Tech-based support model brings matrics closer to university

The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has led to school closures, which has been challenging for learners everywhere, including past matriculants who hoped to improve their final matric marks.

Due to a joint venture between Nelson Mandela University (NMU), North-West University (NWU) and the North West Department of Education, a high-tech mathematics and sciences support platform at schools has been introduced. During his address at the launch of the GammaTutor Resource Support Programme at the Mathematics, Science and Commerce (Masccom) Training Centre, NWU’s Prof Hercules Nieuwoudt said,

“You have a really powerful set of instruments in your hands, so you can be prepared and have great success at the end of the year”.

This new technology-blended support programme is a platform that helps learners to improve their mathematics and science marks for the duration of the pandemic. It is an innovation of NMU’s Govan Mbeki Mathematics Development Centre (GMMDC) and is already used in schools in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. With the tech-based programme, there are 80 Gamma Tutors, which are digitalized teaching and learning devices. These can be linked to any digital screen, data-projector, or TV. The Gamma Tutors also have GMMDC’s advanced TouchTutor app. It includes video lessons, PowerPoint presentations, self-tests, and multi-language support for math and physical sciences. The GMMDC’s MobiTutorZA app is an online version of the TouchTutor app, for use on mobile phones that learners can also use. WhatsApp groups and interactive Zoom sessions will also be used to provide support to educators.

“The learners will be able to use the mobile plug-and-play support platforms after school, as part of a technology-assisted peer support (TAPS) programme. This essentially provides structured support at the school or anywhere else for self-directed learning,” director of GMMDC, Prof Werner Olivier said. 

According to Prof Olivier, teachers have also been trained to use the Gamma Tutors and MobiTutorZA apps as teaching aids. He says that the project started as an emergency plan when the national lockdown began in March. It started as a learner support project, where NWU used the eFundi online teaching and learning support programme, jointly with some of GMMDC’s Gamma Tutor resources. The Masccom principal, Nthabiseng Kawadza, said they are putting plans in motion to use the newly tech-based approach to also help in-service health workers and other working professionals. “The new support platforms at the Masccom centre are similarly aimed at improving the maths, physical sciences or life sciences marks of second-chance Grade 12 learners, who completed matric in the past, but whose marks were not good enough to access professional degree programmes at university, “We have been waiting for (support such as) this for a very long time. We are very happy it has come,” she said.

The Masccom project is sponsored by the Nedbank Eyethu Community Trust.