OLICO maths programme help learners achieve remarkable pass rates

Being confined indoors for months at a time, enduring constant disruptions to the school curriculum, and worrying about the health and safety of loved ones goes against everything it means to be a child.

Despite these unprecedented circumstances, many young people have not only managed to weather the storm but excel in the classroom to secure positions at some of South Africa’s leading universities.

That some of these children hail from South Africa’s poorest areas, including Alexandra, Diepsloot and Bosmont, is a further testament to their resilience and will to succeed, especially within the context of South Africa’s ongoing struggle with equal access to quality education.

ALSO READ: Maths 20 per cent pass mark not true, warns DBE

Fortunately, they have also come to realise they are not alone.

The OLICO Maths Education Programme, a beneficiary of the Datatec Education and Technology Foundation, participating learners managed to overcome the odds to achieve a 100 per cent matric pass rate in 2020.

Not only that, but they also achieved a 100 per cent pass rate for pure maths and a 91 per cent bachelor-level pass rate against a national average of only 36 per cent.

According to Datatec Education and Technology Foundation chair Maya Makanjee, their performance can only be considered ‘phenomenal’.

Last year, 863 learners participated in OLICO’s high school programme. The upheaval caused by the pandemic’s arrival in South Africa required that facilitators adapt teaching strategies as quickly as possible while at the same time appreciating that learners were faced with challenges they had never encountered before.

To do this successfully in a low-tech environment such as Diepsloot, OLICO focused on blending existing solutions such as WhatsApp and entry-level cell phones with a carefully thought-through educational strategy to keep learners engaged over the long term.

OLICO launched a Maths WhatsApp Hotline for senior phase learners, with more than 5 000 making use of the service, and also published a number of fluency apps for entry-level android devices (data-free).

ALSO READ: Maths as a requirement for accounting could fall away

One of the learners to achieve a distinction in 2020, Phakama Xabanisa, said moving to remote learning last year required a big change in mindset. “Studying during lockdown was so difficult because we were used to getting support directly from tutors, but now we had to study over WhatsApp. But OLICO provided us with data and phones. OLICO means so much to me because I plan to study civil engineering. Ever since I joined the programme, my maths has improved to the point where this is possible,” she said.

A carefully adapted pedagogical approach unfolded in WhatsApp groups across OLICO’s schools every morning while learners were at home. Tutors would send out customised WhatsApp worksheets aligned to the revised Department of Basic Education curriculum to their groups.

Learners would have an opportunity to work through the worksheets and then the tutor would run a WhatsApp session in the afternoon going over any questions that arose and taking learners through the solutions.

ALSO READ: Maths programmes for kids

This approach included regular maths puzzles and games to keep the context fresh and interesting. Once learners returned to school in the second half of the year, the daily WhatsApp sessions shifted to two afternoons a week with Friday afternoons for additional catch-up work for learners who needed extra support. 

“The lockdown has shown that when low-tech tools such as WhatsApp are combined with a well thought through educational approach, they can be very effective learning supports. I could not be more proud of our learners and our OLICO facilitators for their commitment and what they have managed to achieve,” Makanjee concluded.