The three disadvantaged schools at Magau Village recently launched a partnership with the Learning Channel at an event at Sinugani Secondary school last Friday.

The three schools, Sinugani Secondary and Magau and Mutavhanani Primary School officially signed a memorandum of understanding with the Learning Channel in an effort to improve the schools´ results.

This comes after concerned members of the community, who had formed an initiative, the Magau Education Turnaround Strategy, contacted the Learning Channel to assist the three schools. According to Mr Takalani Mutovu, one of the Sinugani´ alumni, they contacted the Learning Channel after realizing that the standard of education in the village was "sinking". He added that the community had now committed itself to the improvement of education in the village.

The Learning Channel, a collaboration between the SABC, the Liberty Foundation and Standard Bank, delivers curriculum-based lessons to FET learners and their facilitators, through its live week-day broadcast programme on SABC 1.

Learning Channel’s broadcast activities are supported by a mix of delivery platforms, including websites, newspapers, hi-tech audio-visual aids, workbooks and SMSes, to ensure a maximum reach of valuable content to learners.

According to Greyling, her organisation has donated learning materials to a value of R50 000. "We are giving out more tools to the teachers at the schools, so that they can work better and improve the results. We have also donated the E-Learning audio material to the schools," said Greyling.

She added that her organization would also monitor the progress at the three schools to ensure that they improve. "We are a content-development company and, through the cooperation of both educators and teachers, the standard of education in these schools could improve," she said.

Sinugani is also regarded as one of the disfunctional schools in the province. The circuit manager of the Soutpansberg East Circuit, Mr Peter Netshia, expressed his appreciation towards the Learning Channel and said that the contribution would motivate the pupils.