– Mathematics, Physical Science and Life Sciences. They take about 300 learners a year. “This is to help learners improve their mathematics marks and encourage them to come to UJ, specifically, the Faculty of Science. We also expose learners to different concepts outside the classroom, she said. With the Centre situated on UJ’s Soweto Campus, most of the learners are from surrounding areas, such as Soweto and Eldorado Park. Dr Sitole said they had also seen an increase in learners coming from the East and the West Rand. Most of the learners coming to the Centre are from disadvantaged schools where they lack infrastructure. Their biggest objective at the Centre is to see all learners move onto the next grade and to see the Grade 12s move into university.
high school learners, the Teachers’ Development Programme where they support high school teachers, and the Outreach programme where they go out into communities and do science communication and engagement. “We help kids from Grades 10, 11, and 12 with Maths, Science, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences. We help them improve their marks, so we work as an after-school programme. In addition to that, we expose learners to things they wouldn’t have been exposed to in their own schools so we take them to labs and take them on excursions that are related to education,” she said. Dr Sitole said the Learner Intervention Programme was the biggest one in the Centre. They run a structured Saturday school programme, which runs from February to October each year and focuses on the three core subjects
Passionate about the Centre is Dr Lungile Sitole, the Director of the Centre and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Biochemistry. “I am passionate about the Centre simply because of the work that we do there. The reason for its establishment was a pressing need to involve ourselves in education at the primary and secondary level to help high school learners improve their marks so that they can be accepted into university; and so that they can pursue different careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics,” she said. In 2017, Dr Sitole started off as a Lecturer in the Biochemistry Department at UJ and in 2020 she was promoted to Senior Lecturer. In 2021, she then got the secondary position of being Director of the Science Centre. The centre itself has three key functions – the Learner Intervention Programme where they support
This is to help learners improve their mathematics marks and encourage them to come to UJ, specifically, the Faculty of Science.
Lab Experience: Soweto student engagement in a chemistry lab
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