WSU CONVOCATION & NGCUKAYITOBI FOUNDATION JOIN FORCES TO IMPROVE RURAL EDUCATION

The Walter Sisulu University Convocation has partnered with the Gcinabantu Hutchison Ngcukayitobi Foundation (GNF) to launch an educational intervention programme aimed at improving reading for comprehension as well as mathematics skills in rural Cala and Elliot in the Eastern Cape.

In its inception, the programme will appoint a cohort of 20 unemployed graduates from WSU who will drive the tutorship of these critical subjects to learners in grades 3 and 4.

The primary objective of the initiative is to strengthen reading, writing, and numeracy skills among disadvantaged learners, ensuring they remain aligned with global and national educational standards.

WSU Convocation president, Dr Lunga Mantashe, asserted that the lack of these skills was a major stumbling blocks for learners, which followed them through to high school and tertiary.

"Our goal is to help learners at the edge of foundation phase and beginning of the intermediate phase to overcome problems related to lack of reading for comprehension and mathematics. This problem is reportedly persistent and glaringly experienced by teachers and communities. Worse, if not arrested at an early stage of development it progresses to later levels of study, right up to university,” said Mantashe.

In recent years, the Eastern Cape has seen a rise in its matric pass rates, earning a massive 84.9% in 2024, the highest since 1994.

However, the quality of those passes remains a great concern. Provincially, only 62.2% of learners passed mathematics, while only 45.7% achieved bachelor passes. These discrepancies highlight the work that still needs to be done to raise the bar in education for the province.

Through their educational intervention programme, GNF and the WSU Convocation want to tackle these issues from the ground up, to ensure that learners reach high school with a solid foundation in key subjects.

Brenda Ngcukayitobi, Chairperson of GNF said, “This is central to the mission of the GNF, as education is the foundation for dismantling patterns of poverty and discrimination which affect mainly poor households. We had to identify a limited number of schools at first to test the viability of the programme. Once it has been tested it can be scaled up provincially.”

GNF will use its own infrastructure for coordination, accessibility and delivery of the programme. Through the foundation, tutors will be supported with laptops, a stipend, travelling costs, and skills development.

Mantashe asserted that the convocation was also looking to involve the WSU Faculty of Education, through engaged scholarship.

“The involvement of the faculty, if materialised as we foresee, could bring in its research expertise to the table in order to help the Foundation and Convocation evaluate the structure, pedagogy, and outcome of the educational intervention,” said Mantashe.

By Yanga Ziwele