ORT in Houghton provides second chances to grade 12 students
HOUGHTON ESTATE – Sixty students are offered the opportunity to improve their maths and science marks.
ORT South Africa celebrated the third successful year of its Second Chance programme which allows students to improve their maths and science marks.
The programme was initiated in 2015 by Mpho Matlala and since then the programme has had a 90 per cent pass rate in its first year and a 95 per cent pass rate last year. This year the members of the ORT team hope that they will have a 100 per cent pass rate when they receive the results early next year.
The programme invites former grade 12 students who passed four of their subjects but didn’t do well in maths and science. This year 60 students took part in the full-time programme.
Many of the students have applied at universities to further their education in fields such as electrical engineering, mining engineering, biomedical technology and law.
Marcelle Ravid, the marketing manager for ORT said, “Most of them have been conditionally accepted [pending] their results.”
“We’ve done some research and 80 per cent of [the] kids from our 2015 and 2016 classes are either studying, in permanent jobs or in learnerships, which is an amazing percentage considering the unemployment rate amongst youth.”
Ravid added that the students come from all over South Africa to participate in the programme, however, their students are primarily from Alexandra.
The students in the programme are retaught the whole grade 12 syllabus as well as the grade 11 syllabus if necessary. The programme is full time with students even having classes on Saturdays if needed.
Serufe Molefe, the research and development coordinator for the programme said, “I think for a lot of students it’s a wakeup call when they don’t do well for a variety of reasons and a lot of them didn’t believe in themselves.”
Molefe added that it is great to work with the students and to see how they grow throughout the programme. “It’s amazing working with the kids and seeing how they pay it back in their community. We try to get them into programmes to give back but this year we’ve seen students taking their own initiative and teaching kids on Saturdays,” concluded Molefe.
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