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Russel Botman inspires education project

Fin24 user Wesley Diphoko of Kaya Labs in Kayamandi, Stellenbosch, shares his experience of a recent education summit with the aim of making it accessible to more young people. He writes:

As part of our World Design Capital project we at Kaya Labs in Kayamandi, Stellenbosch, hosted an Education For All Summit, which was inspired by the passing of Prof Russel Botman.

In the spirit of continuing with his work of transforming education in South Africa we initiated the summit to develop a roadmap to enable access to education.

The summit was attended by members of Kaya Labs, Imbadu,Makupula High School,
professionals,entrepreneurs,learners and local leaders.

The summit focused on the challenges experienced by the youth of Kayamandi and other townships in accessing education.

It also explored various interventions applied around the world to enable access to education.

The former deputy pro-vice chancellor at the University of the Western Cape, Prof. Stanley Ridge presented a paper on challenges in accessing education.

He emphasised that education should not be viewed as a service to be delivered. He highlighted the need for co-operation between communities, families, students/learners and education and training institutions to deal with challenges in accessing education.

On enabling access to education Prof. Ridge said: “UWC is the most successful place in the country at taking in people from a disadvantaged school background and enabling them to succeed”.

This point was confirmed by the majority of delegates at the summit, who were UWC graduates and now leaders in society.

These delegates also shared stories of their challenges in accessing education.

Sethu (a University of Cape Town student) from Kayamandi, who was also a delegate, shared her story of not being able to study at Stellenbosch University due to the Afrikaans language.

“I was accepted by several universities across Cape Town and considered Stellenbosch University since it was ten minutes away from my home. However, I declined their offer due to the Afrikaans language and chose to study at UCT”.

Other delegates highlighted challenges that range from lack of resources in schools, quality of school education and lack of family support as some of the factors that are contributing to challenges with access to education.

The second part of the summit focused on how technology is used to enable access to education.

An educator from Brown Mackie College – Katie Barthelemy in the United States - shared a story of how e-learning is used in the US as a method to enable people across society to access education.

She indicated that even senior citizens and full time workers could study from their own homes through the e-learning method applied by Brown Mackie College.

In conclusion, I presented the Kaya Lab Model – using design thinking to enable access to education, which is currently being developed as part of a World Design Capital 2014 project.

As part of this project Kaya Labs will be developed in various townships to enable people to access the best education available from leading institutions in the world.

The online version has been in existence for sometime, however, the physical/offline version will be launched in August 2014 to enable Kayamandi residents to access education they’ve been denied by local institutions.

The plan is to roll out similar labs to other townships to open doors of learning for township residents.

Although Prof. Botman is no longer alive to lead this struggle, his death has inspired young people in Kayamandi township and some supporters in Stellenbosch to continue the fight to enable access to education.

- Fin24

Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyFin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.

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