Math & Science Education for South African Youth

So much has happened at The Umkhumbane Schools Project since our inaugural Global Giving campaign in early September.  Thanks to the generosity of 78 individual donors, we were able to raise a total of $5,593 in just two weeks, meeting our project goal and establishing the USP as a permanent Global Giving partner.  I wish all of our donors could have experienced the electric atmoshpere of excitement and gratitude that filled our office as the news came through that we had met and suprassed this first fundraising goal.  That day wiil be long remembered! 

It is with deep appreciation to our Global Giving donors that I am writing with this update on what we have accomplished in the last two months.  

 Four Medals and Four High Commendations Earned at the 2016 Eskom International Science Fair Competition 

    " My experience with Expo taught me to believe in myself."  

    "My experience with Expo taught me that it doesn't matter how small I am but I can still make a change in my community.....Also ever since the Eskom Expo my English has improved and I'm now doing better on presentations at school."         

   "Because of the Eskom Expo, I have found myself and found the career that I would do and I have started to believe in myself."    

     -- Reflections on the 2015 Expo by SPARK/Umkhumbane Learners

Back in September we were busy preparing our eight students who had been selected to compete in the 2016 Eskom International Science Fair Competition.  Over several weeks of afternoons spent back in the lab or at the drawing board upgrading projects for the higher level of competition, with report-writing and poster-design sessions that often ran until well after dark, these students worked with great dedication towards their dream of getting to travel to Boksburg as part of our regional delegation to the international competition.  Several of our learners who had entered the regional competition but had not been selected to advance to the ISF came to these work-days to help their friends prepare.  On the last day of preparation, we taped the outline of their poster dimensions on the wall and had the learners give each other mock judges' interviews.  By late afternoon when we took them home to pack and get a good night's sleep, there was a quiet to the palpable excitement among this amazing and hardworking group.  At long last, they were ready.  

Our pick-ups the next morning began before 5:00 AM.  We collected the learners one-by-one and made our way to the place  where they would board the bus just after sunrise for the six-hour journey to Boksburg.  We passed around a bag full of books from which they each chose something to read during their inevitable periods of waiting during the competition.  "Whatever you do," we said, "don't be away from your poster when a judge stops by!"

Three days later, the news came through:  all eight of our learners had received some kind of recognition at the international competition.  Three won Silver Medals, one earned Bronze, and the remaining four were awarded Certificates of High Commendation for their projects.  The judges had deemed true what we had known all along: each of these young scholars was a winner.

It would be hard to overstate the value of the Eskom Expo experience to these learners.  These students work hard, under difficult conditions of poverty and an inadequate educational foundation.  They may live in a modest house with a parent, or in a shack as the head of a household with younger siblings, with neither running water nor electricity.  Most of them know what it means to feel hungry on a regular basis.  Their lives are not easy.   Yet each and every one of these young people moves forward to greet challenges and opportunities with a resilient spirit of hope and determination.  It has been a joy and a privilege to watch them grow in knowledge, self-confidence, and awareness of the wider world through this year's Eskom Expo preparations at The Umkhumbane Schools Project.       

To echo the words of our learners, we can hardly wait until next year's Expo!

 Learner Feedback from Our Mathematics Program

     "SPARK/Umkhumbane Maths programme has helped me to understand branches of maths that I did not understand during school lessons."

     "The maths programme has helped me to not give up and try until I do right." 

     "It help me to be proud about maths and to understand maths and now not get a zero in maths."

     "It helped me a lot because ever since I went to this school project my marks were just being well and increasing."

    -- Quotes from Grade 10 Students on our 2015 Year-End Teaching & Learning Evaluation Survey

 Yesterday was the last teaching day for the year in our Saturday maths program for Grade 10 learners in all five Umkhumbane Schools.  This coming week, the learners will write the second part of their final examinations for the year.  Over the last two years, our Grade 10 maths program has raised final examination results in the maths/science cohort at Wiggins Secondary from an 18% pass rate in 2012 to a 59% pass rate in 2014.  More significantly, the number of these learners scoring over 50% on their Grade 10 mathematics final has risen steadily since the start of our program, from 0% in 2012 to 23% in 2014.  We are hoping that the 2015 results will continue this upward trend.

Yet even before we gain this feedback, there are many reasons to feel a sense of gratitude and fulfillment as another school year comes to a close.  We have provided Saturday and after-school mathematics instruction to over 200 Grade 10 learners, over 100 Grade 11 learners, and over 200 Grade 12 learners this year.  With marked consistency, our students' feedback reveals that through participation in our program they have experienced significant gains in self-confidence concerning their ability to succeed in mathematics.  Without that crucial first step, which is hard to measure on its own beyond what our students continually tell us, no long-term improvement would be possible.  

The two most common requests that came through in our year-end survey was to make sure that the learners can come back to the program next year in Grade 11, and to ask that we provide more food for them.  One learner put this most succinctly in saying, "We are hungry."

For this reason, we have decided to greatly increase the provision of food at our mathematics classes next year, from the snack of fresh fruit that we currently provide, to a more substantial meal.  This will better enable our students to learn and will better sustain them during the wait until their next full meal, which for many of them  --  if not most  ---  might not be until the following day.  

These are but two areas that we have chosen to highlight here.   Our days have been full with these and other activities, as we continue striving to build confidence, instill hope, and foster learning success in this very special community called Umkhumbane.

Thanks to our donors' invaluable support, The Umkhumbane Schools Project is alive and well.  Along with our learners, we are looking forward to a successful year-end, to a holiday season of joy and gratitude, and  to the challenges and sure progress that lie ahead in 2016.