Social Innovation Project Profiles

for Common Good First Digital Network

Reimagine your future – this site provides a bank of ideas to spark and promote social innovation, building on what we have in our communities.

  1. Project Organisation: Rhodes University & GADRA Education
  2. Project Name:Nine Tenths Mentoring Programme
  3. Project Location:Grahamstown- Mary Waters High School, Nombulelo Senior Secondary School, and Ntsika Secondary School
  4. Project start date: 2016
  5. Describe the project in one sentence: Nine Tenths is a mentoring programme for local matric students who are mentored by Rhodes University student volunteers.

NEXT PAGE

  1. What is the challenge you aim to address? (2 sentences)

Nine Tenths Mentoring Programme aims to address the unequal/variable quality of education provided at various schools, and address some of the societal contexts that limit a learner’s academic performance.

  1. How does this project seek to address the challenge? (3-5 sentences)

Mentees are supported through 9 contact sessions with their Rhodes University student volunteer mentors. The mentoring sessions happen in phases; the first on ‘personal planning and goal-setting’, the second phase is on ‘summarising and learning skills’. The programme is concluded with sessions on some career guidance and planning beyond their schooling career.

The mentoring sessions are complimented by contact sessions with GADRA Education, who visits the schools, to facilitate the preparation for each phase of the programme.

  1. What assets (skills, capabilities and resources) were you able to draw from the community for this project?
  • Partnership with GADRA Education, a local NGO whose dual concern is to “mitigate the effects of the current education crisis [in Grahamstown, South Africa] and to attack causes of the crisis.”
  • Mentors are drawn from a large student volunteer pool at Rhodes University.
  • The Rhodes University Education department assists with training and developing course material for an accredited mentoring short course.
  • Willingness from schools to support mentees and accept the programme as part of our common goal to develop schools of excellence in our township.
  1. What has this project achieved so far? (3-5 sentences)
  • 2016: 31 out of 51 Bachelor passes in the township schools came from learners who were Nine Tenths mentees.
  • 2016: Ntsika Secondary School achieved a 87% pass rate; this is the first time in Grahamstown that a township school has out-performed an ex Model-C school (PJ Olivier Hoerskool).
  • An accredited mentoring short course has been established for mentors through Rhodes University.
  • 2016: 11 learners got accepted into Rhodes University.
  • 2017: 18 learners applied to Rhodes University.

______

NEXT PAGE

  1. Information about the Project Activity and photographs to illustrate: (250-300 words)

  1. Contact details of the project: (what the project is willing to share online)

Website:

Email:

Rhodes University Community Engagement Division: +27 (0)46 603 7229

  1. Links to project web resources: (if applicable)

Website:

  1. SHARE this Project (have a button visitors can share this site with others)