Langa Zimasa Secondary School

Partner(s):

No intermediary partner was involved in the identification and establishment of this project. SAIE worked directly with Zimasa School to establish this BusinessVENTURES project in Langa. Located in the City of Cape Town Municipal District, Langa is a township of traditional significance. Langa is bordered by Jan Smuts Drive to the west and Settler's Way to the south. The name Langa was derived from the name of a Hlubi rebel, Langalibalele, who was imprisoned in Cape Town after rebelling against the Natal government. Literally the name Langa means 'sun'. Just like Khayelitsha, Langa was designated for black Africans during the apartheid era. It is the oldest of such townships in Cape Town and was the location of much resistance to apartheid. Langa has 49,444 Black African people who constitute 99.55% and some trace populations of White and Colored people making the total population 49,667. The learner population between Grade 1 and 12 is about 28081 in the township where 97.16% of the people speak Xhosa. There are 12744 unemployed people (49.28%) in Langa.

Our Involvement:

SAIE provides schools and educators with quality, innovative learning materials (BusinessVENTURES kits) and the requisite training in terms of content knowledge, methodology in Outcomes Based Education (OBE) and entrepreneurial development. SAIE’s BusinessVENTURES materials conform to the Department of Education’s (DoE) curriculum structure classified under the Economic and management Sciences (EMS: Grade 2 to 9) and Business Studies (Grades 10 to 12). Learners are empowered through the quality materials and effective teaching, in order to develop entrepreneurial mindsets and business knowledge. This prepares them for either creating their own jobs or participating in the post school life in a more entrepreneurial way. SAIE is involved in the training of Grade 8 and 9 educators from Zimasa High School in the Cape Town township of Langa.

Project Progress:

On 3 April 2007, two educators attended the Grades 8 and 9 workshops at Zimasa Community School. Participants requested the SAIE facilitator to visit the Grades 8 and 9 classes early in the new term to provide support. The attendants expressed satisfaction with the workshop and were also confident that the goals and objectives of the programme were clearly explained. Both participants suggested that similar workshops in future be held towards the end of the year to help prepare them better for the year ahead. In a separate event, SAIE facilitators attended an informal gathering of BSG staff members. The Grades 2, 5, 7 and 8 demo kits were displayed and members were given an opportunity to pose questions. Among other things, they also wanted to know the extent to which they could further contribute to the Zimasa project. SAIE facilitators offered some suggestions, such as observing learners interacting in the classroom, helping along during market days, addressing learners on a particular topic or assisting when learners prepare their venture projects for the following market days. BSG in turn offered to make their range of skills available to this project, such as IT, financial skills and marketing, to mention a few.

Funder:

Product:

BusinessVentures

Location:

Western Cape