PEP helps out with extra lessons

To these ends, brand retailer PEP has launched the Student Prince Academies to provide after-school core competency training in literacy, numeracy and life skills to hundreds of Grade 4 children in Gauteng and the Western Cape.

As PEP MD George Steyn explains: “We're not only helping to keep kids at school, we're also keeping them off the streets, and providing a safe and caring environment for free supplementary education and other activities.”

PEP invested R4.5-million in the first year of the project, which consists of four academies teaching 640 children in two Gauteng schools (Tembisa and Daveyton in Ekurhuleni) and in two Western Cape schools (Walter Teka & Liwa School in Nyanga and the Tygersig Primary school in Tygerberg).

Some of these academies also offer facilities to children from surrounding schools.

The biggest challenge facing the government is to dramatically improve core performance. The problems are often attributed to poor transition from mother tongue to English at Grade 4 level and this is when many learners, who find it difficult to adapt to the transition, lose interest in school.

For this reason the Student Prince Academy curriculum has been designed to support this critical change — to help learners with homework, extra literacy, numeracy tuition and life skills training. This takes place three afternoons a week and all 640 children are given a meal before their lessons begin.

Steyn said: “It is hugely important to help kids continue their schooling in a safe environment. Children are an important part of PEP's business and are the future of this country.”

The education department has given the initiative the thumbs-up.

CSI consultancy Social Innovations is running the programme and has employed a manager in each school, who works closely with the school management team and governing body.

Source: Business Times

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