More Pep academies for 2010
Two more Student Prince Academies will be opened early in 2010 in KwaZulu-Natal. Recently commended as the leading project in the Mail & Guardian Investing in the Future Awards for “changing lives by thinking out of the box,” it currently runs six academies - four in Gauteng and two in the Western Cape.
At the eight academies, around 1300 Grade 4 children will receive after school, three times a week, core competence training in literacy, numeracy and life skills. While the children are being given this supplementary education, they are also off the street, given a meal and being kept in a safe environment. The initiative has been fully endorsed by the Department of Education.
Pep MD, George Steyn says, “We want to invest in the building blocks of education and, although it's a small investment in the overall scheme of things, at least we can help make a difference and improve learning levels.”
Tests show that learners enrolled in the Student Prince Academies programme have improved numeracy scores by an average of 20% and literacy scores by an average of 29%. The monitoring study also showed that children enrolled in the programme performed by as much as 45% better than those not enrolled at the end of Grade 4.
