For more than twenty years, SAILI, the South African Innovative Learning Intervention, has been giving high school scholarships to high potential, academically motivated learners from low-income backgrounds.
Apartheid caused an imbalance in the education system which hasn’t yet been fully overturned, and as a result, the field of industry still feels the effects. To help redress this issue, SAILI offers scholarships in Maths & Science in the Cape Town area and supports the learners through the duration of their high school lives.
SAILI: How It Works
Program Manager Katherine Morse explains how SAILI operates, “Our target beneficiaries are from low-income families. They need to have an excellent primary school track record and also pass through our own selection tests.”
“Our aim is that they will matriculate with marks that allow them to go on to tertiary study at a university or university of technology.”
“One of the SAILI core values is high impact, low cost.” Katherine elaborates, “Hence we place learners in moderate schools that have access to lots of support resources.”
The Answer Series and SAILI
Katherine discovered The Answer Series study guides when she was researching ways of finding impactful practice questions and sample exam papers for the Scholarship learners. When she contacted us, she was delighted with the response.
“Right from the beginning, The Answer Series offered SAILI a generous discount on the study guides. This enabled us to eventually give out at least two to each learner from Grade 10 – 12 as well as the maths book for Grade 8 and 9.”
Taking responsibility for one’s own learning.
The Answer Series Study Guides are designed in a way that allows learners or teachers to use them as a class textbook, as supplementary whole-class material or indeed, as a self-driven learning companion, which walks the learner through the curriculum in a step by step way. The exercises, sample exams and full answers all allow learners to consistently check their progress and hone their technique.
We asked Katherine how the study guides helped the SAILI scholarship learners. “Practise, practise, practise!” She tells us. “The Answer Series gives learners the opportunity to practice skills with new questions. There are also helpful instructions along the way.”
“One of the things I really like is the CAPS syllabus outline at the front.” She goes on, “This helps learners make sure they keep on top of the work, even if their class is behind or their teacher is absent.”
Katherine signs off from our chat with a line that fills us with joy, “The Answer Series helps learners to take responsibility for their own learning.”
