By Balisa Ntloko | Fundraising Coordinator
As the year begun, once again, IkamvaYouth team anxiously awaited the release Grade 12 results - to find out whether all the many hours of tutoring, winter schools, mentoring and workshops were enough to enable the current Ikamvanites to jump over their first big academic hurdle: passing matric.
Last year, our matric cohort grew by 66% (to 472 learners); from 10 branches with matrics to 14. With this kind of scale and stretch, we are thrilled to be able to report that we have maintained our excellent results-an incredible 84.7% passed and 73% are eligible for tertiary studies (38% bachelor and 35% diploma)! This is compared to the national pass rate of 75.1% and 28.7% bachelor passes. The schools that our learners attend had an average pass rate of 72% and an average bachelor pass of 23%. The class of 2017 also obtained 147 distinctions; to get a distinction in a subject you have to get over 80%!
We are thrilled to have obtained such incredible results in the face of great adversity; all branches faced huge challenges during the course of 2017 from gangsterism in schools, to no water and electricity, to floods. In Umlazi, for example, there was a period last year when learners couldn’t attend the branch because of child abductions in the township and then there were the floods, where one of our learners lost her brother.
Our top performing branch this year was Ebony Park, which had 35 matriculants. 97% passed and 91% are eligible for tertiary! Michael, the Branch Coordinator, said: I think the branch history with regard to pass rate kept us on our toes. We knew that we had to do better than our previous years. Starting the year with a plan and sticking to it was our main goal to ensure we got great results. Learner commitment meant that we could create a management plan for each learner, which worked so well. Also, stability played a huge role as learners and staff have been together for a while which made things easy for everyone. 2015 was a challenging year for the branch as we dropped out of the 90% zone, however, we vowed never to repeat that again and ensured that we learned from it!
Our partner organisations, who implement the IkamvaYouth programme through our Community Collaboration Programme (CCP), equally did us proud! The overarching aim of CCP is to create an effective sector of after-school tutoring and mentoring programmes by supporting and training other community based organisations to deliver high quality programmes that are ensuring that disadvantaged youth matriculate successfully from high school and access a post-school opportunities that put them on the path to earning a dignified living. In 2017, nine partner organisations participating in the CCP supported 129 Grade 12 learners who collectively achieved an incredible 93% pass rate. 87 learners achieved either bachelor or diploma passes; evidence of the power of safe spaces where learners can access care and academic support after school.
We are very excited to report that six implementing partners have achieved 100% pass rates! One of the learners from Just Grace, Lisakhanya said “Matric 2017 was tough; it required a lot of sacrifice and a shift in focus. I spent most of my time at school, day and night, but in the end I made it with a bachelor pass and a distinction. This year I will be studying Mechanical engineering at CPUT”.
Just Grace Programme Coordinator, Yongama said that “it was challenging and fruitful at the same time. We managed to build good relationships with schools as recommended at CCP meetings. Being a CCP member helped me a lot in many areas including brainstorming resolution to common challenges.”
It is with great pride that we share our results; we are so proud of our learners, tutors and staff who work so hard to achieve them. All IkamvaYouth tutors are volunteers; they don’t get paid to tutor week after week, but they do it because they care about the future of their country. The majority are young black South Africans, who are attending college or university, so they also have a huge amount of work to do themselves, yet they find the time to put their young community members first. IkamvaYouth couldn’t do its great work without this incredible commitment and we would like to send a massive shout out to our phenomenal tutors: thank you for taking the future of our country into your hands!
Our results would also be impossible without your support. Thank you so much!
If you would like to support IkamvaYouth, visit our website via this link.
By Esethu Numa | Communications Coordinator
By Balisa Ntloko | Fundraising Coordinator
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
