MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Oceans Research approached Indwe Secondary School in KwaNonqaba, Mossel Bay in May 2018 with the aim of tutoring the matriculants studying science.

They were exposed to different learning techniques to help them prepare for their final exams. They were tutored in the subjects of Physical Science and Life Science particularly.

The trial programme ran for three days, targeting one class of 80 pupils. During the first day, 33 attended, then 49 and the last day 50, indicating the increasing interest among the learners as the programme progressed.

The objective was to first assess the basic understanding of the subjects and then concentrate on filling the identified gaps. With Life Science, the main issue was related to understanding concepts on evolution. For Physical Science, issues were encountered mainly with inorganic, organic and applied chemistry.

"Throughout the course of the programme, we challenged the learners to teach one another, encouraging a relaxed atmosphere in which to ask questions.

Being young tutors ranging from age 19 to 25 years really helped because the learners could easily open up to us while giving us respect when we were tutoring," says Dr Enrico Gennari from Oceans Research.

"We recently got feedback from the school that their pass rates skyrocketed from 64.7% in 2017 to 81.8% in 2018 for Science, and from 45% in 2017 to 70% in 2018 for biology. Furthermore, several students passed with an overall 'bachelor' matric result (more than 60% in all subjects) and a few even with an A level (more than 75%) in Physical Science. Oceans Research is proud of the effort those students put in and their achievements. We are excited to continue this project in 2019 at Indwe."

Oceans Research is launching the next phase of this project at Indwe Secondary School today, Friday 15 February.

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