The Centre for Pedagogy (SUNCEP) in the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University (SU) will be hosting 19 different tuition sessions for more than 1000 teachers and learners during the April school holidays.

More than 800 learners in the Southern, Northern and Western Cape will attend supplementary tuition programmes in Mathematics and Natural and Physical Sciences.

The HOPE@Maties programme is aimed at Grades 12s to improve their content knowledge and skills in Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Accounting so that they may qualify to access higher education main stream programmes in 2017. They will also be informed about study opportunities at SU. 

The HOPE@Maties sessions will be hosted in schools in Genadendal, Oudtshoorn, Mitchell's Plain, at South Peninsula High School in the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town and in Kimberley in the Northern Cape.

Eight learners on the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) merit list and five on the top 20 list of the Northern Cape Department of Education's (NCDoE), were part of the 2015 Hope@Maties project.

SUNCEP also provides opportunities for younger learners to improve their results in Mathematics and Sciences. These learners will gather in Malmesbury, Villiersdorp, Worcester, Franschhoek, Atlantis, Springbok and Mitchell's Plain to attend holiday schools.

One of these opportunities include a new initiative to improve the literacy and numeracy skills of primary school learners in a number of farm schools in the Breede River Valley near Worcester.

In all these tuition sessions, tutors identified by the different departments of education, alongside with SUNCEP staff members will present the tuition sessions at different schools. In some areas the learners will commute to the sessions daily; in some areas the learners will stay in school hostels for the week.

"For some teachers the rest will be short-lived, too," says Dr Trevor van Louw, Director of SUNCEP.  "They are sacrificing part of their school holidays to be better teachers, and for that we salute them."

SUNCEP is expecting about 150 teachers to attend a blended learning SU accredited Mathematics short course at three different venues.  The teachers in Springbok and Kuils River have already received their Windows tablets earlier this year and will attend a follow-up session. Teachers in Vredendal will now receive their tablets on which the interactive SUNCEP developed material has already been loaded. During the face to face tuition sessions they will also be empowered on how to enhance their teaching by effectively including technology and e-learning.

In Kuils River, a group of about 50 school management team members from the Stellenbosch region will be attending a short course in Leadership and Management.

Please contact dr Trevor van Louw, director of SUNCEP at 082 535 7964, should you want to have a personal interview.