The School Sponsorship Programme identifies students with academic and leadership potential from economically disadvantaged schools and enables them to excel at South Africa’s top high schools. These are high school students from families earning less than R200 000 a year. Scholars are predominantly from the townships of Johannesburg, Pretoria, East London, Grahamstown and Somerset West and they are matched with high schools that are in the top percentile in pass rates and university entrance.
Sponsors undertake to support their beneficiaries for the full five years of high school. Apart from the curriculum, mentoring and leadership development are integral to the SSP approach.
In recent years, more than 800 scholars have benefited from the programme and many more have been impacted. Alumni number 520, some of whom are studying or working in the most vital sectors in the local economy.
During 2014/15, the Telkom Foundation continued to fund eight beneficiaries to a total value of more than R500 000.
Lwando Wewe was one of those identified as having potential and he has not disappointed his benefactors. He is progressing through Grade 11 at St Andrew’s College in Grahamstown and is obviously en route to a top matric result next year. “Lwando is an absolute model student and I have never met a pupil more thoroughly deserving of the results that he achieves,” says maths master Gerry Posthumus. “He is always working and trying to improve, and he does it with a smile on his face. “
Buhle Mnyamezeli is in Grade 11 at Roedean School, Gauteng. Says English teacher Alison Williams: “Buhle can be proud of the superb improvement in her examination result. She is an independentminded thinker and she is starting to work to her potential.”
Foundation Facts
In 2014/15, the Telkom Foundation entered its second year of a five-year partnership with Make a Difference (MAD) Charity, an organisation founded by rugby legend Francois Pienaar to provide academically talented youngsters who are financially hamstrung with education and related opportunities to realise their potential.
In a country with a dismal dropout rate and grapples with high unemployment and crime, the need for a programme such as this is clear.
The Foundation supports 20 learners in grades 8 and 9 in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape who scored above 75% in maths and science. During 2014/15, it pledged its second tranche of R1.1 million towards their progress through high school.
Moeketsi Mashibini, who is in Grade 9 at Jeppe High School for Boys regards it an honour to be a recipient of the MAD and Telkom Foundation bursary programme and he is making the most of it, with an average at the end of 2014 of 86% in maths, science and English.
“I have been given an opportunity to earn skills that will serve my community in a few years,” he says. “My dreams are bigger and this financial generosity has inspired me to help others.”
Kyle Wilson, in Grade 10 at Westville Boys High, concurs. “This bursary means that I am being given the power today to make a difference in the world tomorrow.” Kyle is a budding chartered accountant, with an average of 77% of maths, science and English.
For Kgomotso Morake, a Grade 10 pupil at De Adelaar High School in Gauteng, the sponsorship means she has to uphold the MAD and Telkom Foundation names. “I am part of the family of MAD kids who share this awesome responsibility and experience,” says Kgomotso, who is notching up an average of 84% for maths, science and English.
James Stoffberg, a Grade 10 pupil at Norman Henshilwood in Western Cape, who is averaging around 77% for the three key subjects, is thankful to MAD and the Foundation for giving him a chance to achieve and “decide what we want to become one day”. “The sponsorship is helping me be a leader at my school and that is an opportunity that not many people have,” he adds.
Foundation Facts
Daughters make up half the youth population in South Africa and yet fewer girls than boys complete secondary education. The problem is particularly marked in Eastern Cape, where one in two girls is about two years older than the normal age for high school grades.
The Telkom Foundation decided to step in during 2013/14 to sponsor 60 girls from two schools through a partnership with the Future of the African Daughter (FOTAD) initiative. Forty grades 8 and 9 girls were selected from Mtshotshisa Junior School and 20 Grade 10 pupils from Bashee High School. At the time, the Grade 10 dropout rate at Bashee from January to October was 9% from, more than half girls.
Given the encouraging results achieved in the first year of the partnership, the 60 girls again benefited from the support of the Foundation.
In 2014/15, almost R14 000 was invested in each girl – a total of almost R840 000.
During the school term, pupils receive extra maths and science lessons, and training in leadership, debating and public speaking, lifeskills and ICT. A holiday programme combines work experience, career guidance, quarterly outings and leadership camps.
In addition to tuition, the Foundation funded a technology component, most notably a mobile iLab, which increased the sponsorship by R300 000.
From mediocre maths and science marks in the 40% range before the Telkom Foundation’s intervention, all 60 pupils have improved their marks by 10% or more.
Foundation Facts
The need to prepare grades 10 to 12 pupils from disadvantaged areas for the demanding world outside the classroom prompted the Telkom Foundation to maintain its partnership with North West University (NWU) in the Ikateleng programme. The initiative, whose name means ‘empower yourself’, has yielded impressive results in recent years, producing many school leavers who have gone on to make their mark in fields such as engineering and in the corporate world.
The Foundation pledged R4.3 million to the project during 2014/15. Pupils previously registered on Ikateleng were all absorbed into the system as a result of good marks in the previous period (students have to obtain at least 55%).
Through Ikateleng, experienced teachers offer extra maths, science and English classes to pupils in the last three years of high school. During the year, lessons were offered to 315 youngsters at Potchefstroom campus, 310 at Mafikeng and 300 each at Vanderbijlpark and Kimberley. Although Ikateleng is delivered during school holidays and occupies six hours a day, it enjoyed 100% attendance in 2014/15, which is attributed partly to the introduction of a registration fee.
By year-end, pupils had recorded an average 80% for English, 85% for science and 70% for maths, results above expectations. Particularly commendable – post-year end – was the 100% maths score achieved by Sanele Macamo of Thutotsebe High School, studying at Mamelodi Centre in Tshwane.
Foundation Facts
Rally to Read and the Telkom Foundation came into being in the same year, 1998, and both share a passion for education, so it’s fitting that the two have forged a close partnership.
The relationship continues in 2014/15, when the Foundation invested almost R2 million to reach 107 schools nationally. This was slightly down on the reach of 2013/14 when 118 schools benefitted.
Rally to Read was initiated by the Read Educational Trust, which holds that the literacy problem requires intervention at a very early age and that severe deficits in the pre-reading and pre-numeracy skills of children entering the South African school system, particularly those from rural and township areas, contribute to the literacy problem.
The Telkom Foundation entered into an exclusive contract with Bidvest to provide literary resources and educator training to the foundational grades, particularly Grade R, to disadvantaged schools.
The Telkom Foundation’s influence was felt by more than 37 000 youngsters in the year under review, 3 500 of whom were Grade R learners. This takes to 114 000 the total number of schoolgoers who have benefited from the support since 2012/13.
The Foundation has linked its name particularly with the Limpopo chapter, in which province it supports 14 schools in the Vhembe district, reaching more than 10 000 learners.
Alet Steenkamp, one of the Telkom Foundation representatives who took part in the event, said it was touching to see the interaction between the children and the Telkom team.
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