In the face of instability, adaptability is the only way forward. If there’s one group of South Africans who have proven this, it’s the Kutlwanong matric cohort of 2022, who once again achieved a 100% pass rate.
“From a pandemic to political unrest, flooding, and economic challenges, it’s been a trying time for our recent matriculants. But no matter what, these young people adapted, gave of themselves, and succeeded,” says Nomaxabiso Matjila, Group Head of Corporate Social Investment at Liberty.
Maths and science are the core of quality education, and for ten years now, Liberty and the Kutlwanong Centres for Maths, Science, and Technology have enabled thousands of South African teenagers to excel in these vital subjects.
Since 2013, Liberty has supported and funded two centres, one in Umbumbulu in KwaZulu-Natal, and the other in Katlehong, south-east of Johannesburg. These centres provide grade 10 – 12 learners with extra maths and science tutorials, teacher development, and career guidance.
“The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) believes the next Einstein will be African, and with more organisations like Kutlwanong supporting young people’s excellence, we hope this genius will be South African,” says Matjila.
“These past few years have been so difficult for our learners, but also for our teachers, who have also had to learn to adapt to new ways of working. Creating a new curriculum each year to address the changing severity of the pandemic, helping to counsel the pupils who lost loved ones and beloved teachers, the members of our team have showcased their versatility, brilliance, and perseverance,” says Collen Mkhomazi, Head of Curriculum at Kutlwanong.
Over the past decade, these two Liberty-sponsored centres have produced alumni with a pass rate of 100% in maths and science, highlighting the programme’s ongoing success. More than 7300 matrics have gone through the programme at these two centres, with each and every one of them matriculating – not a single failure.
The class of 2022 achieved a 100% pass rate in maths and science, following the 2021 implementation of a fully blended learning approach – created in response to the global pandemic.
In 2020, Kutlwanong had to entirely adjust how they taught their learners, as most lessons, before the pandemic were conducted in person in a classroom. However, the pandemic and intermitted regulatory lockdowns led to the creation and distribution of the Promaths online platform. The establishment of the online platform was a collaborative effort between Liberty, Investec, Kutlwanong, and the digital designers at Tuta-Me.
=The objective of the online platform was to ensure continued learning by enabling learners and teachers to connect remotely during unexpected and prolonged school closures as a result of the COVID-19 regulatory lockdowns. Following a year of refining their hybrid learning processes, in 2021 a new schedule of online and contact classes was adopted to ensure centres were able to continue teaching and learning without compromising core curriculum outputs for learners to achieve the best outcomes.
Continuing into 2022, this new digitally-forward programme – that still embraces in-person tutelage – has resulted in the 290 matriculants from the Liberty funded centres achieving phenomenal results:
- A total of 107 distinctions were achieved by Promaths learners with Mathematics 2 learners achieving 100%
- 116 distinctions for Physical Sciences with 4 learners achieving 100%
- The average learner subject average for Mathematics was 74%
- The average learner subject average for Physical Sciences was 73%
- Over 93% of learners achieved a bachelor’s pass rate
“Two members of the class of 2022 got perfect scores on both their maths and physical science exams, while a hundred more achieved distinctions and other results that will propel them forward in their tertiary education and future careers. For more than a decade, we’ve been privileged to work with Kutlwanong, and every year, we see a group of young people showing that no matter the circumstance, their brilliance will shine through,” says Matjila.
Mkhomazi says each year, he is overwhelmed by emotion when he sees a new cohort of matrics succeed.
“I reflect on where so many of them have come from. Not just their educational background, their socio-economic background and what they’ve experienced over these past few years. They sacrifice their time to come to the centres, because they see the benefit, and they work so hard. Some of these learners have been uprooted by circumstance, but it’s inspiring to see them get their lives back on track,” he says.
