At the Qeduzi Primary School in KwaThema, Grades 4 to 11 learners were already learning, as teaching had already started in maths, science, English and accounting, despite it being the first day.
“Our focus is to mainly work on major subjects to help develop our children, because we saw that sitting back and complaining about the performance of young people won’t help us or them.
“We instead need to come together as communities and do the work.
“Here our main objective is not money. However, we use resources that are available to us to help the African child develop,” says facilitator Lefa Rammego.
He adds that in their work in this programme they have the privilege of being guided by retired teachers who mentor and advise them, and they are also fortunate enough to sometimes get help from community members to benefit the children.
“We welcome professionals, students and former teachers but still need more volunteers, including the unemployed and graduates, as you don’t need to be a qualified teacher to help out with the children – we just need people who have the passion and knowledge of the subjects to come and assist.
“If people don’t volunteer, the programme and these children suffer, hence we all have a role to play in the development of our future minds,” says another facilitator, Melusi Mndebele.
He adds that they are happy to see young people also coming forward to assist us in the programme.
Buhle Vilakazi (16), a Grade 11 learner, says she started attending these classes last year and it has really helped her raise her marks, because they are able to cover in detail and better understand some of the work that they don’t do in depth at school.
“The staff members make sure that we understand the work, so I am very grateful to them for the work they do.
“I would encourage other young people to come here so they too can boost themselves and their marks,” she says.
Betty Mgudlwa (13) in Grade 8 says that since she started in the programme two years ago, her schoolwork has been made easier to understand.
“My marks have improved a lot since I started attending the extra lessons, but the challenge we face in our class with other learners is that when their marks start improving, they stop attending and then come back later when their marks have dropped.
“If you know you want good grades, come join us, as classes are open,” she says.
