can go as fast or slow as you like. For most of the tutors, it was their first time for this kind of the trip. Then after the ridings tutors had lunch and chatted in the park near Tygervalley.
!!!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!!
Excitement, happiness, joyfulness that was the feeling of the two girls, Lorna Marenene and Thembela Gibson after they found out that they won two tickets each for the Janet Jackson concert in Grand West. Lorna and Thembela were entered on Janet Jackson 20 under 20 years old extraordinary people competition where Janet Jackson planed on meeting, honouring, and recognising up to 20 young people under the age of 20 for their extraordinary contributions to their local communities in each city she visits. Lorna and Thembela were selected to 
be part of this group because of their extraordinary contribution to their school life, IkamvaYouth and their community, Makhaza.
Lorna is a self-motivated and conscientious person and always willing to get involved. She organised, highly motivated to accept responsibility. Lorna joined IkamvaYouth in 2010, since then she has shown extreme commitment to the homework and tutoring sessions, and her academic marks have improved dramatically through this commitment. The commitment that Lorna shows in the organisation, indicate how she love being part of the community development. Besides her academic success, she is learner representative at the Makhaza Branch of IkamvaYouth in 2010 and 2011 and part of the Branch Committee. This involved her in the decision-making processes of IkamvaYouth and fostered her natural leadership skills.
Thembela is someone who always willing to learn get involve and not afraid of the new challenges. She always believes that a change can be done especial when it comes to South African education. Being a leader is what motivates her, because it’s not about leading the group of people but being the role model of that particular group you leading. She has been involved in the IkamvaYouth programme at the beginning of this year. Ever since she joins the programme, her extra ordinary working being part of the program not only motivates the tutors but also the learners of the organisation.
The concert took place at Grandwest arena. The tickets that the girls won also allowed then to meet and greet Janet Jackson at the backstage. The girls got the opportunity to greet and take a photo with Janet Jackson. “For the first time in my life I watched an international singer live on stage” Lorna said. Thembela said if it wasn’t for IkamvaYouth she would never got such an opportunity.
Well done girls!
Khan academy is an online learning tool created by Salman Khan in the United States (www.khanacademy.org). While it provides educational content for a variety of subjects, its primary focus is mathematics. Put simply, when a learner “does” Khan Academy, they work their way through a series of exercise modules, beginning with the simplest problems in math, like 2 + 5, and progressing until the learners are working on algebra, trigonometry, and even calculus problems. The idea behind Khan Academy is that when a learner reaches a module covering material they find difficult or have not encountered before, they can watch a video that teaches them how to do it. In this way, they can effectively self-learn their way through the entire school curriculum.
A couple of months ago, I approached Liesel Bakker – the branch coordinator at Ikamva Youth, Makhaza – to see whether we might pilot Khan Academy with some of their learners. Ikamva Youth, as I rapidly discovered, is a “can-do” kind of place. Within weeks we had a computer lab installed, and today we are five weeks into the pilot.
In keeping with Khan Academy tradition, I have put together a short youtube video to keep our sponsors (and you!) up-to-date with what we are doing:
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A special thanks to Liesel, Zukile, Thembi and Joy for providing the learners, the space, and the necessary support to make this happen; to David and Elaine Potter for your generous sponsorship and encouragement; to the US Embassy for contributing towards the lab upgrade; and last but not least, to the coaches – Unathi, Yanga, Mandise, and Bekho – for your continued commitment to, and enthusiasm for, the project.
And lest I leave out our most important participants, congratulations to our pioneering grade nines who have steadfastly stuck with the program and blown us away with their mathematical ability.
One pencil, one pad of paper, go! Khan Academy in action
Of Mice and Monitors – Installing the new lab
Lloyd Lungu